Norge Midt section 1: Sulitjelma to Umbukta

In July and August 2023, I hiked for four straight weeks and 825 km in Norway between Sulitjelma, County Nordland and As i Tydal, County Trondelag. I broke the route down into four sections based on time criteria with the associated part-day break and resupply. This is the story of my first week on the trail when I walked from Sulitjelma town to the Umbukta mountain lodge.

Sulitjelma is a tiny mining town in a most typical Norwegian location, the narrow flat strip by the lake that fills the valley bottom. At 67 degrees north, it’s about half a degree beyond the Arctic Circle. I arrived there in the early evening of a Saturday on the bus from the coastal town Bodo, where I had landed earlier in the day on a flight from Oslo.

It was dark grey above with rain in the forecast but with two hut options within easy reach, I started hiking right away, not without pigging out for one last time in the local grocery. It’d be one full week before I could do that again.

It started raining a few minutes after departure and I had my first crash with the Norwegian weather and with my decision making. Instead of donning the full set of rain gear, I was lazy enough to trust the rain would not be too heavy and wore only my poncho, trying also to keep cool on the long ascent from the valley floor. It’d have probably been good enough if I had only hiked the 4 km to the nearest hut but I also decided to keep going one additional hour to a smaller, more remote shelter. I was fortunate the trail was well signed because the mist got real thick at times.

I arrived in Lomihytta wet, cold and rather pissed off with the experience as well as relieved to be there and actually find the hut! It wasn’t straightforward in the low visibility conditions, even  with GPS help.

Lomihytta was small and simple but up to Norwegian comfort standards and it saved my mood for the rest of the day. I went to sleep hoping the following day would be clearer.

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Next morning, it was still overcast, dark grey but it wasn’t raining and the cloud had shifted enough to clear the ground except for the hilltops. Not the most encouraging conditions but technically fine. Off to my first full hiking day of the trip.

South of Lomi, the route goes across the paradigm highland section where the actual trail is barely visible on the ground. I keep thinking how much hard work it’d be in the low visibility conditions of the previous evening. No matter the views, I’m glad to be back in the company of the this old friend that’s the DNT¹ marker, I’m about to spend one month following it.

The route goes down to the headwaters of the same valley I departed from in a couple of spots where I meet the birch trees and a DNT hut each time. I go past and keep going as far as I reasonably can for a first full hiking day aiming for a moorland camp overlooking Ballvatnet even though the smooth relief makes the lake barely noticeable.

My mood is as grey as the weather but I’m well aware how important it is to be here, doing this and I’m happy.

Next morning and everything is just the same. It probably helps the fact that, by mid-late July in these latitudes, nighttime is a very loose concept.

The route leaves the open ground around Ballvatnet to go across a saddle and down a valley. it’s easy walking in the low vegetation. For a while, the cloud feels thinner but this won’t last and it’ll soon go back to full greyness.

Going down and into the lush green is very bad news: the vegetation multiplies its weight in water and I soon am seriously soaked from the knees down, very wet up to waist height. You couldn’t move without brushing on something that immediately releases insane amounts of water and it all feels very uncomfortable. The river views are beautiful though.

I’m so wet I have this perfect excuse to plan for a hut night. The idea is a good fit as I’ll conveniently meet one of the DNT huts by the end of the hiking day. It wouldn’t be at all easy to find a place to camp in this valley without a hand reaper anyway. The nice thing is that the simple prospect of a comfy night in a dry place makes the trudge through the wet world much more bearable and my spirits lift accordingly.

Oddly enough, lower down the valley, the vegetation is far less wet, quickly transitioning into mostly dry and by the time I reach the Trygvebu hut my clothes are back to normal-dryish. Feet are still wet but that’s to be expected.

Trygvebu is a front-country DNT hut with a dirt road and a farm nearby. It even has wired electricity. On a Monday night, a few other hikers are already installed and the fireplace is going. It’ll be a very nice stay.

The following morning, I finally see the sun for the first time since arrival in Norway. Living in inland Spain, I tend to feel about sunny days as routine and I welcome the cloudy ones, urban life being more forgiving than the constant exposure of the hiking life. Out there in Norway though, this sunny spell really lifts my spirits.

I eventually exit the valley onto Junkerdalen, a main east-west corridor where I cross my first road, the Swedish border just a few km east. There’s also the Graddis Fjellstue² where I’d had pictured a possible coffee & cake run but, even though the place is certainly open for business, I see nobody around, no signs and no open doors so I skip the plan. I sometimes wonder when the high season is in these locations.

Junkerdalen drains into Lonsdalen, the main north-south thoroughfare, further north but the route cuts across high ground, offering great views of the Saltfjellet mountains to the west before coming down to the main valley holding the E6 road and the railway track for the Trondheim-Bodo line.

