Sep 23 Lobsters are in season at Caraway Creek

 

This is the first time I have seen Lobster mushrooms in North Carolina. They are along the Caraway Forks Trail. Lobsters are a fungus that grows on another fungus. Milk caps and russula mushrooms are often the host fungus. there is no shortage of those. I have eaten lobster mushrooms once but did not think they had much flavor. 

Sep 11 Hiking in Balestrand Norway

 

Himalayan balsam

Balestrand is located on a large fjord. The only land that can be developed in located along the fjords. The rest of the land is steep terrain with along no roads penetrating away from the fjords. We climbed a steep hillside today at the fringe of town. It was unrelenting. I broke away from the grouip so I could spend time with all the different vegetation I was seeing.

Foxglove

Sep 10 Hiking in Fjaerland

 

Today's hike is from the small town of Mondal, ancestral home of the Mondale family. The Backroads crew drove up a valley on a rough road. We were told cows were kept up this valley since the land was nor suitable to being farmed. Milkmaids would live in the small cabins we saw along the way. Cows need to be milked so they stayed here under cold weather set in.

The area is very lush with vegetation and fungi. There was also an odd orange lichen covering all the freshly unearthed rocks along the road. This was identified as Orange Sunburst lichen.

This is the top of the valley. Near vertical walls were a series of waterfalls cascading down toward us. A sizable creek formed alongside the road. 

An old shack still serves as someone's getaway.

Orange Sunburst lichen

Sep 9 Jostedal Glacier - On the Ice

 

Our guides for the hike today are from Nepal. We are on the Jostedal glacier. The largest glacier in Europe. The ice is dirty and granular like gravel. In order to walk on this glacier, we needed some special gear. Our lead guide, the fellow in yellow, has participated in more Everest climbs than he can remember. He does remember his four summits, of course. 

Crampons over your boots, ice axe in hand and harnesses so we could be roped together are part of the preparation. 

This used to be glacier here. Now it is a couple miles away having melted. We have to take a boat to a trailhead and then it is another hour hike to the glacier.

Before we get to the glacier, we cross over the area it has melted back from.

We are just about at the glacier now, looking back at the lake it has created. We are told that the water is murky with particles and not good to drink. 

We get geared up and head onto the ice. A quick instruction and safety meeting gets up ready to venture out on the ice. We are roped together in groups of 6. The ice axes serve as hiking stickes. The crampons really grip in the ice. 

Years of dust and pollution have settled on the ice, giving it a dirty look. Freshly exposed ice appears blue. Often cracks or crevices form but they do not penetrate too deep due to the lower ice being so dense from the weight above it. 

Although I felt secure and safe with the crampons, it was tiring just to move around. We probably spent no more than 20 minutes moving on the ice. Our leaders brought hot coffee and a hazelnut cream liquor for an ice break. 

Everyone had their photo taken by the blue hole. It was deep and there was running water somewhere down there. I saw many small holes filled with ice melt and kept thinking I'd step into one. 

It was a little precarious walking alongside some of these deep cracks in the ice.

After crunching along on the ice, we removed our gear, then headed back the way we have come. It was at least 2 miles on the scoured rock to get to the boat taking us back the staging area we started at.

Sep 8 Gudwagen Royal Postal Route

 

We are transported to the village of Bakka for a short boat ride across the fjord to the trailhead. It takes the small boat 3 crossing to get out group of 20 across. This is the narrowest fjord in Norway, so the boat took just 5 minutes to cross. The hike is along the fjord on what was once the Royal postal route. 

The fjord is a mixture of sea water and fresh water tumbling down the mountains. Throughout the day we saw several boats and a few ferries pass by. To get anywhere around here, you need to cross water. For our Backroads tour, our luggage was transported by a van and trailer. Several times, we took a short boat trip while our luggage took a circuitous land route to get to where were going. 

On this hike, we were on flat ground almost the whole way. There was a small margin of level ground along the fjord. The trail often went through pasture land and we climbed over fencing several times. 

Of course it rained some and when it did, the mountainsides suddenly lit up with silver waterfalls. 

It's all very photogenic here. When it stops raining, the phones come out.

Most barns I have seen here are not on level ground like this one. They all have ramps going to the loft. Since most are built on a hillside, the ramps can be almost level. This one has a steep ramp.

We were treated to scenes like this along the entire hike. Waterfalls and the fjord! Everywhere you look. 

Someone important must have been buried in this burial mound. It was a nice spit of land jutting out into the fjord. 

Up close and personal. 

Almost to the end of our hike

We reached a small dock to have lunch here. Our tour leader had made arrangements with the ferry to make an unscheduled stop to pick us up. We continued by ferry boat another two hours.

Traveling through this narrow fjord was quite scenic. At times the ferry would rock a bit. This set off the car alarms. I wonder what it is like to work on this ferry for a living and hearing car alarms throughout the day.