Starting Sognefjellsvegen

I slept with the window open and got plenty of fresh air. The departure of a couple of tour buses heralded my return to consciousness. The watch claimed eight hours of good sleep, which was good because I’d need every scrap of energy today: I had to climb 870 meters up, along 10 kilometers of road. That’s about 3000 feet of ascent in a little over 6 miles.

But before the hard part, I had a couple of easy miles following a river. I passed a grand waterfall called Åsafossen, a lake called Eidsvatnet, and a couple of kiosks that proudly declared a philosopher named Ludwig Wittgenstein had lived in the area:

(As an aside, check out this blog entry about AI slop and bots and the future of the internet, from the Ludwig Wittgenstein Project site. Kind of refreshing.)

Not sure what this is about. Probably related to Wittgenstein?

In a few miles I beheld the Fortun Church. Very pretty! Just beyond it was the beginning of the very steep part of my route. I poked a map in case there was a café and the “Fortunsdalen Besøkssenter kafe” came up, but alas it was closed. The only thing I could do was make a right turn and begin ascending the mountain.

Google Maps describes this highway (Sognefjellsvegen) as “The National Tourist Route: A steep, narrow road from Luster to Lom, passing lakes, snowfields, and craggy mountain peaks.” And I can attest, that’s pretty dang accurate.

At the first turnout, probably 500 feet up from the valley, I stopped to rest my knees and eat a snack.

Looking over the railing at the town where I’d been a few hours ago, I realized I could see the same church. Now I was seeing it from above, between shoulders of mountain dusted with snow, on a road that I had been climbing all morning and would continue to climb all day.

“Wait a second,” I thought… “This is one of those experiences I said I was greedy for, when I made that list. I’m actually here. I can actually cross something off that list.”

I found that astonishing, and beyond that I was also astonished that I remembered the list, which I’d written over seven years ago. I could still remember the moment: I’d been soaking in a bathtub back home in Oakland, after a long workday in a long procession of workdays, asking myself “How did I get here? How did I get from being content with what I’ve already done, to being desperate for something more?”

It’s funny – in a grim kind of way – that seven years later I’m on a bike trip mostly because my job wasn’t right for me. Not the work itself, but the job: The conditions of the employment. The flexibility to travel really is that important to me, apparently. I hungered for it then and I still do now.

A car pulled in next to me and three older people got out. Two of them posed at the railing while the third took their photo. I volunteered to take a photo with all three, and they gratefully accepted.

The oldest of them asked a few friendly questions in halting English about my bike and my trip, then pointed at his friends and said, “These are from Kirkenes. On the border with Russia. They have never been here to see the mountain park.”

“Oh,” I said. “Are they from Finland?”

He shook his head, then gestured for me to look at his phone. He opened a map and scrolled it north. There, at the very end of the skinny tail of Norway, was a chunk of border that reached over the top of Sweden and Finland and connected directly with Russia. I had no idea the two shared a border.

I told the man so, and he smiled, then made a kind of grimace and glanced at his friends. “They are worried about war with Russia. I am showing them other places; maybe they will move.”

I nodded, and said a few sympathetic things. He shook my hand, then they all bundled into the car and continued down the mountain.

Up, up, up I went, swapping between podcasts and my Norway/Sweden playlist. The looming clouds threatened rain but didn’t quite deliver, for which I was grateful.

In many places, the road didn’t bother switching back to keep the grade reasonable, and just plowed straight up the mountainside. On one of these I had an odd encounter with some sheep:

It looks like there’s one sheep braver than the others, and it’s leading the rest of the flock down the side of the mountain in search of fresher grass. Where would they end up? Who can say.

Meanwhile, I kept going up, and up. I embraced a habit of holding the brake with my left hand and grabbing the guardrail with my right, so I could take a breather without climbing off the bike — always an awkward maneuver on steep hills.

Progress was very slow, but I had nothing to do except climb. The only choice I could make was between resting my knees and using them some more, so I concentrated on balancing that. I was glad I had plenty of podcasts to catch up on, and enough cell coverage to trade little notes with family and friends.

We have funny ways of mixing being totally alone, and always connected, in this wacky modern world…

In the late evening I reached a little spot called “The Four Waterfalls”:

Another hundred feet upward I could see a bend in the road with a hotel. I wanted to get indoors and maybe find some dinner, but I carefully avoided rushing.

The mist was swirling as I parked and went inside…

The clerk at reception couldn’t find my reservation. I looked in through my notes, then through my emails… Oh dear; this wasn’t the hotel I booked at. The hotel I needed was another 2000 feet up the mountain!

I told the clerk about my error, and she went poking at her computer again. “Our rooms are fully booked for a wedding, but you can stay in the hostel. If anyone asks just say you’re with the wedding party.”

I gratefully booked and paid for a hostel bed. “I don’t suppose your restaurant is still open?”

“No, we closed an hour ago, but let me check something…” She walked into the back, towards the sound of clanging pots and pans. A minute later she emerged. “We still have soup! I can heat you up some.”

And so, I sat in the lobby of the hotel, next to some canoodling wedding guests, and devoured a bowl of fish soup and a couple of rolls. Twenty bucks was a lot for soup but I was grateful to have it.

I also called the other hotel and left a message, saying that even though I’d booked two days I would only be arriving for the second one. They pointed out that they had a tough cancellation policy where I still owed them 70% of the cost of the room even if I didn’t show up, and I shrugged and said I didn’t have a choice. To keep pedaling as it got darker and colder would be dangerous.

The hostel bed turned out to be a bunk bed in its own room, so I had more privacy than I expected. I sipped a root beer I’d been carrying since Balestrand and poked at photos for a while. My schedule had tomorrow labeled as a day off, but now I would need to keep my legs moving to reach the “actual” hotel and stay on schedule. I felt embarrassed: I don’t usually mix up map markers or confuse locations, and this was the second day in a row of that. Arrr!