NPL Day 52 & GB Day 28

Day 52: Monday 7 August 2023

East of Kilvassaksla-Krutvasshytta

When we woke up this morning, the outer tent was wet, but it wasn't raining. When we finally got up (it was tough, it was so cozy 🥰 ) there was a drizzle going on.

So we packed everything, and again separated the inner and outer tent before packing them in the bag.

Then we got going, prepared to face the rain the whole day. At first it wasn't too bad, and we soon reached the road, which we followed for about 6 km. After that we reached a small hut and a toilet. Just in the right time, since both of us really needed a toilet and the rain made all of that somewhat... Complicated. So while one used the toilet, the other one took shelter inside the tiny wood shed 😂

Kim's rain gloves worked fine up until this point, but up until this point she also never took them off. After using the toilet and putting the gloves on again, there soon was a lot of water inside of them, despite her having almost dry hands when she put them back on again. So in the end she had to walk without them, because they only kept the cold water inside, and didn't keep her hands warm anymore.

After leaving the toilet and the road behind us, we headed up another mountain, a little bit lighter than before 😆 The rain was still pouring down, and rose and fell in intensity over the hours, but never fading completely.

This part was the toughest of the day, with the trail sometimes disappearing completely, the cairns being hard to see and the ground soaking our feet time and time again, leaving our feet and bottom part of our legs brown and muddy.

Marching on a whole day, slipping and sliding, never stopping to rest because of the rain, tires you out. After about 20 km we reached an open shelter by a lake, a place for spending a nice day by the river and barbecueing. Now we were happy to sit down to rest our feet and get some shelter from the rain. What wasn't so nice though, was the farm smell. We soon realised that wasn't all. On the ground not far from Kim's foot, was a big pile of poop. And as we looked around we saw that there was more. In the fire pit... Smudged on the benches... Eew. But we were desperate to sit down and rest, so we found the only clean spaces left, sat down and ate some bread with bacon "cream cheese" (fjellbrynt mjukost). We also had some snacks before it was time to keep going.

Now we were interested in finding out what the other red triangle on our map was. Hopefully it was a better shelter than the previous one...

Soon, we were there, and found out that yes, it was indeed better. The rain had pretty much stopped now, but Kim told Lukas that she wanted to have a look. And once she saw that this was an open statskoghytta she immediately started to convince Lukas that they should stay. It was early and it was about the same distance to go tomorrow, but if we started early we could make it, like the day when we came to Umbukta.

And so we stayed.

Lukas started a fire, and hung up clothes and the tent, and Kim went to fetch water. Then we warmed us by the fire, talked about the upcoming hiking, had some snacks etc

The hours passed quickly so after a nice massage it was time to go to bed, it was already past eight o'clock, after all.

As we lay in bed, trying to fall asleep, a deep rumbling was rolling in the background. Thunder.

Once, when Lukas had fallen asleep, Kim saw a flashing light and only managed to count to six before a very sharp sound split the silence.

And once more, we were both really happy that Kim actually convinced Lukas that we should stay the night in the hut.

Today's

Distance: 23.17 km

Start time: 09:19

End time: 17:08

Ascent: 662 m

Descent: 845 m

Tent nights: 37/53