Bad day in Bergen

My phone is dead, but I'm alive. After today, I'll take that trade. Let me back up and recount our time here in Bergen:

- we arrived via plane yesterday about noon, found our hotel, and headed for the Fish Market. I can now add whale to the list of strange meats I've eaten on this trip. Mmmmm... whale burger.
- went walking around just to experience Bergen. This is a beautiful coastal mountain town, and just hanging out is the thing to do here. Also took in a 600 year old leprosy hospital turned museum... apparently Norway was the hot bed for leprosy in Europe, and had problems with it all the way up to the 20th century. Ended with a walk through the local fortress turned park.
- slept in this morning, then headed out about 10 to climb a mountain. Decided to take the funicular up Floyen and hike around at the top instead. Once there, we realized you could actually hike to Ulriken, the highest of the 7 mountains backing the city of Bergen. Estimated hike time, 5-6 hours. So off we headed, equiped with rain jackets, some food and about a liter of water each. It was overcast and cool, so that seemed like enough, and would have been, if not for our adventure that was about to unfold...

The trail is well marked and could even be driven on for the first 2KM. Past the last kiosk, it gradually got more and more rugged, and signs got further and further apart. At one point, we realized how far back we were going to traverse to get across a valley before even starting towards Ulriken, and weren't sure which trail to take even, so the thought of turning back was creeping into our minds. After comparing notes and maps with a couple other hikers in the same cunundrum, we eventually figured it out and were on our way again.

At lunch the clouds finally broke and we had our first bit of sunshine, were about half way there, and feeling like all was right with the world. The trail was getting even more fun and required a bit of hands on scrambling to gain the ridge, which is something that those who know me know I enjoy muchly. From there, the trail pretty much disappeared, but the way was marked out with cairns. Big ones. Every 20 yards or so. As far as the eye could see. I even tried to take a few pictures of the line of them all along the ridge because I'd never seen anything quite like that.

As we starting closing in on the highest cairn which marked the home stretch to the Ulriken cable car, less than an hour away and clearly visible, some clouds started rolling in. It looked like it was raining at the cable car, but we thought with a little luck it would blow past us through the valley. 5 minutes later I was sure that cloud would, but the one coming in beside it was clearly coming straight for us. At first, this was quite neat, because you could see mists of cloud swirling around you as it got thicker and thicker. We were literally hiking through a cloud. But in a couple minutes it started getting even thicker. I lost site of Ulriken. Then the ridges around us. Then the cairns. 20 feet of visibility in any given direction. Then 10. Then the rain started.

We kept going the general direction we figured, and kept passing cairns every so often. But after a couple minutes it seemed like it had been an awfully long time since we'd seen one, and the trail was absolutely non-existent. I didn't figure that should be the case this close to one of the trail heads, so I double backed to find the cairn and see if I could spot the trail. Found the cairn. Did not find the trail. It seemed like it should have gone off just to the right, but all I could see was what seemed to be a straight drop off an awfully steep ridge. So I ran back to where John was waiting and we took our best guess that if we continued along what we thought was the ridge we had been following the whole time, we'd eventually get out of this mess.

Another 10 minutes and by now the wind was howling, the rain bigger and colder, and still no indication of a trail. It felt like the ridge was turning away from where we wanted to be, but we couldn't tell for sure. It is absolutely amazing how easily you can get disoriented when you can only see 10 feet in any direction, and we didn't figure we could even find our way back to the last cairn at this point. So we decided to hunker down and hope this passed over quickly, and managed to find a large rock that provided at least a little temporary shelter, except when the wind gusts shifted direction and blew rain straight in the side. I should clarify that we were traversing across the plateau of a mountain, and the only things up there were rock, grass, lakes, and marsh. We had no where to go and were thoroughly soaked after another 10 minutes.

Fortunately, the cloud cover (but not the rain and wind) let up for less than a minute, and we got a good 40 yard view in every direction, which was just long enough for John to spot a cabin about that far away. As the clouds blew in again, we headed straight for it and got on the downwind side just as the visibility disappeared again. Tried the door. Locked. But at least now we had some protection from the wind, and, well, we were as wet as we could get anyway.

I did some quick scouting to find windows around the other side, but again, they were locked. So we stood there. We began wondering whether we'd be able to see the lights from the cable car and restaurant once it got dark, but soon realized that was wishful thinking and that we were going to be standing there until this passed. Every minute or so a gust would come in sideways and soak and chill us all over again. We tried dumping water out of our shoes, but they were so soaked it was useless. It felt like I was standing in a puddle. A very cold one at that. I said I was waiting till 5 (it was 4 then, the storm had blown in about 3), then I was breaking a window and getting inside if I had to. By 4:15 we were starting to shiver and it showed no signs of letting up, and it started dawning on us how serious a situation this might be, so we gave up the wait and turned to a life of crime.

