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Our 2017 Norway Hike Rankings

We wanted to rank our hikes by scenery, challenge, length duration, elevation gain so others can gain from our experience.

Scenery:

1. Romsdalseggen Ridge -Amazing, beautiful city view of Åndalsnes, & super green rivers!
2. Mount Skala – Nice transition from forest, trees, streams, waterfalls, rocky terrain, and pure mountain bliss.
3. Besseggen Ridge – Awesome progressive climb to the the mountain wall, then you transition to a scramble.
4. Aurlandsdalen Valley (lower route) – Very historical hike where you can see old farms that were renovated back to original state!
5. Middagsfjellet Oyenibba – Weather hindered this hike and it was very foggy, but the locals call this hike amazing.
6. Trolltunga – Early morning conditions hindered this hike as well, but at the end it was amazing. From an overall hike experience perspective, I would rank the others higher.

Difficulty:

1. Mount Skala – extreme punishment on the body!
2. Trolltunga – length of hike made this brutal!
3. Romsdalseggen Ridge – tough climb up the mtn and ridgeline
4. Besseggen Ridge – challenging but not bad
5. Aurlandsdalen Valley (lower route) – relatively mild hike
6. Middagsfjellet Oyenibba

Length of Hike:

1. Trolltunga – 17.29 miles
2. Aurlandsdalen Valley (lower route) – 11.11 miles
3. Mount Skala – 10.89 miles
4. Besseggen Ridge – 9.77 miles
5. Romsdalseggen Ridge – 7.74 miles
6. Middagsfjellet Oyenibba – only completed partial up to 3 miles round trip

Time to complete hike:

1. Mount Skala – 8.5 hours
2. Trolltunga – 9.5 hours – 1.25 hrs waiting for photo = 8.25 hours
3. Romsdalseggen Ridge – 6.25 hours
4. Besseggen Ridge – 5 hours 49 minutes
5. Aurlandsdalen Valley (lower route) – 6 hours
6. Middagsfjellet Oyenibba – 2.75 hours

Elevation Gain:

1. Mount Skala – 6,562 feet
2. Trolltunga – 4,679 feet
3. Besseggen Ridge – 3,905 feet
4. Romsdalseggen Ridge – 3,182 feet
5. Aurlandsdalen Valley (lower route) – 2,967 feet
6. Middagsfjellet Oyenibba – 1,651 feet

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SWE/NOR Hiking Middagsfjellet Oyenibba August 2017 (WD8)

Middagsfjellet Oyenibba Hike 8/28/17  –

Trail was marked by the color white, which was not consistent with the typical red for Norway.

This hike is supposed to be one of the most unknown but beautiful hikes that can be found in Norway. One of the hosts of the house/Hotel’s we stayed at gave the recommendation. Originally the plan was to hike Mount Hornelen, but since the weather forecast was for heavy rain and intense winds we changed the plan.

This was what we called a rest day hike, and logged only 3 miles. The entire journey to this hike was rocky from the start. Finding the trail head was very difficult. We drove down two streets off the main road and could not find the starting point to the trail. We knocked on a few doors to ask the locals how to find the trail.  A nice farmer helped guide us to the path through his farm land. With his permission, we parked next to his garage where he was working on some tractor machinery. We grabbed our Osprey hiking backpacks with 6 liters of water and walked through his sheep pasture. The trail quickly escalated from flat ground to 400 M up a steep, rocky, and tree root filled trail. A very interesting thing about hiking on Norway trails was the number of old and new cabins along the way. During this hike there was no shortage of that. Weather: the rain started out with a light sprinkle, then turned to a constant drizzle as we progressed up the trail. Every step we took followed with a slip, the trail started to turn to mud with slippery rocks. After 1.5 hours in we made the call to turn around and head back.  During our walk back we spent close to half an hour eating wild blueberries. I’d never seen so many patches in my life! As we hiked back and reached the farm, we met up with the farmer again. We were able to communicate with each other and eventually find out he had some family in Minnesota. The common theme while talking with the locals was about family immigrating to Washington and Minnesota. He also told us we could pick fruit off his apple, pear, and plum trees on our way out.