Day 89: Wednesday 13 September 2023

Nedre Sjodalsvatnet-Memurubu via Bessheim

It was cold this morning so cold that the condensation on the tent was frozen and there was frost outside the tent. Our first frost night so far.

But the weather was great. It was cold but there was sun that warmed us. We walked 7 km on the road to Bessheim fjellstue where we sat down in the sun by a table and had breakfast. There also where a WC that we could use.

After breakfast started our hike up towards Besseggen. We only met a three people on our way up. It wasn't until we crossed onto the "main route" that comes from Gjendesheim, that we started to meet a lot of people. Really a lot of people, for us who are now used to not meeting anyone almost. We said hello to everyone, as we always do, but some barely said hello back. Once again we thought about how we don't like popular places very much...

But after a while we barely met anyone anymore - a good thing with starting late. It meant we had missed most of those that were going from Memurubu to Gjendesheim.

The view was really nice, and we were so happy that we were lucky with the weather. What we hadn't fully expect though, was that we had to scramble to get down. Since it was such a popular route we hadn't thought it would be quite so exposed. This place really brought back memories from the Alps.

For a while we were also worried that we wouldn't make it in time. Luckily after about half way, the route got a lot easier, now it was just hiking again, no scrambling anymore. The sun was about to set, and it was getting colder and colder. It was just us now, and we were talking a little on the way down. We also got some mixture between snow and hail, that we almost didn't see. It was so calm, and they were falling so rarely, that you had to pay attention to notice it.

The last bit we were really tired, but we finally came down to the mountain station Memurbu. There were so many people there, which was quite a shock for us.

We managed to book to beds in a dormitory with a lot of other people. Maybe it was the last beds because it was just two left in that room, at the very top (third bed from the floor). They didn't have any ladders so it was really difficult to get up and down from them.

But we were hungry, and there was nowhere to cook food, so we had to go 50 m from the station to cook on our own kitchen. Not really a problem, it just felt strange and we felt very unwelcome at the place. After eating mashed potatoes and beer sausage we went to take a shower. Then we sat in the sofas upstairs and talked to two Italians that were in the same dormitory as us. Around ten everyone was extremely tired, and it was time to go to bed 😴

Today's

Distance: 23.71 km

Start time: 09:25

End time: 19:17

Ascent: 1232 m

Descent: 1171 m

Tent: 56/90