Stetinden
by Jay Harrison
I'm skipping ahead a bit in my ever-so-tardy account of our trip to Norway. For practical reasons, I want this account posted now. I will be filling in the blanks betwixt this portion of the trip and Previously Posted Episodes soon. Promise! But, don't hold your breath...
NOTE: For many of the photos, I've placed a link to a larger version of the picture.
Moments after waving good-bye to Robin, I was back in the car and driving away from little Bodų Airport. My reaction to parting was more emotional than I'd expected, and I didn't want to stand around being maudlin about it. We had done as much as we could do together, and now she was heading homeward. I in turn had the freedom to do a few things specifically up my alley. The first of these entailed driving several hours farther north, heading away from the tourist routes.
I wanted a topo map of my intended destination, so I stopped at the mall near the airport and ran up and down each level looking for an outdoor store. When I found it, I also found all the fuel I had been searching for: white gas for the Whisperlite, and GAZ fuel for the Twister stove. Ironic that, lacking fuel for either, I had put both stoves in Robin's luggage and they were now heading back to America. I would have to make do with my little Esbit Emergency Stove. Note to all intrepid adventurers going to Norway: your stove fuel may not be in Bergen, but it can be found in Bodų!
That aside, I scanned the available topos and found the one I wanted: Kjopsvik. After purchasing it, I opened it up and perused my destination. Glaciers lay not far from the peak, as did snowfields, fjords, and lakes. Very few buildings dotted the immediate vicinity, and the nearest town - Kjopsvik - appeared to be quite small.
Out of Bodų and onward toward The Big One after this. I followed the now-familiar highway east, then cut north into new territory. Bodų and Fauske must be the northern terminus for many tourists, because once the car headed north the traffic thinned noticeably. So did the road itself, come to think of it: incredibly, the E-6 became a single-lane road occasionally. The highway moved quickly from fjord to high mountain plateau, and at this latitude, snowfields were close to the road wherever it rose into the latter.
I stopped briefly at a roadside tourist shack, but as usual I was a late American gringo to the food bar: the place wasn't closed, but the pickings were slim. I purchased a small blueberry-dotted corn muffin sort of thing for far too much and continued on.
The road began winding among scenery that was incredible even by Norwegian standards: awe-inspiring mountains in the distance, flowers in full bloom at the curb. The increasingly solid look of the rock didn't escape my attention either. The mountainsides displayed long, clean stretches of well-consolidated, massive stone, unlike the typical landscapes of central Norway. Cliffs there consist largely of metamorphic or metasedimentary rocks; usually quite "rotten."
For example, the Trollveggen, or Troll Wall , is a mile-high precipice of notoriously dangerous climbing. Many ascensionists choose winter for their attempts here, because the ice holds the crumbling stone together. Parts of several historic routes no longer exist, as dozens of meters of rock perched as pillars and buttresses once part of their line have crashed into the void. The cliffs in south-central Norway are mostly
composed of friable, loose metamorphic rock.
None of that was evident here. The mountainsides resembled Tuolumne Meadow Domes more than crumbling piles of doom. Sweeping silver ramps flanked the mountains I drove past now, tempting me to stop and explore. With good weather, a lifetime of unbelievable climbing possibilities stood by the road. One pitch wonders to thousand footers; cracks, corners, slabs and steep walls, I glimpsed a bit of everything out the windows. I was driving through a climbers' paradise, one virtually unknown in the States.
I turned on a side road toward Drag, and soon pulled into the now-familiar waiting lanes at a ferry station. A few cars stood empty in front of me, so I knew there was plenty of time to kill. I walked over to the stasjon, a small restaurant/cafeteria affair. Inside, I had one of the few moments where my lack of Norwegian language made a difference. I was well off the standard tourist route now - while many international visitors head to Stetinden, most of them come via the north - and apparently the second language here was something else. I stuttered what little I knew and managed a polske and is. The hot dog was filling and reasonably tasty, the ice cream its usual Norwegian excellent. I looked around at the people in the establishment and surmised that most of them were Nationals, either local commuters or Norwegian tourists; perhaps one group was German. I was the only English-speaking person in the place. I was finally somewhere my Norwegian lessons might come in handy, and two weeks of atrophy had rendered me dumb.
After finishing my meal, there was still no sign of a ferry. A walkway toward the back of the kafeteria led up steps toward a clearing above, so I followed it. Cresting the rise, I found myself staring at an odd piece of sculpture.
Displays on the wall to the right showed Sami - once called "Lapplanders" - at various tasks. Behind the reception counter to my left, books in several languages, none English, stood on shelves, awaiting purchase. Curiously, I could see that several of them were Bible stories: The Five Loaves and Two Fishes, Jesus Calms the Sea, etc. That intrigued me. While I had met many spiritually-minded Norwegians during the past two weeks, I had yet to see Christian religious items for sale outside of the St. Olav Festival grounds. While I peered at these, a young lady walked in the room behind me and came around to the reception desk.
She had short blond hair, sharply-defined cheekbones, and stunningly blue eyes; or maybe she was just simply stunning. And fortunately, she spoke English. She told me this was Arran, the Center for South-Sami Language Studies. It seems that the Sami are divided roughly into to major groups, the North and the South Sami. There are many languages between and among these two groups; some of which are completely incomprehensible to each other, many of which are spoken by a rapidly dwindling number of persons. Arran is striving to keep their language and culture alive by teaching, training, and a small amount of tourism.
