Norway - Day 4 Glacier Hike

On July 7th, we headed north out of Sogndal and driving towards the Austerdalen Valley and the Jostedalsbreen glacier - Norway's largest glacier.

As soon as we left Sogndal, we came around a corner and took several reflective photos of a lake and mountain. We then took a short side trip to Solvorn, a small village on the Fjord. Here we bot some more strawberries that were just picked by the locals.

We then continued up the valley and drove passed an 18km lake. The road was very narrow and many narrow tunnels. This time the tunnels had no lights, and Rick did not like driving through them.

After about 2 hrs, we reached the start of our 16km hike up to view the glacier. It was actually flat most of the way but very rocky and lots of water to cross. The final portion was pretty steep and then opened up to a really nice view of the tongue of the glacier. In 1894, an Englishman found this area and called it " the finest ice scenery in Europe". We felt very small sitting on the ridge looking at the glacier. While sitting there, we could hear the sounds of the glacier, cracking and rocks dropping underneath.

After we hiked out, we headed back to Sogndal. There was a "ride the rockies" type of a bike race going on and they were still riding into Sogndal.

At 07:07:07 PM on the 07 Jul 07, we celebrated our 7th Wedding Anniversary with a nice bottle of wine, some Norwegian Salmon, and expensive tomatos we purchased in town.

To view more photos of this portion of our Norway trip, click here.