The First Hike

 

One of the hikes my friends had recommended to me was Dalsnuten. On the sticky note left on the trail map Katy had written "Not a very long hike (1 1/2 hrs?) but a Stavanger classice - like Flattop - Everyone has to hike it once". For those of you not familiar with Alaska, Flattop is a mountain in Anchorage that, like Katy said, everyone knows of and hikes - at least once,  and so being the Stavanger Flattop, Kairi and Eric decided it was right for our first real Norwegian hike. We left the house around 9:30am. I had looked up and written down the directions to get there, but I was also remembering what Katy had said about finding the trailhead and wound up completely confused. Thankfully, Kairi had brought her phone, which mercifully found internet when I had pulled over to look at the actual paper map and try to pinpoint where we were. Her phone led us to the right road, and it turns out we were actually fairly close, I had just taken us on the scenic route to get there. Once sure of where we were going, finding the parking lot was fairly easy. The trailhead rests at a huge, free (!), gravel lot and two white buildings with red signs on each stating "Stavanger Region" (I'm not sure what they were as we didn't get close enough to investigate). A sign for Dalsnuten said it was 1.8km to the summit, and with backpacks on, waterbottles full, and cameras ready for new pictures, we set off.

The trail was exactly what you might have imagined for a sunny European hike through the woods.

Tall trees, a blend of what you'd find in Alaska and Maine, rustled in the wind, leaves glittering from the sun shining through them. The path was wide, well groomed, and well marked with red painted T's on the trees and rocks; the terrain fairly level or only slightly inclined. After a bit we came to a short wooden gate with the word "Lekke" painted across. Remembering "Right to Roam", we opened the latch and trundled through, careful to shut the door behind us. Not too long after we came to a lake and saw the trail break sharply right going over a small bridge before leading out to the rocks along the water. But before turning to follow it our eyes caught sight of something that caused our steps to head left instead.

Goats! And sheep! Curled up napping, or lazily grazing, they were all around with no barrier between us. I did remember Katy telling me that this was a common occurrence while out hiking (thus the importance of always shutting gates behind you), but had misplaced that memory until that moment. We snapped a few pictures and then headed back down the trail, full of elation at this unexpected discovery.

We hopped over rocks and chatted about whatever until we reached another fence. Instead of a gate, this one had a two sided angled ladder making it easy to cross without effort. As this was a family hike, there was also a little door that parents could slide upward for their little ones to go through. At that point the trail became much steeper and more like climbing over larger rocks than an actual trail. Our talking dwindled as we focused on the task ahead, but truthfully it wasn't all that steep, and with only one stop to enjoy the lake below, sparkling as if lit by magic, we made it to the top  before much time passed.

The summit is 323 meters, and has a 360 degree view that wows. In one direction all of Stavanger was spread out before us, and in the other mountains upon mountains flew back until snow capped mountains towered and we could see no further. The water below glowed like blue fire. At the
summit is a man made tall square structure consisting of small rocks, a popular place for pictures. We turned in circles of delight, snapped pictures for remembering always, and then headed back down.

We had noticed on our ascent that some people had made the climb from an alternate direction, so we chose that one for our return. Once past the steep rocks, crossing along the lake line we realized that side of the lake was much muddier than the other, and wooden planks had been set down to aide hikers over the worst areas. It didn't take us long to reach the trail end, and as it was still fairly early in the day we decided to turn around and go back up only in a new direction.

Not knowing the name of the trail, we meandered upwards over dirt, grass and rocks, letting the red trail markers guide us. This path was less steep, but full of huge exposed rock that reminded me forcibly of my White Mountain hikes in Maine. We reached the peaks of several small hills before finally stopping before a sign post "Fjogstadnuten 295 moh". Far across from us we could see Dalsnuten, and at a greater distance behind us was another peak with rocks stacked high. I so badly wanted to keep going until we reached that unknown mountain, but I'm sure I could have continued on that way for days. We decided though it was time to turn around and make our way down to the car.

We stopped briefly to peek into a hut made of twisted trees, We then sat and wondered at a small wooden bridge that was actually sprinkled with glitter leaving us feeling like we'd been transported to some enchanted forest. At last, the trail came to an end and we piled into the car that would drive us home.

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