NPL Day 4

NPL Day 4: Tuesday 20 June 2023

Fisketindelva-Austerbotnen

Kim woke up fairly early today and quickly made it out of the tent because she was getting roasted. Then she sat there for sometime outside the tent with not much clothes on and just enjoyed the area and the fantastic morning. After some time Lukas went up, and after some discussions we decided to have breakfast in about 3.5 km. We decided to try to walk diagonally through the valley going from Fisketindvatnet out to Vesterpollen.

BAD IDEA!

DO NOT RECOMMEND!

Everything seemed fine at first, it was a lot better than the previous days when we had walked diagonally. But we made slow progress, and where the trail is going across the water and up on the other side, we decided to try to continue along the valley instead of following the cairns. At first there was a nice path there, but suddenly it disappeared once the terrain got a lot worse. We made our way down to Fisketindelva and continued forward in the water but soon we came to the conclusion that we must abort this idea. There was too much snow over the water and it had already taken a lot of time and energy and we were not making much progress. And now the terrain on the sides got even worse. So we started climbing up the other side, the southeast side, to meet with the marked trail again.

Finally we did.

Once we were across Fisketindelva again, closer to Fisketindvatnet, we sat down to have the long awaited breakfast and a proper break. After having breakfast we took a long nap, maybe an hour long, before continuing. The sun was blazing today which didn't help as we rounded another mountain - Skuohtagáisá and walked over a pass.

It was a bit hard to navigate from here and the rest of the day - were we supposed to follow the trail on the map, the ATV tracks or the cairns? They were all a bit different and a lot of the time it was hard to pick the best route to navigate by.

After the pass came a loooong slope all the way down to the sea, quite tough on your bones and ligaments. As we came to the end of the slope, the weather changed from blazing hot to cloudy. It suddenly felt way more manageable and a lot more like the fjell weather that we are familiar with. After this slope and the rough terrain this morning, Kim was already very tired and had a hard time to push through for the rest of the day, which then felt endless. We also realised around this time that we didn't have enough food or snacks. We had very little snacks that had to last at least 3 days, and we had food for only 2 days.

Shit.

This also made the day harder.

The terrain was also tough in the sense that it was very uneven, so many boggy, slippery wet spots and lots of small ups and downs. Somewhere along the boggy part the mosquitoes showed up too. So after "fleeing" (at least that's how Kim felt) from them for a while, we finally stopped to put on a wind jacket, mosquito net and mosquito repellent on our legs (and Lukas a bit everywhere). It got a lot calmer after that, and Kim could walk like normal again.

One thing that also happened here during this part, is that Lukas got to see our first lemming for this hike!

We walked along the water, the sea, for quite some time the last kms. It was sad to see all the plastic debris lying at the shore. Absolutely disgusting.

We started to look for water but the streams on the map were dried out. When walking here along the shore we also saw another hiker. Unfortunately he was too far up in the terrain and we were on the shore. We waved to him, but didn't get any response. We also waited for a while by the shore, to see if maybe he would get closer to us, as we weren't that far away from a cairn. Unfortunately he never got closer to the shore, and just passed us without acknowledging us being there. Too bad, would have been nice to say hello since you don't see a lot of people here!

And so we continued a little bit more, and suddenly one of the streams had water in it! There were also camping spots nearby, so we immediately pitched our tent. After that, Kim swabbed herself and Lukas ran out and took a swim in the ocean which made him feel really great. Then we cooked food and got ready to sleep, just before the rain came (and before the sea disappeared).

Today's:

Distance: 19.61 km

Start time: 09:37

End time: 18:29

Ascent: 469 m

Descent: 479 m

Tent nights: 5/5

Lukas swims: 1