I love the mountains. So what better place to go on holiday that a city surrounded by seven of them? Neither of us are mountain climbers; we live in Surrey and while there a lot of hills they are no way near as steep or high as a mountain. But that didn’t stop us hiking up 4 of them on our holiday in Bergen.
Our first mountain hike was Sandviksfjellet. The route we chose was the Stoltzekleiven path, 800 stone steps on a 313 metre climb above the Fjellveien road. It started off fairly gently with large stone slabs on a low gradient.
It wasn’t long before the trail started to get very steep and the stones became rough. We both really enjoyed the uneven parts of the trail. People were running up this route, probably training for the mountain run that’s held every year. Would you believe the record is 8 minutes and 13 seconds!?
It didn’t take us that long to reach the summit and enjoy fantastic views over the city.
The wind was strong and icy, it only took a couple of minutes for my hands to start going numb and I had to put all my clothes on again!
The Storavatnet Lake on this mountain was my favourite part of the day. We couldn’t hear anything apart from the sound of the water and the wind. It was so peaceful, almost deserted apart from the odd walker or runner. I’d like to build a little wooden house to live in here.
Stone trails gradually turned into mossy woodland on the way down. The moss is a really good way to gauge your progress down the mountain. The closer to the bottom you are, the more moss there is.
My best friend told me to watch out for trolls in the mountains. I laughed it off not realising it was actually Scandinavian folklore. Turns out you’re not mad afterall, sorry Kim! Quiet mossy woodland full of little bridges with streams running underneath looked like the perfect home for a troll.
We wanted to do some exploring so we took quite a large detour back to the centre of Bergen (pink line).
It took roughly 5 hours to walk to Stoltzekleiven, up the steps, down via the route drawn on the map and back to our hotel on the other side of the city. Overall I’d say the route up was short, intense but good fun. It may only be 800 steps but it’s steep. If you plan to walk this route and aren’t good with heights, you may struggle in places because the drop at the edge of the trail is steep. Also take plenty of water because you’ll get hot – we saw a couple of men running up the trail topless in October! Hopefully we’ll get to do it again someday, although it’s unlikely we’ll beat 8 minutes and 13 seconds…
Looks amazing. Have you seen Trollhunter? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1740707/
I haven’t, will check it out 🙂
Looks absolutely amazing. I’ve always wanted to go to Norway. The contrast between the mountains and the city is brilliant.
It is, once you reach the mountains you forget there is a whole city below. Amazing place!
Oh man! I love it and the scenery looks a lot like Iceland in places too – heavenly x
It does – Iceland is also on my list of places to visit, looks so beautiful.