Milton actually had to set an alarm last night (to ensure timely arrival for today’s glacier climb); how barbaric. Packed picnic lunch from the breakfast buffet offerings (augmented by some sliced turkey as a special request) and met Elisit and Jorgen, a Norweigan couple in their mid 50s who would be the only other members of the expedition.
We drove about 45 minutes, the last 15 over roads that made me quite glad we were in a rental car, and then walked for about 20 minutes to get to the equipment place. Met up with Ase, our guide, and got fitted with a helmut, crampons, a harness and an ice-axe, then hiked about 90 minutes to the base of the glacier. Pretty fun walking up and around on the ice; the crampons make one feel that like walking up a wall would be easy. Didn’t really need the axe, just the point on the bottom of the handle to serve as a walking stick, though it was pretty cool to swing it around and chop some ice every now and then.
When we were pretty high up, some clouds rolled in the valley below and it was neat to watch them just envelope us. For those moments when the visability was then virtually nil, it was fun to imagine being in some remote arctic locale, since I could see only three people, bundled in winter outfits,out on an ice field, and nothing else. Trooped around, with all of us tied to a long rope in case of slips, for a few hours, ate our picnic lunches sitting on rough-textured styrofoam pads on the glacier, took lots of pictures, then climbed back down, disassembled and hiked back.
Had hours of very nice conversation with Jorgen, a hospital administrator from Oslo, who has 4 children (his first wife died of breast cancer in 1990). He and Elisit are married, but have known each other since kindergarden, and have been friends since. She’s a pharmacist specializing in epilepsy, has 3 kids, and all their kids grew up together. Sort of a Nordic Brady Bunch, but the kids are mostly adults now.
Meanwhile, Wendy luxuriated in her privacy and freedom by repacking, soaking in a hot tub, enjoying the lunchtime salad buffet and reading.
We then relaxed, went to the cafe for dinner, and enjoyed a very simple meal, our favorite! We each partook of the salad bar (not like home, but the hand-crushed corn chips substituted smashingly for croutons, and who would have thought to put a few pearl onions in a salad?), and dined on a shared baked potato, a grilled chicken breast in a pool of bar-b-que sauce, and a french onion soup. Then we retired upstairs for the evening, to enjoy another beautiful Nordic sunset over the fjord and snow-capped mountains.