Lofoten Loafin' (Part 1): July 14th - July 21st, 2023
It was finally time to reach the fabled Lofoten archipelago, a promised-land of world-class climbing! Waking up at Trollskåla, the first step was to bike to Melbu and snatch some groceries before we caught the next ferry. The morning was gray and groggy (and the ocean smelled like sulfur?) and my allergies had finally also made it across the Atlantic. I was cranky at Susan in the grocery store, trying not to scratch my eyes out, so she gave me an antihistamine and sent me to a bakery for pastries and coffee. We were in much better moods getting on the boat. A nice guy from Finland gave us some stickers and told us how he bikes about 150 - 200 km a day and has done this route 3 times now. Nice... will you take some of our bags?
As we biked onward to Svolvær (Lofoten's major tourist hub) the clouds disappeared, displaced by taller and taller mountains showing more and more clean rock faces. Looked like a place with some good clambin'! But there were a couple unpleasant surprises - one, this road was BUSY, crammed with buses and RV's and campers of all shapes and sizes. Two, when we pulled off at a rest area swarmed with a couple tourist buses, we found the bathrooms guarded by a device that seemed to require a credit card before opening the door. I walked away, and Susan snuck in as someone else was leaving, but we shrugged it off as a quirk of this one spot.
Lofoten also has much tighter camping restrictions than the rest of Norway, which is fair since the whole chain of islands is about as busy as Yellowstone in peak season. And peak season it was, since the month of July is "common holiday", when most Norwegians take their lawfully required PTO (must be nice!). It's also an international destination for climbers and general European tourists. For camping that night we were targeting a specific spot right outside Svolvær where you were allowed to camp free for up to 2 nights. The online map said it had fresh water, a toilet, and maybe even a shower - sounded quite nice! But when we rolled up we were disappointed to find that the "free camping" area was basically a lazily-mowed patch of weeds, teeming with stalks that might puncture the floor of a tent, and not only were these bathrooms pay-to-use, but they also had somewhat ambiguous signs that maybe said the water wasn't potable. I drank a little, Susan drank more than me, and after some hesitation we decided to take it (we really needed the water) but treat it with drops. Sigh. There was also no shower despite what the sign just outside stated. Oh well, we had indoor housing ahead of us.
The campsite did have some really good flowers though, and a bunch of slugs that came out with the evening rain, so it wasn't all bad. Susan chatted with a French cyclist who was covering our 4-5 day itinerary in 2 days. Maybe he'll take one of our bags?
Svolvær hosted several important things - groceries, public laundry, hopefully a bike mechanic that could solve Susan's derailleur woes, and one climb we really really wanted to do - the Forsida route up Svolværgeita (the "Svolvær Goat", a granite tower outside town with two conspicuous horns of rock balanced on the top). However, the weather was being quite fickle so we really weren't sure when we'd get the chance to do the climb (it's 5 pitches with a bit of an approach, so we needed a nice clear period). The next morning we stuck with our plan to schlepp into Svolvær proper to run some errands while waiting to check in to our indoor housing (a night in a rental apartment graciously provided by my folks as an anniversary present - thanks, Mom & Greg!).
Sadly none of the bike mechanics seemed to be working on Saturday, so Susan's bike would have to wait until Monday. Not only that, but the only clear spell of weather was forecast to come basically overnight, from Saturday evening into Sunday morning (exactly when our rental was booked!). Sitting in the rain in Svolvær, then, we hatched the plan - we'd pony up for an extra night in the apartment (a little pricey for us, but it helped that the first night was covered), do the climb overnight, take Sunday to recover, and then hit up the bike shops on Monday morning.
