Norway (Part 3)

In the third and final installment of our thrilling series on my trip to Norway, we find out what we did on the Saturday. Did we survive, or am I writing this from beyond the grave? Read on to find out….

On the Saturday we got up at about 5:30, had breakfast and went down to the harbour to catch the ferry which sails up the Lysefjord. We got a bit of a guided tour as we passed under the pulpit rock which we had been to the day before and headed up the fjord to a place called Lysebotten. When we were close to Lysebotten we passed the highest mountain in the Fjord, called Kjerag. This was the mountain we were here to climb.

The mountain is 1110 meters high and is one of the favourite places for BASE jumpers from all over the world. These guys and girls strap on a parachute and take a run and jump over the edge.

While we were at the bottom, in the boat we saw half a dozen jumping from the highest part, free fall for 15 seconds, look like it was too late to pull the cord and then out came the parachute and they drifted safely to the bottom. It was exciting for the people in the boat, never mind those doing it.

Anyway, we took a bus up the edge of the mountain along a very alpine like, James Bond chase scene road and it dropped us at the beginning of the walk up Kjerag. It was a 5 hour round trip walk and if we missed the bus back we would miss the ferry and have to sleep at the bottom of the mountain.

The walk in was tough, we had to pull ourselves up the more “cliffy” parts by holding on to chains. The views were excellent though.

When we were about 3/4 of the way up we saw this guy strapping himself into a brightly coloured flight suit which had little wings underneath the arms and legs.

He got himself ready, moved to the side a little, composed himself then turned round and dived straight off the edge of the cliff (that yellow thing jumping off the cliff? That’s him, you can click the picture to make it bigger)

He disappeared and was nowhere to be seen for about 15 secs and then suddenly re-appeared using his wing suit to FLY across the fjord. He was flying relatively horizontally and until he got above the field/campsite in the picture below and then he pulled his parachute and 10 seconds later was on the ground. In the picture if you really squint, you can see a yellow spot flying over the sea about 1000m below. That’s him.

We carried on up the mountain to our goal, the famous Kjerag Bolt. This is a large boulder which has fallen into a crevasse at the top of the mountain. The boulder is roughly 2m by 2m and the drop either side is 1000m. Of course, the main attraction is to go and stand on it.

I was determined to go and stand on it, but I have to admit, when I was about to put my foot on it, I just couldn’t move. I was too feared. This is as close as I got and this was the view I saw…

Some people were a bit braver through…

We decided that having a nice sandwich was a better idea than standing on what we nick-named the “Rock of Death”, so we went to the plateau close by and had enjoyed the view.

It was a tough walk back and we only made it with 10 mins to spare. We slept most of the ferry and bus back to Stavanger, had a sauna again back at the hotel and then flew back to Stockholm the next day.