Louisiana Girl in a Norwegian World: Gaustatoppen

We also went on a hiking trip with our turgruppa to Gaustatoppen, which was such a magnificent day that I thought it deserved its own post. It was the last trip we made before the Norwegian holiday and we did it on a Saturday so that we had all day. It was over a 2 hour drive from Kongsberg and we took vans to get there...many winding steep turns along the way. It is the 8th highest peak in Norway, and it was beyond beautiful. We road up part up the mountain to where the trail started. It was a very challenging hike both physically and mentally due the steepness, the partial snow, and it mostly being rocks. The rocks made you have to pay attention to each step you took, the entire time. The weather was lovely that day,in the 70's and a little cooler once we got to the top due to the elevation. There were parts that still had much snow (that should show how high the mountain was). Those parts were a little hard for me, due to my still very small experience walking in snow and there being steep parts walking across areas and down. I had some near on-the-booty falls (just part of the fun). We were able to pause at a great area on the way up for a nice sandwich for lunch with the group, and it took about 2-3 hours to make it to the top. It was breathtakingly beautiful and have to say that pictures just don't do it justice.

The last 15 min to the top was very steep and there were only a couple ways you could get up. Mind over Matter was my motto during this last uphill dash. We hung out at the top relaxing and soaking up the view for at least 30 min. It was perfection. I, of course, was too scared to get too close to the edges that were a straight drop, so Kevin took care of most of the pictures (Good boy). The way down actually took more concentration then the way up...I ended up rolling my ankle a few times due to making a wrong step. oops!

On the way home, the guides made a (what we thought was a spontaneous) stop to a cute diner on the side of the road. I think that they must have mentioned it earlier, but we failed to pick that up during our own Norwegian to English translation! We walked in thinking that some people needed to use the restroom and wanted to get a quick drink/food. However, they make us all sit down at tables and then these meals just start coming out to all of us. A hot, home cooked meal. We were beside ourselves...after all we were out of pretzels and it was beyond our dinner time. They served us what they call kjøttkake (meat cakes), veggies, salad, and potatoes. We also got dessert- chocolate jello and a cream (Kevin loved). It was a fun surprise and end to our hike. We were so thankful. We crashed when we finally got home after 8 pm, when we had left our apartment at 8:45 am that morning. It was days like that, that we just love being here. Enjoy the pictures!