Day 12 - Jotunheimen, Rain and Zero Visibility

The morning starts just like the previous evening ended - with rain, rain, and more rain. The sky pours water over us incessantly, in different intensities. The visibility is accordingly low, some clouds hang so low that they almost seem within reach. Nevertheless, the decision to make up for the hike we didn't do yesterday remains. In the hiking guide, it's titled as the 'Panorama Route', with views of high peaks in Jotunheimen. Well, there's no panorama at the moment, but hope dies last as they say. The hike starts with a faux pas on my part. I enter 'Vågå' as our destination, as stated in the hiking guide. When we're just outside Vågåmo, which is located in Gudbrandstal and not in Jotunheimen, I suspect that we were misdirected. So, I compare the Google route with Locus and discover that we have to drive back quite a bit on the road we took the day before for the drive to Gudbrandsdalen. There's no place called Vågå at the start of the route, it must be an error in the driving directions of our hiking guide.

Finally, arrived at the correct starting point, the weather has not improved, rather it has gotten worse. Well, today the entire rain gear has to be put on again, even though I hate feeling like I'm in a greenhouse while exerting myself physically. At least the raincoat I bought specifically for Norway is lightweight and reasonably 'breathable'.

The trail begins at a bridge over the Russa, a wild mountain river that mostly rushes through a rocky bed, and leads along it upstream. The trail is easy compared to the tours of the past days, with a moderate incline and fewer stones. The first kilometers lead through a forest of low pine trees with a few dwarf birches here and there. The entire area is pastureland, we constantly encounter sheep, which often approach us curiously but flee at the slightest inattentive movement on our part.

After a few kilometers of gentle uphill, the tree growth becomes sparser, instead of pine trees, there are now mostly dwarf birches and willows. In front of us, there is the elongated valley of the Russa and high peaks. Unfortunately, the visibility is still poor, so after two hours of hiking and a snack break, we turn back.

On the way back, which of course goes downhill, my right knee starts to give me trouble. It feels exactly the same as a few months ago when I could only go down stairs in pain because of it. I hope it will be cured by the time we reach the Lofoten Islands at the latest. We still have a few hikes planned.

The evening is just as rainy as the day, my mood is somewhat down because of my knee and the constant rain. Let's see what tomorrow will bring.