Sulitjelma Fjellandsby to Sorjoshytta. 25km 71/2hrs. Yesterday I ran out of maps. I had not been concerned because I’d thought they were in my resupply box, but alas no. I researched options furiously last night, with some local help from @hansrichardbrathen 😉🙏 In the end Erland who runs @sulitjelma_fjellandsby came to the rescue by ringing local friends. On their advice I left Daja by the marked scooter track E towards Sweden. It was a beautiful route, taking me high above Sulitjelma itself and negotiated an area of terrain that would have been incredibly complicated without the scooter trail. Micro folded into acres of crinkled crags, hidden gullies and lakes where finding your way on-sight would have required blind luck or the whole day. The trail guided me through in a couple of hours of up, down and around in patternless sequence. From there a descent to the regulated Lomivatn, a slightly watchful traverse to the far side and then a rolling descent on engaging snow to the Ny-Sulitjelma hut. There were a group of Germans in residence who kindly plied me with hot tea and questions before I set out for the final hours up to the Sorjoshytta and home for the night. Those afternoon hours climbing high on the edge of the Sulitjelma mountains were magical. Wild, trackless and almost alpine, in the shadow of the King of these parts, #suliskongen. I reached #sorjoshyttaas the shadows crawled towards the horizon drawing with them the last of the sun’s warmth. This is my last DNT hut for a while. Tomorrow I enter Sweden for a short but logical section of the traverse. What a charming and cosy hut to remind me of everything special about.
The Norwegian touristforening or DNT @turistforeningen is quite simply an amazing organisation. If you haven’t heard of it and are passionate about outdoor adventures I encourage you to look them up! They are responsible for the majority of the mountain cabins that I’ve been using, for their construction, management and maintenance. They also mark many of the summer mountain routes with distinctive cairns and this handy red letter “T”. Of course this stands for the T of Touristforening… but I like to think it stands for Tania. 😀 More precisely… go Tania! Everytime I see one of these peeking out of the snow I smile and and feel cheered on a little. They have been a massive morale boost on bad weather days… and even on stunning days like today I smile and silently thank them for their motivation. Go Tania Go!
Cold arctic nights out in the Sulitjelma mountains on the edge of the Swedish #padjelanta National Park. Alone but not lonely in this wonderful arctic wilderness. Here is #sorjoshytta perched on the edge of Norway under a vast, frozen, star filled sky.