Camping on the Hardanger Plateau

The Hardanger Plateau, or Hardangervidda as it's called locally. Approximately 1100 meters above sea level. I went camping there in mid-July in 2019 for a short week. I took a bunch of photos on that trip, but never got around to posting them anywhere. Until now.

This is my entry in the Scenery Contest hosted by @galenkp, @meesterboom @tarazkp, @shawnnft, @cmplxty in the Outdoors and more-community. Thank you for the opportunity, and for giving me an incentive to finally put this post together.

It was two good friends and I that travelled to the Hardanger Fjord together, to mount the Plateau and spend a some days in the wilderness. And what a trip it turned into. We arrived very late, around 8PM, as it was a much longer drive than we anticipated.

We started our ascent as soon as we'd parked the car; little did I know we were about to climb about 800 meters in less than 2 hours. We didn't carry much water on that first day – mostly empty containers – as one of my travel companions argued there'd be water "everywhere".

The steepest climb was done in about two hours. We'd all ran out of water at that point, and there were still no water sources to be seen. Only further ascenscion. So we had no choice but to push forward, looking for a proper camping spot and something to drink. At 11:30 PM (still ascending), we saw a small pond with still water in it. Not a very good place to put up the tent either, but we were so exhausted we had no choice but to settle.

We brought some water up from the pond and boiled it. Have you ever been way beyond dehydrated and only having boiling hot water to drink? I do not recommend it:D After our boiling hot drink and a simple meal, we all went to sleep to get ready for the next day.

The morning after we discovered that we'd pretty much done the entire ascension the day before. And finally being on the top of the plateau, it got a lot easier to hike as well. So At this point it was all about finding water. We started quite early, around 9 AM.

The trail went on and on. We still had some small remains of the boiled water from the night before, but that was soon depleted too. Looking back at it now, we actually held up surprisingly well in that situation.

And then, finally. No sooner than 1 PM we found.. Water! With a capital W and then some.

The search was over and we just sat down and the rocks and took the longest break, as we drank unlimited amounts of the clearest, coldest and best tasting water I'd ever had in my life. After that, we'd have no shortage of water for the rest of the trip.

Feeling refreshed and having eaten a good, proper meal, we continued on our journey. And I think I'll let the pictures tell most of the story from here on out.

After four nights in the wilderness, we were ready to start our descent. We went down, down, down, a 1000 meters in only a couple of hours. It was quite exhausting, but also an experience in itself, now that I look back at it. No pictures from the descent unfortunately.

Almost at the bottom of our descent, we came across this beautiful waterfall. I love how the water, moss and rock combines to create this natural sort of water shrine. I noticed this particularly, as it looks nothing like any of the nature we encountered on the rest of the trip. I think it looks almost tropical – very atypical for the general surroundings.

And that concludes this chapter of my travel diary. It's a certainly trip I will never forget. And now I also have this post to remember it by.

Credits:

• Photos are taken by me. All rights reserved.
• Dividers by doze