Lillehammer: winter activities
In preparation for the 1994 Winter Olympics, the Norwegian government spent a massive two billion kroner on the town’s sporting facilities, which are now among the best in the country. Spread along the hillsides above and near the town, they include several dozen downhill ski trails catering for everyone from beginner to expert, floodlit slopes for night skiing, ski-jumping towers and multiple chairlifts, an ice hockey arena, and a bobsleigh track. There is even a special stadium – the Birkebeiner – where skiers can hone their skills before setting off into the mountains, which are crisscrossed by 350km of cross-country ski trails. As you would expect, most Norwegians arriving here in winter come fully equipped, but it’s possible to rent or buy equipment locally – the tourist office will advise, but note that advance booking is strongly recommended.
Rondane Nasjonalpark
Spreading north and east of Otta, Rondane Nasjonalpark was established in 1962 as Norway’s first national park and is now one of the country’s most popular hiking areas, its 963 square kilometres, much of which is in the high alpine zone, appealing to walkers of all abilities. The soil is poor, so vegetation is sparse – lichens, especially reindeer moss, predominate – but the views across this bare landscape are serenely beautiful, and a handful of lakes and rivers plus patches of dwarf birch forest provide some variety. Within the Rondane, the most obvious target is Rondvatnet lake, a lazy blue flash of water surrounded by wild mountain peaks. To the west of the lake are the wild cirques and jagged peaks of Storsmeden (2017m), Sagtinden (2018m) and Veslesmeden (2015m), while to the east of the lake rise Rondslottet (2178m), Vinjeronden (2044m) and Storronden (2138m). Further east still, Høgronden (2115m) dominates the landscape. The mountains in the vicinity of the lake, ten of which exceed the 2000m mark, are mostly accessible to any reasonably fit and eager walker, thanks to a dense network of trails and hiking huts/lodges. Note though that parts of the park are out of bounds during the reindeer calving season, from early May to the middle of June.
Hikes in Rondane
There are score of hikes to choose from in the Rondane, but one popular choice is the haul up from Rondvassbu mountain lodge to the top of Storronden (2138m), the first peak to the right of Rondvatnet. This makes a fine excursion for the beginner, since – except for a short steep and exposed section just below the summit – there is no really difficult terrain to negotiate and the trail is clearly signed; the round trip takes about five hours – three up and two down. Neighbouring peaks involve more arduous mountain hiking, with the finest views over the range generally reckoned to be from Vinjeronden and nearby Rondslottet, both to the north of Storronden.
Boat trips on Lake Rondvatnet
If visibility is poor or you don’t fancy a climb, you can take the delightful summer boat service (July & Aug 2–3 daily; 30min each way; 100kr each way) on the vintage Rondegubben from Rondvassbu to the far end of Rondvatnet, from where it takes about two and a half hours to walk back along the lake’s steep western shore.
Røros
RØROS, glued to a treeless mountain plateau some 160km northeast of Kongsvoll, is a blustery place even on a summer’s afternoon, when it’s full of day-tripping tourists surveying the old part of town, which is little changed since its days as a copper-mining centre. Mining was the basis of life here from the seventeenth century onwards and although the mining company finally went bust in 1977, its assorted industrial remains were never bulldozed, making Røros a unique and remarkable survivor of the resource towns that once littered Norway’s more isolated regions. Copper mining was dirty and dangerous work and even if the locals supplemented their incomes with a little farming and hunting, life for the average villager can’t have been anything but hard.
Remarkably, Røros’ wooden houses, some of them 300 years old, have escaped the fires which have devastated so many of Norway’s timber-built towns, and as a consequence the town is on UNESCO’s World Heritage list. Firm regulations now protect this rare townscape and changes to its grass-roofed cottages are strictly regulated. Film companies regularly use the town as a backdrop for their productions: as early as 1971, it featured as a Soviet labour camp in the film version of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, a choice of location that gives something of the flavour of the place.
Røros makes for a pleasant overnight stay, which is just as well given its solitary location. The uplands that encircle the town are good for hiking, with one of the more popular being the five-hour trek east to the self-service DNT hut at Marenvollen. In winter, the uplands are popular with cross-country skiers; the tourist office has a leaflet mapping out several possible skiing routes.
Musk oxen
On the first part of any hike west from Kongsvoll into the Dovrefjell-Sunndalsfjella Nasjonalpark, you’re quite likely to spot musk ox, the descendants of animals imported from Greenland in the late 1940s – which are also viewable on a musk-ox safari (see Hiking the Besseggen ridge). These hefty beasts have lived in the Arctic for thousands of years, protected from the cold by two coats of hair and using their hooves to dig through the snow to reach the roots, lichens and mosses on which they depend. So far so good, but their habit of herding together with the adults surrounding the young when faced with danger proved disastrous when they were hunted by rifle. By the mid-1940s, the future of the Greenland herd looked decidedly grim, so some were transferred to Norway to help preserve the species, and here in their new home they have prospered in a modest sort of way and now number about one hundred.
Conventional wisdom is that they will ignore you if you ignore them and keep at a distance of at least 200m. They are, however, not afraid of humans and will charge if irritated – retreat as quickly and quietly as possible if one starts snorting and scraping. Incidentally, there’s no truth in the rumour, promulgated by the mockumentary film Trolljegeren (“Troll Hunter”; 2010) that the musk ox serve as a handy larder for local trolls; or is there?