And it actually worked! We checked into the housing as early as possible, exploded our still-soggy clothes and tent into the other bedroom (an extra room, what luxury!), and took a nap until the alarm went off at 6 PM. Then actually got out of bed at 6:30, scarfed some food, biked to the trailhead, and started hiking up to the tower. We'd noted on our hike on Segla, back on Senja island, that Norwegians don't really "do" formal trails. But much to our surprise, we found a steep set of solid, well-constructed stone steps leading up towards Svolværgeita! Well, it turns out that these hikes are just too dang popular, and Norwegians finally got worried about tourists eroding away all their nice scenery, so they imported teams of Nepali Sherpas to put in stairs at the most trafficked areas. Ridiculous! (One Norwegian told us "It's a disgrace, they have to put in all these steps just to get the tourists to the tops of mountains…")
We huffed and puffed up the stairs, got to the base of the climb, and knocked out the route! Fun and varied climbing (splitter hand cracks, offwidths, and traverses) on clean and solid granite, with the obligatory pitch of heinous rope-drag. This is a really popular route on a really popular formation (route-finding is easy when you just have to follow where all the lichen is rubbed off), so honestly climbing overnight was the best way to go - there were a couple other parties on the same climb but it never felt crowded. The midnight sun hid just behind some other peaks, softly illuminating the yellow and blue sky. It felt pretty magical to climb at midnight with plenty of visibility and zero concerns about racing an impending nightfall.
We finished the rappels without issue at about 2 AM and biked back victorious to the apartment, where we tried to figure out how the hell to cook a frozen pizza with only a stove-top and a microwave (no oven). The rental did have a laundry machine though, which was super convenient, and we spent a relaxing Sunday sleeping and washing clothes.
Monday morning Susan got her bike into the shop first thing, where they replaced the chain, reprimanded her about using more chain oil, and said maybe the cassette was bad. I was suspicious. But it seemed better, so we checked on out, feeling refreshed, to head southwest through the archipelago. Climbing is always a game of timing with the weather, and based on the forecasts we decided to finish biking down the island chain and then try to return back northeast by bus to explore some of the other major climbing areas.
We made it about 15 km down the road, past some small but steep hills, when CHUNK! - Susan lost the ability to pedal. She did a quick emergency stop along the bustling road to un-jam the chain, and then we pulled off at the beach of Rørvik to investigate further. We rigged up a make-shift repair stand with trekking poles, but despite feeling very clever couldn't do anything to fix the front derailleur. We continued to hem and haw before deciding to just keep on going to the next major town, Leknes, where there was another bike shop. It was a day and a half away, but Susan is a trooper and decided she could just hang out in her little gear up front.
Sadly, the difficulties weren't quite over; while the rest of the riding was very pretty, we were pounded by wind and rain for most of it (so Susan didn't even need her big gear anyway!). After rounding a corner and getting literally stopped in our tracks by the wind, we found the first flat-ish and mostly-not-marshy spot we could (N.B. - in Norway, if the ground ain't rocks, it's probably marsh) and tried to keep the tent from flying away. Stakes were lousy so we tied a few points to the bikes and laid them down in the grass. Too beat up to fight the wind for dinner, Susan pulled out our plastic bag stuffed full of the cold, leftover curry we'd cooked in Svolvær and we devoured it in the tent before passing out. Good thing we always make massive amounts of food.
The next day was better, though. Sure, one surprise hill on the way to Leknes felt bigger than it should have ("no significant gradient", the book says of this section...), but we got into the town and a very competent-looking mechanic said he could fix Susan's bike that afternoon. We found a nice city park and hung up our wet tent and layers to dry (the rain quickly converts us from "cool-bike-tourers" to "kinda-homeless-bums"), and since a cafe sat next door to the park we of course indulged in coffee and sweets. After a couple hours Susan had a shiny new front derailleur that was clicking along smoothly and we continued the ride! Passing under more humbling mountains and massive sheets of rock we arrived at the splendid beach of Flakstad, where a really nice rest area offered us bathrooms and drinking water (for free, no less!) and some shelter from the sporadic rain. Susan's bad luck hadn't quite run out, though; she forgot to put her nice, padded bike gloves back on at one point and lost them in a tunnel along the way.
One more long-ish (for us) day on the bikes took us to Reine, "the most photographed part of Lofoten". And it's easy to see why, with picturesque red rorbuer (old fisherman's huts that have been converted to fairly swanky vacation rentals) and yellow houses strung out across a small chain of emerald islands nestled in the mouths of lazuli fjords backed by towering black walls. Rather idyllic. Of course, this also makes it one of the busiest parts of Lofoten, and traffic was a MAD HOUSE, with hordes of buses and campvervans overflowing from the center of a town that was really only ever designed to serve boats and the occasional car.
