A blog post concerning the first International Student Coffee Hour aka Free Waffle Day as well as a hike to a 1238m (4 062 foot) mountain near the city called Tromsdalstinden. Apparently it's a Tromsø rite of passage to climb this particular mountain.
My story begins on Friday. After an early morning lecture in Sustainable Energy, 9-11 AM, I met up with Adam and headed back to the main campus from Prestvannet. We went to Cafe Bodega for free waffles and even managed to get there in time to vote in the International Student Union elections. My friend Grace was elected as Vice President, congratulations Grace!
After wolfing down my two free waffles, Bodega claims that they make the best waffles in town and it's no lie, Adam and I headed off to Tromsdalstinden. Tromsdalstinden is the tallest mountain in close vicinity to the city. We took bus 20 over the bridge and got off close to the Arctic Cathedral. From there we walked along a road until the pavement ended and a dirt road began.
Eventually we left the road and took a path that led into the forest. There was a small bridge over a river and then the path really began to veer sharply upwards. From then on it was laborious walking, not quite climbing, until we got past the tree line. At that point the landscape started to open up and the view was just gorgeous.
We followed the path as long as it was visible and then started looking for the red painted rocks which marked the easiest route to the top. At one point we both stopped and looked up at the face of the mountain in sheer awe. It wasn't easy climbing but we finally made it to the top. Once up we took lots of pictures, ate the food that we had brought along and signed the book to prove that we had been there. There were some other people up there as well and one guy even offered to take a picture of us on the very top of a large cairn that they had built at the top. All in all a very cool experience.
Climbing down was in many ways more intimidating than going up. However, everything went well and we made it up the mountain and down again in about 6 hours as predicted. I’m totally hooked to this mountain climbing thing now, it’s going to become a regular weekend habit I have a feeling.
Tired but happy I headed home, uploaded my pictures to my computer and then collapsed into bed.
5 months ago
No comments:
Post a Comment