Ridges in layers: four days on the plateau
A hut-to-hut loop across a high Norwegian plateau in early September, with ridge after ridge fading into blue.
Early September is my favourite time to hike in the Norwegian mountains. The summer crowds have gone, the first frosts have turned the dwarf birch red and gold, and the nights are finally dark again. This year I spent four days on a loop across a high plateau, staying in mountain huts and carrying little more than a camera, a sleeping bag liner and too much chocolate.
The route itself is not difficult: well-marked paths, cairns every hundred metres, and long stretches of open, rocky upland with lakes scattered everywhere. What makes it special is the view. From almost any high point you see ridge after ridge receding into the distance, each one a little paler and bluer than the last.
That layered effect is just atmosphere. The further away a hill is, the more air, moisture and dust sits between it and you, and that air scatters blue light and lowers the contrast. Painters have used it for centuries to show depth. For photographs it works best with the sun low and somewhere in front of you, slightly to one side, and with a longer lens to compress the layers together.
On the second morning I woke at five in a hut on the edge of a long valley. The forecast promised high pressure, so I made tea and walked twenty minutes up to a rocky knoll above the hut. The valley below was full of cloud. As the sun came up, the ridges caught the light one by one, pink first and then gold, while the cloud between them stayed in cold blue shadow. I took about two hundred frames in forty minutes and kept maybe five.
Evenings were quieter. After dinner in the huts people tend to sit by the windows with maps, swapping notes on tomorrow's route. I would usually slip out for the last light with a jacket and a thermos. On the third evening a full moon rose over the snowfields to the east just as the sky turned deep blue, and for a few minutes the snow and the moon were the only bright things in the landscape.
A few practical notes. Weather on the plateau changes fast; I had sunshine, sleet and fog within a single afternoon. The huts are excellent but busy at weekends, so I planned the longest walking days for Saturday and Sunday and reached the popular huts mid-week. And I left the heavy tripod at home and brought a small travel one instead, a decision my shoulders thanked me for every single day.
I came home with sore feet and a memory card full of blue and grey ridges. I am already planning next September.