Our friend Ellie (a well-traveled kayaker) had told us the ocean kayaking around Reine was a must-do, and while it was windy that afternoon it was also sunny, so we took the chance to book an available tour at 3 PM. With the somewhat-choppy waters and a tour group including several first-time kayakers, our Czech guide declined to take us up Kjerkfjorden (one of the main attractions), but she was ready with a really fun backup plan. We got to paddle under and around some of the docks and structure of Reine, check out the nooks and crannies of some coastal islands, almost get our kayak stuck, and see some jellyfish and sea stars. Susan and I were a little salty and I fretted about needing a shower, but we took a free campsite along the old road outside a tunnel that was just too nice to pass up. Nice facilities at the ferry dock in nearby Moskenes offered us reliable (and free!) toilets and drinking water. Guess it was time for a nalgene/towel shower.
Two major highlights remained for this part of our Loften tour. First, we biked down to Å (pronounced something like "ohw") at the very end of the road on the archipelago, because going all the way to where the road ends is generally pretty neat. We hiked to the rocky overlook for a view of the other much-less-accessible islands stretching off into the distance, poked our heads around the town, and stopped for coffee and baked goods (noticing a theme here?). That afternoon we biked back up towards Reine to hike Reinebringen, one of the smaller peaks towering over the village that offers some fantastic views without too much trouble.
Being such a popular hike (*everyone* does it while visiting Lofoten), Reinebringen was also equipped with Sherpa steps, although a bit steeper. Thankfully we went a little bit later in the evening so the trail wasn't quite the zoo that it is during some parts of the day. Already tired from the past several days of biking, though, we still felt a little like pack animals, panting and sweating our way up the stairs. At the top I convinced Susan to scramble a little farther along, over to a slightly higher peak, and we actually had some moments of quiet and solitude before heading back down.
Alright, it was finally time to do some more of this amazing climbing we'd heard so much about. But most of that was located around Henningsvær, which we'd biked past three or four days ago. Luckily, public transport is taken seriously as a service, so a bus route runs up and down the spine of the islands. Perfect, we thought, since we could hop on a bus at Moskenes, take it back through Leknes, and then get off near Henningsvær. Even more perfect, we thought, was that they didn't charge extra to take your bike on the bus! The buses were all equipped with bike racks on the back, so it was free!
And then reality struck. The first bus driver told us it should be fine to take bikes, but it quickly became apparent the racks were incompatible with our frame-bags (which are not exactly quick to put on or take off). In a classic ESL moment he told us it was "not impossible" to take the bikes (meaning it *was* in fact impossible), and I was a little aggressively befuddled while asking why we couldn't just shove the bikes in the cargo hold. The Norwegians like to stick to their rules. So that bus drove off and left us at the stop, wondering if we'd have to spend an extra 3 days undoing all our biking.
After that experience we hurriedly undid our frame-bags and waited for the next bus... where the driver told us he could only take 1 bike, not both (because that bus didn't have racks). OK... Third time's the charm. The next bus (pretty much our last chance for the day) pulled up, Susan double-checked with the driver that bikes were OK, and we quickly unfolded the racks and wrestled both bikes to head-level before the driver could get any ideas that maybe the bus could only hold one. Then we chucked the bags (all 10) into the cargo hold and off we went! In Leknes we had a connection with another bus, so unloaded and re-loaded 1, 2 bikes and 1, 2, 3...10 bags (I don't think we even asked that driver about the bikes), and finally got unloaded at Rørvik, where we'd tried to fix Susan's bike several days ago.
Again: 1, 2 bikes and 1,2...10 bags unloaded, and after about 30 minutes of re-assembly we biked the last few kilometers to the free camping right by one of the major climbing areas. We were pretty frazzled and unsure about the upcoming weather, but had learned some important lessons about catching the bus and looked forward to doing some climbing on Saturday!
I loved Lofoten!! Your photos are absolutely breathtaking. I remember my family did the kayaking (out of Svolvaer possibly) but I had gotten zero sleep thanks to the midnight sun and opted out due to exhaustion. *regrets*
ReplyDeleteSo cool you made it up to Lofoten! Midnight sun exhaustion is real. We recently started having nighttime again and it's weird :/
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