The Adventures of Pamela

This post is inspired by the ideas behind, and the writer herself of Moi's Blog.

I'd always thought that the name Pamela was from the 1990's, obviously! Until I read Agatha's Christie "The Man in the Brown Suit", set I believe in the 1930's (feel free to correct me) in which the heroine wishes for herself a life like that of a fictional damsel in distress who appears in a series named the same as this post. So when I was planning this post, as I hiked my way up the mountains (yes, I'll admit it), it occurred to me that it would make a pretty good title for this post too! I will also confess that before we began hiking I had planned to write a post based on this trip. The angle was going to be a city-slicker, vintagite coping with hiking in the norwegian mountains. As however it turned out it wasn't to be! We (my dream man and me) had decided to walk to Solrenningen DNT cabin (The Norwegian Trekking Association) in Modalen. So we drove to the start of the trail and parked our car in the purpose built carpark.  Now I wish to clarify, I've actually been here before, fatter and in worse physical condition. On that occasion we arrived at our destination cabin after dark and I was so exhausted that I was crying! Anyway back to the story. The way was relatively easy and bar the occasional moment of panic, an unfortunate problem of mine, I heartily enjoyed myself. In fact the entire hike was enjoyable, exhausting but enjoyable! We had just arrived at the second set of privately owned cabins (lucky things) to have some lunch, followed by a party of two families with canoes (again, lucky things) and although it had been a good hike, it hadn't been too challenging. So we continued on and this is when the REAL fun began. It wasn't long before we had to cross a babbling stream, now usually this would have been a quick leap and we would have been over, it would have been small and quite shallow, but snow-melt had made it deeper, wider and meaner. Still, nothing really to worry about, so we carefully crossed, except that my foot slipped and was instantly filled with ice cold water. Nevermind, it was a bit stupid, but after squeezing my sock out we continued. The hike was kindly eased by the planks that DNT has laid across the marshy landscape, but then we had to cross and even bigger stream, which would have been easy to cross but for the huge amounts of snow-melt. The usual stepping stone affair was submerged with water, and not just calm, tranquil water, this was snow-melt torrent white water. When I asked my yummy hubbie what we were going to do he said we had to get in the water and cross like that. So he bravely climbed into the ice cold water and reaching the other side he gave me instructions and held out his hand to help me across too. I held on to a nearby tree and sank my left foot into the icy water and grabbed on to my husband's hand. Soon I was on the other bank feeling proud of myself, it doesn't sound much as I write this but to me it was crossing the Zambese. Bear Grylls would have probably laughed it off, after all it wasn't necessary to get naked to get warm again. Well, we continued a bit tired, hiking through the marshy terrain, along occasional planks. My Mr had gone ahead, he tends to walk faster than I do, and I heard him say "Oh, your not going to like this!" He vanished over the crest of a hillock and I followed. Soon I stood atop of the aforementioned hillock and sighed. SNOW! I HATE hiking in snow, it scares me, the idea of slipping and falling out of control, and especially do I hate it going downhill!! So I did my best and in the end just ended up sliding down on my backside, ample as it is! Then I saw the worst, the bridge that crossed a much wider, meaner river had been taken to pieces. It was far too strong a current to do as we had done at the last one, and far too wide to possibly jump it. The pallets that made up the bridge had been removed for the winter months and stored, as we could see at one side of the river, right under the snow I'd just slid down! It was impossible to pull them out to put them on the iron rods that straddled the river. So my Mr went further upstream to find another possible way to cross, as he racked his brains and looked up and down I too was racking mine and trying to figure my way across the bridge. So I called to him,

"I can cross, if I shimmy across on my bum while I sit on the rail."

He rushed to my side (what a brave knight!) and said

"Are you sure?"

"Yes," I said

"Take off your pack then," said he, "I'll throw them over to you."

So off I went, VERY bravely (because usually I'm an almighty chicken) and climbed down till I was sitting on the bare, ruddy coloured iron and inched my way to the middle pallet (the only one there) and swung my legs over it and again inched some more to the other bank. Then my husband (mr muscles) threw our packs over to me and inched on all fours across the void. Then we, and feeling very adventurous climbed up and down and on our way the two kilometres to the cabin. That's when my ample posterior got full use. I'd taken my eyes and attention off my feet for a fraction of a second, on a wet plank with wet boots on and WHAM! I'd slipped into the marsh hitting my left knee on the way down. D'oh! Anyway, that and a few blisters was my only injury, my poor boots however began the long and torturous road to death. There was one more minor stream crossing in which we had to once again plunge our feet, but mostly the rest of the hike and arrival at the cabin was uneventful. And except exhaustion, we did it in 3 hours, we arrived safe and sound. The hike home another adventure and my boots died on the way, and I might as well of hiked barefoot! Bar sun burn it was a relaxing time and an adventure worthy of a blogpost. Photos below!

View 1. from the Carpark.

View 2. from the Carpark

First privately owned cabin



The beginning of the planks



The first lake, and view of the second

Where I got my foot wet




The second cabin





Far off farmhouses for the wandering shepherds