It had rained at the lodge for days, so I did what any reasonable person chasing dry weather does. I got on a train and went looking for it higher up.
The Bergen Line dropped me at Haugastøl, and I walked in from there to Krækkja, a staffed DNT cabin on the edge of the Hardangervidda, where I stayed two nights in the dormitory. Up on the plateau the trees give out. The land goes bare and open and pale, more alpine than anything near Voss, and the wind never fully quits. I got the drone into the air exactly once. I'd traded rain for cold and wind, which felt like a fair swap.
No tent, no stove, no day's water to carry, which for a photographer is close to luxury. Breakfast and a packed lunch came with the bed. Dinner came communal, everyone along long tables, roast chicken the first night and reindeer stew the second. When I told the man I take to be the owner how good the stew was, he barely looked up. Of course it was good, he said. He'd brought the reindeer down off the fjell himself.
The room was all hikers: families, groups of friends, and a mother and her grown son traveling out of the Netherlands, who I talked with long after the table cleared. Twenty-six miles over three days, a slow loop around Storekrækkja, one latte in town, a Sunday train back through the rain. First hut stay, and I already understand why people keep returning.
Haugastøl sat on water the color of a pool, ringed in summer wildflowers.
Stanghelle, Norway
The Other Direction
A few days later I took the early train the other way, toward Bergen, to a small town called Stanghelle where the mountains steepen and drop straight into the Veafjorden. The forecast promised a break in the rain and mostly lied, though the rain stayed light and the day stayed warm.
I skipped the big hike and gave the day to a low peninsula with a few trails. One climbed to an overlook, the path lined the whole way with blueberries, which is a hard thing to hurry past. The other led to Fjordsyn, a public day cabin so well made I wanted to move in, with a wood stove, a sleeping loft, and shelves of children's books. I flew the drone out over the water between showers, finished a sandwich I'd been rationing, and caught the train home with a sparkling water, my first in weeks.
What's Inspiring Me
I found a copy of Architecture in Northern Landscapes, the book on architect Todd Saunders, in the lodge living room and lost an evening to it with a pint of the local beer at my elbow. Saunders is Canadian, born in Newfoundland, and he built his practice here in nearby Bergen, which turns the book into a bridge between two things I keep circling back to: northern light and clean modern design. The Newfoundland coast on one page, precise Norwegian timber and glass on the next. Finding it in English was its own small gift. If it ever turns up in a lodge or library near you, pull it down.
What's Next
This weekend I start the Aurlandsdalen, a four-day hut-to-hut trek along one of Norway's old mountain routes, from Finse toward the fjords. Then two days roaming Bergen before I board the flight back home.
Five weeks. I blinked, and it's already coming to a close. More stories (and so many images) still to come. In the meantime, send sunshine!
Thanks for reading, Tanya
Fjordsyn-dagsturhytta, a public-use day hut for hikers
Photographer and marketer Tanya Triber writes from the trail to the train to her desk overlooking the Blue Ridge Mountains: stories from the field, honest notes on the craft of making (and marketing) beautiful images, and the tools, places, and ideas worth your time. One thoughtful email a month, from Appalachia to the Arctic.