It's a strange feeling trying to break a window to get into someone's house. It's even stranger when the third and final pane simply won't break even after both of us tried, so we headed back to the somewhat sheltered side, but the stint on the exposed side had proven to be fatal. We were shivering uncontrollably at this point and had to get in. I've never been more determined to break something in my life as I ran back to the front, and 2 swings later we were through. Managed to fumble around and unlatch it, clear enough glass, then John boosted me up and in I went, only to find you needed a key to unlock the door even from the inside. Poor John had to climb in through the window unaided, but at that point, instinct and adreline were kicking in so it didn't seem to be a problem.

We stripped down and quickly found whatever dry towels, blankets and clothes we could, then stuff the open window with a couple pillows and settled in to figure out what to do next. Still shivering, we found a few candles and lit them to get some light and heat... not enough to dry out, but it at least got the feeling back in my fingers eventually. John managed to pick up a signal on his iphone occassionally and sent some text messages to friends and family back home trying to describe the situation and where we were, but at this point, we knew we were here until this cleared up. Every 10 minutes or so, the cloud cover would lift enough that we could see there was a lake outside, and eventually what we thought looked like a cairn in the distance, but it never lasted long enough to even warrant a try. We figured if this didn't let up by 8, it would be too late to get to the cable car before it shut down at 9, and that meant we were staying put for the night. I was pretty sure the weather forecast called for rain tomorrow, so for all we knew, it might be even longer. We had enough food to sit tight for a day, but no water, so thoughts of making a rain catch started entering in to my head.

We also used the time to figure out options for the rest of our trip on the assumption we were going to miss out 7:30AM bus in the morning, as well as crafting a very apologetic note to the owner of the cabin, complete with contact information and promises to pay for the damage. But at 6, the rain stopped, and gradually the clouds lifted until we finally figured this was as good a chance as we were going to get, and started getting ready to go. I can't tell you how cold that was putting those wet clothes back on. Worse than the beach in Helsinki. I was shivering again before we even started climbing out the window.

But when we got out, the sun had actually broken through a bit and we could see a cairn in the distance, and after setting off a brisk pace, we started to warm up and even began laughing at the predicament we had endured... thinking it was over. Ha!

A glance over the shoulder said no to that, and even after running it caught up to us and we were right back in it. We had about 30 feet of visibility this time, but had lost site of the restaurant and cairns again, so we were back to following what we thought was the ridge, and far enough along that we couldn't find our way back to the cabin if we needed. It was either get to the cable car, or find another cabin to break into it. There were several of those up there, but this trip was getting expensive enough without doing that again, so we kept pushing forward. It wasn't nearly as bad this time... the wind wasn't as fierce, and the visibility, though bad enough to get lost easily, was good enough that there wasn't the risk of stepping straight off a cliff before you knew it. And we could hear the cable cars by now. Except we couldn't tell where the sound was coming from because it bounced off rocks all around us. If anything, it was just frustrating to know we were that close, but still completely unsure of where to go.

Eventually the cloud cover lifted again though, and while it kept raining, we could at least see the radio tower we were heading for, and our spirits lifted from being able to see our destination. We were moving pretty quick, except for the odd stop for John to reply to a text message and let people know that we were OK now and to not send for help anymore. We were even sloshing straight through marshes because it was shorter than going around and we couldn't possibly get wetter or muddier anyway.

Things looked good until we hit a cliff. Man that was frustrating. We'd gone from knowing we were close but not being able to find our destination, to knowing where it was, but being unable to get to it. I was ready to scream. I think my language may finally have started getting colorful at this point too. Oops.

Long story short, we slowly and carefully worked our way down the cliff, fully convinced that one of us was going to slip and crack a skull open because that was just the way the day was going. To our surprise though, we managed to make it through with no more events. We walked into the kiosk looking and feeling like wet dogs, bought our tickets and headed down that mountain... at which point the sky's opened up and it was the sunniest it's been in 2 days. Go figure. Incidentally, Bergen was nice before, but it was stunning when the sun was shinning. Probably happens too rarely for me to want to move here though. John swears he's never even coming back :)

We managed to find a bus at the bottom and bought more tickets with our sopping wet norwegian crowns, and asked the bus driver to show us where the police station was on the way in so we could go turn ourselves in. Weren't really sure how that was going to go, and John starting the story with "we need to report a break and enter" probably didn't help :) But from what I'd heard of Scandanavian prisons, I figured at worst case this might turn out to be an upgrade on our hotel room anyway.

The police officer didn't seem to know what exactly to do with us, but he took our information and filled out a report, and then asked when we were leaving. "So, it's Voss tomorrow eh?" he said. We looked at each other, sure the next statement was going to be that we couldn't leave town until this was cleared up which was really going to screw up our plans. Instead we got:

"Have a pleasant trip."

I love Scandanavians man. I have never met a nicer, happier bunch of people. And I thought that for days before this. High taxes and all, they are doing something right here. Everything seems so clean, and all the people seem so well taken care of, healthy, and friendly. Of course, I haven't met the guy who's window I smashed today yet either... he might not be so much so now.

On to Voss tomorrow. I do hope for a pleasant trip. More pics enroute assuming my phone will power back on once it dries out.