Scandinavia Trip: Glacier runoff is COLD

[cjsmith]

*** Sun Sept 29

At breakfast, Rob had to look around a lot for a toaster. The place
was deserted. He found something weird, he says, in the back.

When checking out I saw a little cardboard container labeled "Br0d for
verde" [?verda?]. I confirmed with the desk clerk that this was meant
to feed hungry people, and dumped a bunch of NOK1 coins in it.

It was cloudy and raining, again, as we departed. We drove northeast
on 15 until the intersection with Gamle Strynefjellsvegen, the Old
Stryn Fell Road. Marked as gravel on my map, and indicated with
something that looks almost like a Celtic knot on road signs, this is
one of only four or five "scenic roads" in Norway - ha! As if
everything else were not scenic! It didn't go quite the way we
wanted, but we couldn't pass it up. As we climbed, the visibility got
steadily worse. The landscape began to look like what we saw in
Telemark: sparse, rocky, full of lakes, and only low fuzzy vegetation.

The first obvious point of interest (besides the distant views hidden
by fog, that is) was Videfossen. Okay, another waterfall, sure. We
pulled off and hiked down the gravelly trail. Shortly our progress
was halted: the trail was flooded. Videfossen had sprouted a little
branch that flowed vigorously over a low point in the trail. Rob went
back to get hiking boots, and I continued far enough to discover that
hiking boots were not going to do it. The water was too deep. We
were stumped, but not for long. I realized the only way was to take
off my shoes and socks, roll up my pants, and run for it. This I did.
Let me state for the record that glacier runoff is cold. On the other
side I had to stop for several seconds and hoot with pain. It felt
like my bones had shrunk and my whole foot was trying to readjust.
The next hundred feet of trail were gravelly and I was dancing in my
bare, oversensitized feet. But the view was worth it! The
observation platform sits out over the water, almost in the middle of
the river's path as it plunges over the edge. I took several pictures
although my lens was probably wet enough that none will be worth
printing. Rob, meanwhile, had gone back to the car for plastic bags
to wrap around his shod feet for the crossing. The bags were nowhere
near large enough, and not only did he feel his feet begin to slip a
little, his legs got soaked. He poured about a liter of water out of
each bag when he was done. However, he had shoes for the last bit of
trail. In retrospect I should have brought mine and let my feet get
the socks and shoes wet. They got wet anyway. My second crossing,
back to my shoes, was worse because I knew what to expect; at least it
was over quickly.

The road continued to climb and the visibility was so poor that we
decided to turn back. As we passed Videfossen again we saw a van pull
in. I hope they had big plastic bags.

Back on 15, we continued until the intersection of 63 north to the
town of Geiranger. The Geiranger fjord is often shown on postcards
with an intrepid climber sitting on a high rock overlooking the entire
valley. If there is in fact such a rock, we never saw it in the fog
and rain.

Our first stop in the Geiranger area was a place called the Geiranger
Geo-Naturpark. We couldn't find enough coinage for the automatic
entrance ticket machine. There were two men in one of the buildings
below, and no one else around anywhere. When Rob asked if they had
change, they said ah, don't pay, enjoy yourselves. We chatted a bit.
They are sons of the owner, just there to do a small bit of work that
day. One of them had lived in Michigan for a while. We keep finding
people who've lived in the States.

The nature park had exhibits of various kinds of rock, trails leading
to rivers and a waterfall, and lots of things that were closed. There
were cute carvings in a few places: in the river was a swan, and
frisking in the pool at the base of the "Dynamite Falls" was a
mermaid. I saw a big chunk of eklogitt, a raw stone as tall as I am.
I like eklogitt. I wish I knew how to spell it in English.

Geiranger turned out to be a very small town. As far as we can tell,
it's a tourist town without any tourists this late in the season. Its
inactivity was almost depressing. We mused that from our point of
view it appeared as though the whole country was shutting down until
spring. We had never seen a whole country just pack up and close its
doors before.

