HIKING
Where Man Can Seek Meaning and Insight
A report from someone who slept outside
Yesterday I did something that I have thought about for a long time and wanted to do. I packed hiking clothes, skis, my sleeping bag, tents and other equipment in the car, drove 20 km from Odda to Seljestad and started walking from Hesjabakk and up into the terrain.
I had to go far without skis, because only after about 4.5 km, at about 900–1000 masl did I encounter enough snow in the terrain to go on the skis.
I have many times thought that it must be very nice to take such a trip in the transition between winter and summer in the beautiful, almost untouched natural landscape in the Seljestad mountains, and sleep up there one night.
This is an area where there are rarely many people. I met a couple who came down and told me that they had gone to Odda cairn. They asked if I should sleep in a tent and they told me that there was more snow and better conditions for skiing a little further up.
The Seljestad area is well prepared for walks both winter and summer, with good marking of trails and with planks and stones laid out on several adapted sections of the trail where in the summer it is wet in the terrain.
With a fairly heavy backpack due to all the equipment, it is a bit tiring to go uphill, but it is also more or less a bit of a meaning with the trip just to work your way uphill — that is to take the trip as physical exercise.
I had actually intended to walk further than the 6.5 km I walked, to the valley where the paths towards Steinavatnet and Kyrkjenuten separate.
This day my body and senses told me to stop here, at approx. 1000 m above sea level, where I found a nice place for camping.
It is great to sleep out on a spot of the earth where you know that there is no other human being several kilometers away, that you are the only one there, and the sound of water flowing in small streams and rivers.
And when night falls, you see clouds and rock formations that create fantastic, living images in the night sky in interaction with the light from the last rays of the sun in the north.
It is important when lying down to sleep outside at 1000 meters above sea level to think that it can get cold at night, so this time I had gotten ready with enough good, warm clothes, so I did not freeze through the night.
It’s a bit hard to lie on the ground, but with a sleeping pad and a good sleeping bag it goes well, and nothing is like waking up on the high mountains for a new day with radiant sunshine.
That’s when you know you’re alive and that life is good.