The old man har planned a canoe trip to the Mountain Plateau Hardangervidda this summer, but because of the weather forecast I har to wait until 23. July before I could head off. There were no good camp sites at the Trondsbu parking lot, so I har to park next to a garbage container. This was perhaps a forewarning for the whole trip.

When I was to go to sleep, I discovered that I had forgotten at home the inflatable Exped Down mat. I had a few isopor mats, but they were to thin and hard for me to get a good sleep. The next day opened with fog, rain and strong wind, so I decided to go back to Oslo to fetch the mat. More than four hours each way. As soon as I came down the Halling Valley the weather turned to summer. I was tired during the driving, so my car instructed me to get some sleep.

The next day back to Hardangervida. The weather had improved, so I looked more optimistically at the paddling, with a suitable wind from the north east.

As you can see from the photos, I had dragged along a lot of food and equipment, because the plan was to stay for more than one month. The amount of stuff was enormous, pure madness. I had envisaged to have a pleasant time, with beer and other good things. However, the weather offered no chance to have pleasant meals outdoors. The best I can remember was shelter from the North wind behind a big stone.

I had a good tailwind the first part of the day. There is a canal between Tinnhølen and , but it has two barriers, so that I had to unload and reload the canoe twice. Strenuous and time consuming. When I was about 800 meters away from the planned camp site, the wind blew up and the waves became so high that I lost control of the canoe. It drifted against some stones and water started entering the canoe. I just had to get into the water and drag the cane to the shore. Unpleasant. Chomsky kept swimming near the canoe. Fortunately there was a usable tent site near by, so I got on dry clothes and put up the tent.

The weather was on the whole lousy, with strong wind, rain and fog. I tried to fish thrice, with worm, spoon, spinner and fly, with no result. Other people I spoke to could report the same.

The sleeping mattress I mentioned failed so that three of the lengthwise channels merged. It took me some time to figure out how I could find a suitable resting position on top of a balloon. Then the wind ripped a hole in one of the corners of the tent. I also discovered that the canoe had started leaking. At one point when I worked to secure the baggage with a rubber strap with metal hooks, it slipped and hit me on an eyebrow with force. It made a solid hole, but I felt lucky it had not hit my eye. Then I would have to use my emergency beacon to call for a rescue helicopter.

I managed to get the weather forecast on my phone and it was so bad that I decided to abort the trip. So the 2. August I started the trip back. Passing the two barriers on the canal went OK, but when I entered Tinnhølen the wind increased, so I had to find another emergency tent site. The next day I started paddling again, but with slow progress. After three-four hours I had covered a distance about 700-800 meters. So again I had to find another emergency camp site.

Fortunately the weather was better the next day, so I managed to reach the boat site without too many problems.

Basically I was satisfied I had managed to escape unscathed from the trip. For my return trip I disassembled the canoe and put it inside the car. After a meal at the boat site, I just packed the car and headed for home.

I managed to test myself thoroughly on this trip, and the conclusion is that I am now too old for this kind of extreme exercise. Only to get up from the ground and regain my balance was an effort, which I had to undergo often, which made me feel quite exhausted. With the driving the trip took 13 days. Which was enough. But one good thing is that I lost two kilos. However, the whole thing was quite an experience. 

This was, I believe, the swan song for my excursions. So at least you can be spared for all my reports.

Ready to go

Camp site at Trondsbu

Packing

Packing

Packing with help from Sissel

Ready to launch

Finally on our way

Finally on our way

First camp site

View on camp site

Tent in the background

View on the camp site

Camp in the middle

Camp site

Camp site

Departure in fog

Emergency camp near Simleøya

Emergency camp near Simleøya

Madness how much stuff I had dragged along

Chomsky is happy the paddling is over

Map of the area