Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Hiking
Norway has some of Europe's best hiking, including a network of around 20,000km of
marked trails that range from easy strolls through the green zones around cities, to long
treks through national parks and wilderness areas. Many of these trails are maintained by
Den Norske Turistforening and are marked either with cairns or red Ts at 100m or 200m
intervals.
ThehikingseasonrunsroughlyfromlateMaytoearlyOctober,withamuchshortersea-
soninthehighermountainareasandthefarnorth.Inthehighlands,thesnowoftenremains
untilJuneandreturnsinSeptember,meaningthatmanyroutesareonlypossibleinJulyand
August.
Hiking Resources
Den Norske Turistforening (DNT; Norwegian Mountain Touring Club; 22 82 28
22;
www.turistforeningen.no
;
Storgata 7, Oslo)
is the Norwegian hiker's best friend and
it's an important resource for anyone heading out on the trail. Its various chapters maintain
a network of around 460 staffed and unstaffed mountain huts and lodges throughout the
country. For more details,
Click here
.
If you're going to do lots of hiking, it's certainly worth joining DNT - annual member-
ship for adults/19-26-year-olds/students/seniors costs Nkr530/295/295/410, with reduced
rates for school-age children and family members of DNT members. Membership entitles
you to seven
Fjell og Vidde
magazines as well as discounted rates at DNT huts; the
DNT
Yearbook
costs an extra Nkr50. DNT also sells hiking maps and topographic sheets (
Click
here
).
There are many excellent hiking books. Erling Welle-Strand's 1993
Mountain Hiking
in Norway
includes itineraries, sketch maps and details on huts. More recent is Constance
Roos'
Walking in Norway
(2003)and
Walks and Scrambles in Norway
byAnthonyDyeret
al (2006). A good choice for avid hikers is
Norwegian Mountains on Foot
by DNT, which
is the English edition of the Norwegian classic
Til Fots i Fjellet
.
Hiking Routes
The list of possibilities for hiking in Norway is almost endless, but if we had to list our top
10, it would be the following:
»
Jotunheimen National Park
(see the boxed text,
Click here
) The doyen of Norwegian
hiking destinations, with countless routes and incomparable high country.
»
Rondane National Park
(
Click here
) Less-crowded trails than those of Jotunheimen,
but arguably as beautiful.
»
Hardangervidda Plateau
(see the boxed texts,
Click here
and
Click here
)Trails criss-
cross this magnificent plateau, the home of reindeer.
