The Active Vacation Planner - Norway - page 63

• Trekking the Fjords: Two respected U.S.-based outfitters, Borton
Overseas ( & 800/843-0602; www.bortonoverseas.com) and Five
Stars of Scandinavia ( & 800/722-4126; www.5stars-of-scandinavia.
com), offer 7- and 8-day treks through Norway, designed to acquaint
you with the country's heritage and its thousands of scenic wonders.
Amid the cliffs and waterfalls of the fjords, you can participate in
point-to-point guided treks that average around 24km (15 miles) per
day. En route you'll visit wooden churches, mountain hamlets, and, in
some cases, snowfields and slow-moving glaciers. Depending on your
budget and your tastes, overnight accommodations range from first-
class hotels to simple mountain huts favored by rock climbers and
many trekkers.
• Bicycling in the Lofoten Islands: Some of the weirdest and most iso-
lated tundra and lichen-covered rock formations in Norway lie within
the Lofoten archipelago, north of the Arctic Circle.
Berkeley, California-based Backroads Travel ( & 800/GO-ACTIVE;
www.backroads.com) conducts 6-day hiking-and-biking (they refer to
them as “multisport”) tours of the isolated archipelago at least twice
a year, during July and August, with an emphasis on ecology and
natural beauty. Washington state-based Five Stars of Scandinavia
( & 800/722-4126; www.5stars-of-scandinavia.com) offers compara-
ble tours and tends to be cheaper than Backroads. Both operators
house their participants in simple mountain huts and lodges.
• Going on a Moose Safari: Norway's largest animal, the moose, can
weigh up to 600 kilograms (1,323 lb.). These forest dwellers are shy
toward people and best spotted at night. If you'd like to go on a
moose safari, contact Daesbekken Villmarksenter in Finneskogen
( & 62-95-48-57; www.villmarksenter.hm.no), east of Oslo, near the
Swedish border. Individual visitors can arrange tours from July to Sep-
tember; otherwise, it's strictly group bookings.
depending on your point of view. Five Stars will rent you a cottage for as short a
period as 1 night, although we recommend a minimum stay of 3 nights to best
appreciate this offbeat adventure.
One of the most qualified fishing outfitters in Bergen spends part of its time
delivering food, tools, and spare parts to the thousands of fishermen who make
their living in boats and isolated fjords along the western coast of Norway.
Camperlen, P.O. Box 11, Strandkaien 2, N-5083 Bergen ( & 55-32-34-72 ),
and its president and founder, Captain Dag Varlo, will take between two and
four passengers on deep-sea fishing excursions in the teeming seas off the coun-
try's western coast. Although his boats go out in all seasons, midsummer is the
most appealing because of the extended daylight hours. Most avidly pursued are
codfish, valued as a “good-eating” fish, and a local species known as saet, prized
for its fighting properties as a game fish. (They range anywhere from 3-22 lb.