The Bible stories, Ingri explained, became part of the South-Sami culture in this region because in the early 20th century, the Norwegian government suppressed the Sami culture: they could not wear their own fashions, speak their own language, or practise their own customs. A Lutheran Minister, Lars Levi Lęstadius, established a Sami church, constructed a building, and during worship services, allowed the Sami to speak their own language and wear traditional Sami clothes; in short he gave them a haven where they could be themselves. The South Sami converted in response to the Bishop's kindness, though to this day their religious practise is more an amalgamation of earlier animistic worship with Christian ideals.
The ferry sounded in the distance, so my time at Arran was up. I hope to pass by there again some day, spend more time, and learn more about the Sami culture. At that moment, the climber in me was focused solely toward Stetinden. I had a boat to catch.
The trip across the Tysfjord is fairly long, and passes over one of the deepest channels of all fjords this far inland: at one point it is over 800 feet deep. As we pulled out of sight of Drag, the scenery became, for the first time, truly wild: no houses in sight, wilderness plunging along with rocky precipice into salt water all around. The weather was mixed, sunshine vying with clouds. A shaft of rainbow stood off in the distance, the rest hidden by thick clouds. For the first time, I wondered if perhaps I was getting a bit too far from civilization. I hadn't read up on the conditions in this area, and it was obviously not a major tourist destination. What creatures lived in the surrounding forests? Was I far enough north to have polar bear concerns? I didn't think so, but I honestly had no clue. What else might pose a threat to a lone person up here? Wolves? The mystery of the place was suddenly both intoxicating and sobering. I was giddy with the view and expectation, worried about the unknowns. Still confident that I could handle whatever situation arose, I nevertheless recognized that I had stepped a bit closer to the edge of uncertainty. I was in a place now where the possibility of cascading chance overwhelming me was imaginable. It was fantastic, to feel both vulnerable and adventurous at once.
Approaching Kjopsvik on the Tysfjord, on the way to Stetinden, Norway.
The ferry weaves north around a desolate island and berths in Kjopsvik, a small town that appears to be home for some quarrying and power generation. I disembarked and drove quickly out of town, as I deemed it far too late to find any open stores. My map indicated nothing of civilization between here and Stetinden, and except for the tunnels, very little manmade was evident. Divided by deep, cold water, the islands and penninsulas here sustain very few people. This far north, the forests are stunted, gnarled white birches and dark, shadowy spruce. I saw no wildlife along the way, not even a bird. Whatever creatures these forests held remained a secret.
Passing out of a tunnel into the light, it was suddenly there above me, surrounded by a streaming silver clouds fanning out from its ridge: Stetinden. Absolutely unbelievable. Rising 4600' out of the fjord, white granite wings on either side of its summit ridge, Stetinden presents a sheer expansive wall sweeping out of the grass and heath beside the fjord, tapering to a sharp point far above. As I stared, slack-jawed, the clouds shredded gradually, and blue sky broke through. In a few minutes, the true summit peeked one side out of the swirling mists, revealing itself high above what I had earlier thought was the top.
The weather down here turned pleasant. The sun was shining low along the horizon, blue sky straight above; but the mountain remained draped in different weather. It must be tremendously windy up there. Anyone on the lee side of that knife-edge ridge would be enveloped in cloud, but venturing onto the other side would risk being blown off the mountain altogether. This is what I had come to climb.
I was too tired to climb, too excited to rest. I took my fishing rod down to the fjord and tried my luck at catching some dinner - I had read of other climbers doing just this - but it was far too windy to cast well, and the low tide meant I could not get close to the water's edge without walking through slippery kelp, risking a dip into the chilly water. After awhile, I gave up and returned to the car. There were several tents pitched all around the small parking area; one had loosed from its moorings and tumbled its way into the stream; not a good resting place, but better than the fjord. I dragged it out and returned it to the grass, tied it to a few trees and draped the sleeping bags and pads securely around guy lines to dry in the wind. I wrote a quick note explaining the situation, but had no way of knowing if the owner could understand English.
I killed more time cleaning and organizing the little biosphere that the Fiesta had already become, cooking and eating dinner, washing up, pumping water out of the ice-cold stream, walking around a bit, and watching the assortment of people that came and went from the parking area. Few if any cars drove past without stopping to look at the spectacle above, but most were the typical tourist: a few quick photos, use the toilets, and drive away. Several cars sat empty and quiet since I had come; no doubt owned by the same people whose tents dotted the lawn and banks nearby. I wondered when their owners would return and I might get some details of the route I planned to do.
Eventually, they began trickling in, plodding down the trail above to wearily collapse in tents or car seats. One of the first, a guide named Maurius, offered excellent advice and tips about the crucial passage on the standard route. As to the Southern Pillar, he knew a bit about it, but had no free time to join an ascent; he had clients to guide the next day and would then be driving straight back to the Lofoten Islands to work there.
A foursome of older gentlemen, Germans as I recall, filtered into the parking lot, wet and bedraggled. They had camped at the lake near the start of the actual climbing, ascended the mountain, then broken camp and come down. These gave good directions for getting started on the route and some idea of the difficulties along the way. Talking with them, I was optimistic that I might be able to pull off the standard climb without getting in over my head.
Other climbers continued to filter down, but each group seemed a bit more tired than the last, and soon I judged the stragglers too weary to chat. They tended to head directly to tents, doff shoes, and zip the door shut; after which a brief rustle inside would be followed by complete stillness. I had all the information I could gather; enough to take a shot in the morning.
I turned to the surroundings again. The sun was finally sinking below the horizon. My watch said 10:45pm! I waited for the last rays of light to breach a gap in the mountains before heading to bed myself. Tomorrow would be a busy day.
