Store Blåmann (29.09.2013)  

Before dragging my sleepy younger sister up this mountain I had already pre-warned her that this hike was a sort of ‘must’ so in some ways she was not overwhelmed by the prospect of a fairly steep walk. Siv and her friend Ingvild were also joining us so we picked them up at around 10.00. Were we the liveliest group of girls this morning? I think not. My sister declared that she was feeling even more tired after 12 hours in bed than she had been straight after arriving the previous day; I had spent most of the night coughing instead of sleeping, so was still pretty lethargic as well, and Siv had gone to bed at kl.5 after a night in the town. Maybe it was just Ingvild who was as fresh as a daisy this morning…..

Well, on the plus-side we took a really relaxed (bordering on slow) pace to start the trip. It had crossed my mind that the rock could be slippery and covered in frost today since some of the road had been a little icy when I had gone for a little walk earlier in the morning, but fortunately the mountain turned out to be surprisingly dry and that was a relief. I don’t think Store Blåmann would have been the friendliest choice of trip to take my sister up for her first real hike in Tromsø if the rock had been icy. I also got the impression she wasn’t fully appreciating the exercise and scenery today since she was pretty quiet and didn’t say much. More or less the same behavior as I have observed from my mum and my other sister when they have been on some walks with me….. Despite that I still remained hopeful that once we got nearer to the more interesting scrambling part of the trip she might begin to look and feel less uninspired!

We decided to take a lunch break about halfway up. Siv, Ingvild and I were feeling hungry by then and it seemed like a good opportunity to sit and enjoy the views over Kaldfjord. It didn’t actually end up being much of a lunch break since there was a chilly little breeze every now and then. So we carried on upwards towards the slabby part where it can sometimes be quite damp and wet. There was the odd varde around and they by some fortunate coincidence, followed more of a drier route across the slabs so it was worth looking out for them.

Pretty busy day on Store Blåmann today, quite a few groups of people we met after our lunch stop (mainly because they were going faster and passing us) including a shorts-føre group, some Swedes and another group of girls. The standard well-worn route was particularly sandy today, I guess because it had been dry weather for some days. Not so nice for walking down really. But away from the sand the rock was good fun to scramble on. Probably about halfway between our lunch stop and the summit, Christina was looking pretty worn out and I was starting to have a bad conscience for getting her out on a trip today. I did ask her if she wanted to carry on but I got a bit of a grumpy reply so thought I would leave her to tell me when she’d had enough instead of asking her….

Fortunately we weren’t all that far from the top and the sandy stuff was behind us now, so she kept going at her own pace. Finally she made it all the way there though, and we were greeted the nice views across Kvaløya and the sea in the north. Siv and Ingvild were already quite comfortably sat down by the varde and were taking pictures when we met them there. I felt quite proud that Christina had not quit even though I could tell she was really feeling worn out, and I think she was glad she hadn’t quit either (in her own words, ‘I’m not a giver-upper’). The views had been worth the effort after all then :-) And of course the scrambling. She admitted it had been good, but she might have appreciated and enjoyed the scrambling a bit more had she been in better form today. Sounded like a good excuse to come back for another visit to Tromsø!

We had a good break at the top with some white hot chocolate and a little extra food. It was fortunately not particularly chilly, and actually less windy than it had been on our way up. Wouldn't be needing those down jackets we'd taken up with us after all then. We ended up taking a slightly different route down by walking a more towards the southeast from the top. Amusing to recognize that this was actually the same route as that I used the first time I’d been up the mountain, because I remembered we had to crawl through a neat little tunnel. I thought that added a fun taste to the trip :-) Rest of the way down was a little irritating at times with the loose and sandy path but that was easily avoided. Other than that it was more or less a walk-in-the-park after passing the slabby part halfway down the mountain. I was pleased we’d done the trip, and I think everyone else enjoyed it too.