Mountain Girl - Hiking stories

Hi there, 

As many of you already may know I am a Norwegian expat living in a city called Haarlem in the Netherlands. It is a 15min drive from Amsterdam and about 20-25min with the train.  

Before I came to the Netherlands I had lived 3 years in the UK and then before that I lived many different places in Norway of course. I moved from my home town at the age of 16 and tried not to look back too much. I was always a mountain girl, kind of born/forced to climb the mountains that surrounded the city and fjord that I grew up in. The valley and city Odda is surrounded by mountains on every side and as I grew older I learned to appreciate how much you learn to channel your energy when you hike up there. When in bad shape you just want to vomit as you climb and hike onwards and upwards, but once you get to a certain point fitness wise you can do it easy as pie! A lot of tourists forget that some hikes are up to 10 hours in total and they walk into the mountains with flip-flops, the wrong type of gear and clothes and some have even wore heels (YES you heard it right). When I grew up it was layers, good shoes were important as well and and idea about where we were going (so yes , sometimes maps are necessary as well depending on the length of the hike). 

Trolltunga is an example of a hike a lot of people underestimate, they think it is like visiting the Eiffel tower. Some think it is just a few minutes of hiking and then they can take the famous selfies on the tip of the cliff. Well, this is not quite reality as the hike back and forth takes about 8-12 hours normally so good hiking shoes are definitely recommended unless you want your feet to look like they have been going through a meat grinder at the end of the hike...With that being said there are many hiking routes that are not that long. I like to go to the Buer glacier, Jordal stølen and Buer stølen are all places that you can hike and climb in a few hours time. They are tracks in my home town that I have hiked many times. 

The first hike I really enjoyed was a 3 day hike in the Etne mountains! I was 17 and hiking with my college classmates and teachers. It was our ¨icebreaker¨ and I did not feel in shape for it. It felt as if everyone around me looked like they had done nothing but climb mountains and hike in the hills for their entire lives. I felt out of shape and flabby and pretty unattractive. Yet there was something in me that wanted to show people I was no weakling either so I pushed through the pain and blisters. For me it was a kind of mental cleansing to push through the pain and people around me seemed to be going through similar emotions. I realized why people talk about hikes as if they are medicines for the soul. Because it is you and that mountain, your senses awaken and you cross boundaries within as you keep going despite the pain. If like me you have been through some rough patches in life you realise how much nicer real physical pain is compared to the mental pain you have experienced. It is like a rush and the fresh air and the roughness of the weather and landscape kind of cleans out all the dirt and shit that has happened to you.  

It gets addictive I guess if you do it a lot, because every time the hike gets easier and every time you might have to go longer or rougher terrain to get the rush you are looking for.  

I know when  I was 17 and was on that hike it felt lovely to just focus on those simple things. The way you walk and how you breathe, the way a piece of bread feels in your mouth as you sit down for a break and enjoy the view and feel the pulsing pain in your heels. The taste of food never smell or taste better then when you have been hiking for hours. Another thing, when it is time to sleep after such a hike your brain turns off immediately and you fall into the most deep sleep without any worries. Just because you are too tired to think and too tired to worry about the fact that your brain just want to get some rest and shut down for 6 hours. This is important, we are living breathing creatures after all and we need rest and recovery. 

Hiking is one of the things I really miss about Norway. Every time I go back I try to make one or two days hiking days with family or friends. In the Netherlands there are no mountains though a few hills and so I settle with the national parks when I am here.  

Xx Viking