I did this trip with some friends during the EISCAT workshop being held in Tromso. Since there was an afternoon free without any seminars or talks and the weather was forecasted to be warm and amzing all week, we were all psyched up for doing a mountain hike, especially since the three of us had climbed and summited Mont Blanc together only a few weeks earlier.
Hamperokken was our destination of desire, and we managed to convince a few other workshop friends to join us too, which was also quite handy because they had a car after having driven from Sodankyla in Finland to Tromso.
It was quite an unpleasant start to try and get up and out of the forest and at times too unenjoyable to want to carry on with the hike, especially since the temperature was in the 20s and there were lots of midges around trying to eat us all the time! Fortunately my friends Hanna and Dan were in much better mood and somehow put up with my angry face and complaining! The determination paid off though, and soon we were finally out and above the forest, and on nice solid, open hillside. Rocks are so much nicer to walk on - and we had our first views of the day too!
So, once we reached the shoulder of the ridge we got our first sight of Hamperokken soaring into the sky at the far end of the ridge. Here our Finnish friends were not so confident about continuing the rest of the hike to the summit and decided they would depart. The three of us who remained set off for the unknown.... it was spectacular scenery all the way, with warm rock to touch. So enjoyable! It was also quite exciting too because none of us had been here and there was a little bit of route-finding to do, to keep us on the right track. But once we reached the foot of the final summit cone, it was an obvious line of ascent and some great scrambling to reach the rocks at the top. There was a bit of scree and other loose rocks here and there, but all in all, it didn't seem too dangerous......
The views were really just so jaw-dropping. I think all of us could have sat up on the top of the mountain for the rest of the night just to gaze at the wonderful landscape around us, but we didn't. We made our way carefully back down, and kept the concentration up all the way back to the start of the ridge before finally taking a deep breath and relaxing once more. From here it should only be a simple descent straight back down the mountainside on easy terrain and through the woods after all. Actually it was mostly straightforward but with a few puzzles to work out, mostly involving trying to figure the best way out of the forest and also where we had ended up, since we had clearly ended up at the road at a different place to where we started. We also didn't know where our friends were waiting for us either. It turned out they had not been off the mountain for long either though, so at least they hadn't been waiting for too long!
It was a fine fine day out on the mountain, our objectives had been accomplished and we were all very happy indeed! But very hungry too because we didn't bring a dinner with us and now it was about 11pm - and we still had a workshop session to go to in the morning. Some sleep and food was definitely required, and urgently too!
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