Jotunheimen part I: Gjendesheim – Gjendebu

35℃ and sunshine. Who needs this? Just in time to miss the last two games of the world cup we hopped into my car and headed north to Norway. The 2100km drive was boring, the most visible change of going north was that fuel stations changed from OMV, Shell and Aral to Q8 and Statoil.

On Saturday weather was still great, blue sky and way too good to sit in the car. Late Saturday evening sometime between 23:00 and 0:00 we pitch our tent. At that time we were about 2 hours north of Oslo and had found a small but nice rest area with some grass away from the street.

Our plan was to hike a tour described in Norwegen: Jotunheimen by Tonia Körner as “Große Rundtour Jotunheimen”, a six day hike. We added another 4 days in our planning for unscheduled side trips.

This is the first part covering the first two days from Gjendesheim over Memurubu to Gjendebu.

Sunday: Gjendesheim-Memurubu

Sunday morning the sky was no longer blue but cloudy instead. The skin of our tent looked like we had some rain during the night (the few hours will a little less light than daytime, I don’t know if I should really call that a night). After a short breakfast we hopped into the car and covered the last two hours to Jotunheimen.

Jotunheimen looks like a huge pile of rocks. Add a few million years of erosion, top with a handful of glaciers and you are done. A beautiful rugged mountain landscape with many rivers and lakes in between.

We parked just off Highway 51 at a long-term parking lot about 2km away from Gjendesheim (70 NOK per day). It was already raining a little for some time. Just when we were getting our packs out of the trunk and packed the last few pieces it started to pour down. So in a preview of the days to come we started walking in despite the rain.

Half an hour later we reached the DNT hut in Gjendesheim where we found the trail and started to climb up towards the Besseggen ridge. This is one of the most popular hikes in all of Norway and the quality of the trail was good, big stones formed a staircase up the mountain. But my heavy pack combined with the rain made sure I did not enjoy the ascent.

People were passing us going the other way but we had to climb about 400m until an oncoming party warned us that the conditions ahead were horrible and everyone was turning around. They told us about fog, zero visiblility and slippery rocks. So we turned around, climbed back down and had a coffee and later lunch in the DNT hut. It took some time until we brought ourselves to get back out into the rain and start walking the alternate route along lake Gjende. We walked though the big day-parking area and the trail passed between a few nice spots for pitching tents before it disappeared between some trees along the shore.

According the the guide book, this section was supposed to be an easy hike along the shore. We were not gaining any height but the trail was constantly going up and down a meter or two. Every step we had to look out for slippery rocks or roots.

When we were getting close to Memurubu the weather finally improved and we saw some tiny blue spots between the clouds. I was dead tired and when we passed a nice spot for a tent we decided not to go on to Memurubu but pitch the tent right here. The site was right next to the lake with a beautiful view back towards Gjendesheim.

After a hot dinner coffee the day didn’t look as bad as before. The weather had improved substantially and I was able to snap a few pictures with some blue sky. But we did not spend a lot of time enjoying the view. Dead tired we crawled into our sleeping bags instead and fell asleep instantly.

Monday: Memurubu-Gjendebu

When I woke up the first time it was already bright daylight outside the tent. I was happy to see that it was only 5:00 which allowed me to turn around and sleep some more.

Three hours later we got up and after a short breakfast we covered the 30 minutes to Memurubu. The weather had improved substantially and we were able finally enjoy hiking in Jotunheimen. On the grass in front of the hut we had a short break to enjoy the sun before we crossed the river and began the climb up Sjugurdtind. To our right we had a great view of Memurubreen and behind us the turquoise water of Gjende shone in the morning sun. Just before we reached the first minor summit we found a comfortable place for lunch and a short nap.

A few minutes after the break later we ran into our first herd of reindeer which grazed about 20 meters away from the trail. They wore colored collars with a bell and were obviously used to having humans around and allowed me to walk a little closer before I snapped my pictures. All animals we encountered later ran away when we got within fifty meters.

The sun was shining brightly but there was a ice-cold wind blowing most of the time. As long as we were moving it wasn’t too bad but every time we stopped we had to look for places sheltered from the wind or freeze.

The trail meandered between the rocks marked by piles of stones sometimes covered with a bright red ‘T’. Bright yellow or red plants between the rocks provided a colorful scenery. While we enjoyed the sights we moved slowly over the Memurutungen towards Gjendebu.

After we passed two lakes to our left and another one on the right the trail turned left towards Gjende. When the trail reached the rim it began a crazy, steep descent back down to sea level.

Without the pack I probably would have enjoyed the way down. But with the added weight my knees soon started to hurt and I cursed at whoever had the great idea of putting a trail here. In a few places the creators had to add chains for safety. But even in the areas that were considered safe we had to pay attention every single step because the trail was covered with loose gravel. I involuntarily sat down once but fortunately did not slide down any further and did not hurt myself.

Slowly me made our way down and reached sea level just minutes after the sun disappeared behind the mountains and cast shadows over the Gjende.

Again we decided to pitch the tent a little early, just minutes before we reached Gjendebu. And again we quickly crawled into our sleeping bags.

to be continued…