Pete joins Manon Carpenter on an exploratory mission into the hills above Nesbyen with the Any Excuse to Ride Norway gang.
Under a scorching Norwegian sun, Will from Any Excuse to Ride plus Klara and Nora take Pete and Manon Carpenter for a mission into the hills to explore some trails he’s been meaning to check out for a while.
Photos by Pete Scullion.
In time-honoured tradition, and with the legs feeling more than a little sleepy from a week of exploring the best Hallingdal had to offer on a bicycle, Will from Any Excuse to Ride took us for a magical mystery exploratory lap to round out the last full day of our trip.
With bikes loaded into the trailer behind the trusty Any Excuse to Ride Defender and Bartek at the wheel, we are lucky to gain the lion’s share of the height without having to turn a pedal. The other option would be several hours of tarmac and then gravel roads to our drop off point.
As the gravel road fizzles out, and the signs that read ‘Private Veg’ give us a good chuckle, we forget to tall hop out of the Defender and groan on aching legs as we feel the heat of the day hit us for the first time. Time to get something between ourselves and the Norwegian summer sun, namely some kids’ factor 50 sun cream.
Not long after being told by some old boy that they ‘want to keep bikes on the other side of the mountain’, we exercise our right to crack on. The going here is slow, very slow. We’re out of the wind, so the sweat is soon leaking as we start to climb away from the red painted huts in the valley below.
We’re soon with bikes on our backs as the bog myrtle, bilberry bushes and some other hard-barked plants make the trail ahead hard to make out, the tough stems grabbing at our feet and hacking at our shins. It’s a heads down, keep plodding away affair but we’re rewarded soon enough with some level ground where only lichen remains.
Something moving on the trail ahead catches my eye, we’ve been chatting about moose and elk all week, so I’m pretty sure it’s one of these… but no… it’s a bull reindeer that’s happily trotting down the trail towards us. It’s not all that easy to tell if he’s coming to see us off or just curious, but he gets close enough that we start getting pretty wary, and make sure Nora is kept close.
Heavy legs are forgotten for a moment as nobody can quite believe what we’ve just seen. The reindeer bull happily trots away after sniffing us on the wind, following another track over the hill and away he goes. It takes a while for that experience to sink in.
We top out on almost a mirror image of the valley below, just without the huts and just one fishing shack at the head of the lake that sits in the bowl below. We’re skirting around its edge to get to the next kick where we’ll start to climb to Hallingdal’s highest point, Hallingnatten that sits at 1314m above the sea.
It’s not long before we’re faced with a steep kick onto the summit approach ridge and with the heat rising all the time, the small ponds and lakes that litter these hills are becoming more and more inviting with every passing second. Granite chunks start to make the steepening trail that little bit more awkward, and it’s another heads down affair as we gain height fast once more.
Nora is doing a fantastic job of keeping everyone together before darting off the front with all the speed in the World until someone slows and starts to drop off the back. With the summit in sight, we’re all looking forward to a well-earned lunch.
Almost as soon as the buzz of the first reindeer encounter was waning, Will shouts and points behind me. Coming over the brow is arguably the largest land animal besides a moose I’m likely to see in the wild. A full grown bull reindeer with the most magnificent set of antlers comes trotting along the trail.
We genuinely didn’t think we’d get a better sighting than the first reindeer, or see any others, and this beast was quite happy to sit and stand on the ridge some fifteen feet away from us as we munched on our sandwiches. He was happy just chewing away on the dry, crispy lichen that makes up much of their diet. It’s hard to overstate just how amazing an experience this was. We’re very much aware that these are wild animals though, so do our best to keep our distance.
With a suitable quantity of fuel on board, and our legs having very much gone to sleep, we’re now left with the prospect of a hefty descent, it must be downhill from the region’s highest point, no? With some advice from local legend Ove, we decide to stick to the higher of the two trails that will get us where we need to go.
We’ve a bailout option if we need it, but after the first big descent, the plan is to climb again past the only stone cabins in Nesbyen, they’re usually made of wood, before bagging another big descent into the valley. We’ll find out if we’ve time enough to add the extras once we get what’s ahead out of the way.
The high ridge turns out to be a solid choice, with some firm, well-defined singletrack undulating along the tops. It’s fast going for now and we’re still only in lichen country, so there’s no plants to grab at our bikes and hack at our shins.
Out of the wind once again, the heat starts to rise to serious sweat levels as we’re carving perfect turns through the bright, off-green lichen and slowly losing out height. Nora is stoked to be moving fast again as she shows us the way far faster than any of us can ride a bike. Surely the fastest trail dog I have ever witnessed.
Punchy climbs are the only thing interrupting the flow but it gives us the opportunity to inspect some very impressive dropped reindeer antlers on the way. Sadly they’re not going to fit in the luggage for the way home, or on our packs for that matter. A good six or seven kilos apiece they’d easily punt us over the baggage limit anyhow.
From here on out its definitely preferable not to ride too close to someone’s back wheel as I find out to my peril more than once. The trail is barely three tyre widths wide and the flora is hiding whatever lies in the fringes, following too close means I miss everything coming and have to go evasive on more occasions that I’d have liked.
As the we approach the gravel road that marks the end of this particular descent, the nadge level sky rockets. The ground mellows out and we can see all the way back to the summit we came from. Square edges start showing themselves everywhere and the rock on this side of the hill is sharp and unforgiving. Nora isn’t happy as the group breaks up but nobody wants to fix a puncture at this late stage.
With time dragging on and some very tired legs, we opt to cut the day short here and roll down the gravel road back to Nesbyen. We’ll be back to complete the full circuit one day on fresh legs for sure. Thankfully the singletrack descent has taken us down a good chunk of the vertical, so we’re not losing much by heading home now, but we’ve got a good reason to come back for another go.