I could have taken a train here for a resupply in nearby Rognan but after only 3 days on the trail it never felt worth the likely long wait for a service and most possible need for an overnight stay in town. Once across Lonsdal, I start climbing into Saltfjellet and the highest area in my prospect, month-long route under increasingly cloudy skies. I stop for the night before the grass/rock ratio gets too low in what would be one of the most beautiful camps in the trip.

The following morning, the clouds are broken and I can see some blue sky. I resume the hiking in a magnificent scenario.

The pass area is just under 1100 m high, a long, flat traverse where the light cooperates for some great images so let me share several in a row:

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Down on the other side, the route enters Saltfjellet proper but it doesn’t aim for the peaks and icefields to the west, instead turning south along a valley where it meets the birch trees and the increasingly powerful Kjempaelva, which it crosses twice over hanging bridges.

The trail leaves the valley floor to cut again across high ground where the hiking is much easier. The fair weather helps with the exposure and the light helps with the pictures.

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I hike on aware of the proximity of the Polar Circle line but not knowing if it’ll be somehow marked. Not only it is but the dry, grassy bits in the area are perfect for a camp as it is the timing so after 38 km of the most scenic hiking in perfect weather, I pitch my tent one last time north of the magic line.

After the due sleep time, I do this symbolic thing that’s going across the Polar Circle on foot and I can verify that nothing happens. Then the route takes me back down to the main valley where I meet the E6 and the railway tracks one last time. The thin cloud cover in the early morning has turned into thicker but broken clouds so it’s often nice and sunny on the ground.

The following highland section is very nice and easy walking over short, dry grass. The Swedish border, a topography-agnostic, odd straight line, is just a couple of km east as the crow would fly.

A short-lived rainy spell puts some value into the upcoming hut on the shore of Virvatnet but the clouds brake and by the time I get there it’s only light grey overcast.

Come down to the lake area, I meet my first mosquito hell of the trip. The route climbs up from the lake but not enough to escape the biting crowd unless I hike well into my discomfort zone so after 37 km I try to find a compromise between protection from the elements and a mosquito-wiping breeze and pitch my tent. It will be a moderately scenic but uncomfortable camp until I come inside.

Broken clouds and sunny spells again to start the following day, alternating later with overcast skies as I cross a not-too-high but rocky, lake-filled saddle.

In the afternoon, clearings get bigger but so do clouds, with vertical developments that forecast thunderstorms. Indeed, as I’m having my lunch stop, I hear thunder and quickly resume the hiking. I still have a high pass to go over before day’s end.

No matter the weather, for this upcoming night, last in this first section, I had set my mind on the Sauvas hut complex, conveniently located close enough to section’s end to have a short final day. High altitude, lakeside, it looked like it’d be a scenic place to spend the night. With this prospect, I didn’t get too angry with the weather when localized showers started building and moving around. It was actually nice to see the rain from a close distance.

It was a matter of time that one of these met my course and it did so around the pass area but it never was a big dump and the mix of rain and clearings provided for some nice lights.

By the time I arrived in the hut area, I was almost dry, not really needing to be indoors but I still couldn’t feel other than great about the choice for the overnight. The place was indeed a beautiful one to be:

I made myself comfortable in the small hut. The sky cleared and the temperature dipped, which only made the fireplace more welcoming.

I had to stay up until late but I got the sunset.

The next day starts foggy in Sauvatnet but it should be an easy day nevertheless, 12 downhill km where I expect a decent trail. By the time I leave the hut, the cloud has shifted enough to clear the ground and what I see is beautiful.

By mid-morning, I get the E12 road and the Umbukta Fjellstue, from where I don’t plan on moving until the following morning no matter how nice and sunny the weather could possibly get. I deserve the break.

Umbukta is nice as well as rather small and no frills, very far from the size and relative luxury of other mountain lodges I had gone through in previous trips. It’s a Saturday and the place is super quiet. Once again, I wonder whether the high season is sometime else or this is it.

Whatever the buzz, I have the priorities clear: feed, find my food drop, get clean, feed again, relax, feed some more. The box I packed and sent away one week earlier upon arrival in Bodo is indeed waiting for me. Nothing else could go wrong.

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The menu is far from complex and I go for two rounds, lunch and dinner, of the same burger. I’m proud to say I downed it all both times.

It was a nice stay where I also met a couple of NPL³ northbound thru-hikers and had the chance to talk trail. First section was over and I was feeling fine, both physical and mentally. Good times, I love my half-day breaks.

 

1. Den Norske Turistforening, the Norwegian Hiking Association
2. mountain lodge
3. Norge Pa Langs