We had also never seen people so uniquely poised at the cusp of
traditional subsistence living versus high technology. Farmers raised
sheep in tiny pastures up one-lane roads, but more and more those
farms were becoming abandoned. In the coastal areas, there was often
no room for anything resembling a city, yet people we passed had
cellphones. And according to people we talked to, there is really
very little for many of the people to do for almost nine months a
year. Crops and tourists are both summer things.

One thing still open was the Norsk Fjordsenter, a museum on life in
the fjords. A beautiful ten-minute slide show gave us lovely views of
fjords, farms, snow, and waterfalls. The rest of the exhibits showed
the history of tourism in the area, a bit about the construction of
the Geiranger road we had just taken, and the way of life for the
farmers. One constant danger was avalanches; a large board with
push-buttons and LEDs mapped the various rock and snow avalanches that
had taken lives on Norway's southwest coast. A display about road
maintenance showed the traditional and modern methods of snow removal.
Traditionally, crews would dig up rich dark dirt in the fall, rake it
out on rocks to dry for a couple of days, and store it over the
winter. In spring this would be spread evenly over the snow above the
road. Leaving this for a while in the spring sun would melt one to
one and a half meters of snow. From there down, it was shovels, as
far as the men could dig and still throw the snow over the top.
Nowadays plows are used, and in fact the long snow sticks to show the
plow where the road is are a thing of the past; they use differential
GPS to guide the snowplows to within centimeters of accuracy.

On the way out of Geiranger, I think, was when we saw a cat crossing
the road. As we drove up she got off the pavement with alacrity,
walking up the wet grassy slope on the side of the road. We stopped
and rolled down the window, and I talked to her a little. She clearly
didn't trust me one bit. As we drove off she went back onto the road.
Maybe she lives with humans near there. We had seen very few cats,
but thinking back I realized there had been cat food at almost all of
the roadside shops we'd been in.

We wound our way to Eidsdal and took the ferry to Linge, where we
turned right for the scenic shortcut to &ndalsnes. This road includes
the "Trollstigen", an incredibly steep winding road descending into
the &ndalsnes valley (the &n valley?). Almost immediately our hopes
were dashed: a road sign proclaimed the Trollstigen was closed. Rats!
This early? "Snuplass 600m," it reassured us. We turned around a bit
earlier than that, in someone's driveway. Another car from our ferry
was doing the same thing, and reading their map. Glad no one needed
that driveway. We turned west to go the long way round, via Sj0holt,
almost all the way out to the city of &lesund on the coastal islands.

The view got better as we went; the day was getting just a bit drier
and the cloud cover was up at two hundred feet or so. So we were able
to see some of the pretty views along Norddalsfjorden, Storfjorden,
Romsdalsfjorden, Tresfjorden, Innfjorden, and Isfjorden. Whew! What
a list. As the afternoon was beginning to get dark we arrived in
&ndalsnes. We looked at some camping cabins, but despite what looked
like near-full occupancy, the place appeared closed for the evening.
We did a few circuits in the town. It was distinctly odd to arrive at
intersections. A choice! Which way to go? Several such choices in
immediate succession! It was so confusing! We did a few circuits of
downtown, and settled on the Rauma Hotel where the only non-smoking
room available had no private bath. Fortunately, we saw there were
two on the hall and only two rooms on the hall were occupied. We ate
in the hotel cafeteria.

The desk clerk, who was also the entire cafeteria waitstaff, confirmed
that yes indeed Trollstigen was closed. It had been closed on the
16th because of snow. It would reopen, she said, around the twenty-
first or twenty-second of May.

As Rob was setting up the laptop, I looked out the window and saw a
cat wandering the streets. I haven't seen cats in so long. I miss
cats. I hope she's okay, whereever she went; I hope she is warm and
dry and has enough to eat.

I have to go catch another fly. We keep having flies in the rooms,
and we keep catching them and putting them out. Four in three nights.