Stunning City-to-Summit Hikes in Norway
My four favorite towns with wilderness walks
One of the most surprising things about traveling in Norway is the number of urban centers I’ve visited with mountain hikes that start right where the city ends. In so many places I discovered I could lace up my hiking boots, walk out the door, trudge through a bit of downtown traffic, and right onto the trail. I wanted to share my favorite city-to-summit wilderness walks, but just sorting through the possibilities in Norway was tough. So I set two criteria:
- It has to be possible to walk to the trailhead from the town.
2. Most of the hike has to be above the tree line
With these criteria in mind, I quickly found my top four trails (described in no particular order, below).
But first, I have to give a shout-out to All-Trails, which is a fantastic hiking website/mobile app that served me well in Norway (as well as other countries). It helped me find the best hikes in each city. It grades the trails easy, moderate and hard (I typically choose the Goldilocks options). Also, because other hikers can review each trail, that gave me some great up-to-date intel on the conditions of the hikes — muddy, loose shale, crowded, or just a boring slog. One reviewer advised avoiding a certain stretch he found vertigo-inducing. I’m glad I heeded his warning!
Bergen (Mt. Ulriken to Fløyen hike)
Bergen is the second largest city in Norway, with about 270,000 residents. A former capital, it is still a major trade and shipping center on the Atlantic coast. Just a few blocks from the downtown fish market and tourist center, forested hills rise to a plateau. There’s a funicular ride to the first ridge, or one can take a pathway that cuts through a few steep switchback streets before hitting the forest.
On the plateau, there are myriad woodland trails, with picnic tables and playgrounds for kids. I had to hike a couple of kilometers further to get away from the picnickers and above the treeline to the alpine tundra. Then, suddenly, I found myself in a different world.
The plateau is rocky granite with little dips and valleys that create small lakes, some of which are reservoirs. For that reason, the area is strictly preserved and kept pristine. I could see striations on the exposed rock left by receding glaciers, long vanished. Just 10,000 years ago, most of Norway was still covered with an ice pack up to three kilometers high. It was easy to imagine that massive weight crushing down upon this raw and rugged landscape. When the ice melted, releasing the pressure, the land actually started to rise. Norway is still rising today, a couple of millimeters per year.
My favorite hike involved taking a local bus to a gondola on the far side of the plateau, to a radio tower at Mt. Ulriken, and then walking all the way across the plateau to a second tower, before descending back to central Bergen. It was about 15 kilometers one way, most of it on the rocky but relatively flat terrain, which offered sweeping views of the Atlantic Ocean and surrounding islands. Even on a bright sunny day in June, the trail was not crowded. It’s too long for the average day hiker when there are so many easier hikes available closer to the city.
Tromsø (Sherpatrappa to Mt. Itnavarri)
Tromso, Norway’s Arctic capital (population 68,000), is probably the most charming little city Teresa and I visited in the whole north country. It somehow manages to mesh an Arctic-frontier-town feel with a cosmopolitan vibe. Good cocktail bars help. There’s also a sauna on the end of a dock…Patrons heat up, then jump off the dock into the frigid harbor. Definitely not for the faint of heart, but fun to watch from shore.
The hike starts on the far side of a bridge that connects downtown to the main suburb of Tromsdalen-Salašvaggi near the Tromsø Cathedral. It’s a steep climb through a birch forest, but luckily there’s a 1044-step stone staircase to the plateau that was built by visiting Nepali Sherpas (which is why it’s called Sherpatrappa). I have climbed similar masterpieces in Nepal, so it felt kind of nostalgic to ascend this stairway to heaven. I remembered one thing I learned in Nepal: never count the stairs! It makes the climb seem longer. Just take it slowly, one step at a time.
There’s also the easy option of a cable car to the top. The “top” of course is just the first level of the hike. To get to the mountain heights, one has to climb as high again as the stairway. Once there, it’s a pleasant stroll across undulating peaks covered in moss and heather that seem to go on forever. Everywhere I turned, there were more mountains in the distance, and to the east, glaciers shone in the sun from the tops of the Lyngen Alps. It was all I could do to force myself to turn back.
Hammerfest (Mt. Tyvveien)
Hammerfest is the northernmost town in Norway, with 11,448 inhabitants. It comes across as gritty, not pretty. It’s centered around a working harbour, with factories on the waterfront and no apparent eye for tourist aesthetics. Just the fact of getting here is what draws travellers — including Teresa (my wife) and I.
I didn’t expect there would be a decent hike in Hammerfest, but a trail led from our hotel in the heart of town up the side of a cliff. I followed it to the top, where the land opened out into a rugged, treeless valley with an unexpected feature — a frisbee golf course. Before long, I found myself all alone on a rocky, lichen-covered trail filled with more reindeer than I could count.
My goal was a radio transmitter tower I had spied on the top of a grey granite mountain, Tyvveien. but the rain had moved in, and the clouds dropped low, obscuring the tower. I hiked up the mountain trail to the cloud line and then decided to turn around. I followed the path along a ridge that led back towards town — I hoped! The mist descended faster than I did, and before long, I was walking in fog and rain, thankful that the way was emblazoned by bright red arrows on the rocks.
Sometimes on a hike, you don’t get the views. But in Hammerfest, I felt engulfed by the sense of remoteness impossible to capture in pictures. Just steps from the settlement, the land felt wild and fierce enough to crush a person who carelessly wandered too far. Frankly, if a troll had emerged out of the mist, I would not have been surprised.
Ballstad (Mt. Nonstinden)
This little fishing village is basically a suburb of Lofoten’s second city, Lekness (population 3,556). Teresa and I stayed at a little red cabin by the water’s edge and just a two-minute walk to the path up a nearby massif. In fact, from our deck, we could watch hikers make the first part of the climb. On the first sunny day, I headed up.
The trail is so steep that in places chains have been tethered to the rock so hikers can pull themselves up. After a half-hour climb, the path levels to a bowl-shaped plateau, boggy in the middle, but dry enough round the edges that one can encircle the lip of the bowl. I looked over the edge, and straight down to the sea where it crashes into the rocks far below.
Following the shoreline west along the Lofoten islands, the coastal mountains run on into the distance, where they meet the Atlantic. Rounding the far side of the bowl, the path climbs to a ridge of bare rock and jagged peaks. Outcroppings jutt over the abyss in some places. It was vertigo-inducing, but made for a great photo op of a topless French hiker willing to stand on the edge. Not me!
What I remember most from these glorious city-to-summit Norway hikes was walking along level with the peaks above Tromsø, looking out and seeing the Lyngen Alps stretch to the horizon. I hated to turn back, with the trail rolling endlessly in front of me. I wanted to walk up there forever.
“So many mountains, I can never hike them all,” I said to myself, wistfully.
But then, I felt a strange burst of happiness. “That means, there will always be more mountains for me to climb!”
