Wednesday 8th July
It wasn't till midday that I started walking and since today was a long day's worth of walking, I feared that I may have needed to take a rest day. No such need, there's no need to worry about daylight up here and so the usual conventions of 'being down before dark' don't apply at all. In theory I could walk 24/7 without a torch. I made my way down into the forests to the E6. Now I had to walk north along the E6 for 7km, it was a twisty road and only just wide enough for two cars to pass. Despite that it was quite busy at times. The weather was now nice and with a fresh breeze to keep the insects away.

Solvågtind seen below on the road into Junkerdalen

The river flowing from Junkerdalen

Looking back into Junkerdalen on the ascent to the campsite

I turned off the E6 to walk along the road to Junkerdalen and Sweden. This road was much quieter, 10 time fewer cars here meant I didn't have to feel like I'd get killed at any second. In fact the E6 was probably the most dangerous part of my entire walk. After a deep gorge, the road opened out and straighened up to become a road of modern European standards. Surely the E6 should have had a higher priority to upgrade than this road? I guess though with most things in life, political influences have the last word with any development.

My next summit was the very grand Solvågtind which looks like a formiddable spire when seen from Junkerdalen. I wasn't climbing it today but instead I was heading up the lower slopes to a nice U-shaped valley higher up where I would camp. It was 5.30pm and I had 500m ascent through the woods on a narrow path. Little did I know how hellish that would be.

In the woods there was no breeze at all - a total contrast to the E6 where I had a brisk wind. I found to my discomfort that every variety of biting insect found out about me in there. From mozzies & green flies to midges, I went through hell and the only thing I could do was walk as fast as I could to get out of there. I got above the tree line again to be greeted by a refreshing breeze, and away the mozzies went.

This valley was wild. A sizable lake sat up here - the Solvågvatnet. The slopes either side rose to big broken cliffs, some revealing massive recent rockfall with red scars marking the place the huge boulders fell from. As I walked along the valley the breeze fell and the mozzies were back - swirling above my head as though a thermal rose from it.

I camped near the head of the valley where I figured I had the best chance of catching a good breeze. As it happened I had the most pristine patch of grass to camp on. The price for this was the fact that I had to use mosquito repellant for the first time this trip. Once all the camp chores were done I could zip up the tent and set my mosquito splatter (map case) to good use. In all honesty though, mozzies aren't nearly as bad as the scottish midge where I've seen swarms covering my arms completely black. Mosquitos are big enough to deal with without needing a microscope though they are wind resistant and are able to bite through my clothing.

Thursday 10th July
I awoke at 4am in the morning to hear heavy rain, looking out of my tent saw my tent shrouded in mist. Now this suprised me as dad previously said that the weather was generally meant to be improving. It wasn't until 10am that the rain finally stopped and the clouds showed signs of shifting. I was still motivated to climb Solvågtind however and so I was packed up with day kit only and ready to go.

The rock cornices of Solvågtind

Northern summit of Solvågfjellet

Solvågvatnet seen from my campsite

I climbed up to the north shoulder of the mountain before heading upwards and southwards. The way ahead to the minor summit was blocked by steep, slabby outcrops. The map didn't indicate that and so it caught me by suprise and so I took a diversion to the right (west) round the bottom of the cliffs to a weakness that would land me on the saddle between the lesser and major summits on this mountain. Nearing the saddle I saw signs of a path which I was suprised at, considering I thought most Norwegians just stick to the 'T' trails.

I reached the saddle, complete with a wintry lake and headed southwards up the slabs to the crest of the continuing ridge. Now the way up so far sometimes seemed formiddable conveying the message of 'oh no Anthony I won't let you climb this peak - ha ha!' but I got through these barriers quite easily. Now I had the final ridge, the map showed it as potentially being broad on top rimmed with massive cliffs all round.and indeed I found it to be the case - in fact you could have a game of football up here!

I reached the top - YES! This was my prize summit, it stood at 1559m. From Junkerdalen, the mountain looks like a slender pinnacle - very inaccessible that was my motivation for climbing it. One thing I noticed on the summit was a metal pillar box with 'Intersport' written on it. I thought it was a bin, considering there was a plastic bag inside it, but it turns out that they're commonly used by people to leave messages in it.

Örfjellet seen to the east near Solvågtind

Satertind seen from the west in Galagadalen

Looking up Galagadalen

And so I descended, but very suprised to meet two men and their dog coming the other way. There was an obvious path on the ridge but I thought that in all probability I'd have this summit to myself. So I finally got back to my tent at 4pm in now very nice weather. And so I shouldered my pack and began my walk to the bottom of the next mountain - Satertind. At the top of the valley I camped at that evening I found some superb camping pitches, really wild and magnificent - a perfect evening and no mosquitos!

Friday 11th July
Through the night the wind got stronger and stronger and by about 3am it was a gale - making my sleep very difficult as it boomed against the tent. Worse still, my tent was pitched across the path of the wind rather than into it so it was louder still. By 5am I had enough and re pitched the tent into the wind (quite a challenging task!) and got at least some sleep after that.

At the campsite before the gale

Looking back into Rykkjedalen

Satertind seen from the east

This gale from nowhere, with blue skies above, caught me completely by suprise. It meant I couldn't cook because the tent fabric in the porch was too shifty. So at 9am I packed up and headed off without breakfast. I chose to miss out Satertind, reluctantly, because of the wind (and no breakfast) and so headed eastwards along the valleys and saddles.

The torrent I had to cross

Björntoppen (1709m)

The Sulitjelma peaks to the north

After some hard work I reached the plateau of Salberg east of Satertind. Looking back, Satertind looked very nice, I felt like I shot myself in the foot! Now the wind was moderating and I headed north on the plateau edge to a lake on the saddle. This lake took a while to get round as I went up and down on the snow drifts and slabs on its shores. Eventually I got round and started descending in Skaititdalen but I had a big winter river to cross. I crossed where it was wide and relatively shallow - but that didn't stop me getting wet feet - urgh!

A new vista opened itself up to me - the Sulitjelma mountains. They were very wild looking and one I hadn't expected to come across. Nearby to these mountains was Norway's fourth largest icecap (the name of which I can't remember!). I got down to the valley bottom and found a deer fence that had to be climbed - one with slack wires, not an easy thing to get over. I found a decent campsite as I finally headed north to Balvatnet and settled down to a fine evening - quite a contrast to the morning's drama.

Saturday 12th July
Today I decided I head north around Balvatnet, I had intended to climb a peak east of here called Ar'galaicàk'ka (surely that's not a Norwegian name!) but I had a plan to extend my final walk all the way to Bodø by now and so omitted it to make time.

Some summits on the other
side of the swedish border

Walking out around Balvatnet revealed several new and interested mountains probably on the swedish border, they were summits I saw in my virtual tour but I decided to leave them out as it would have meant having to buy a couple more maps! The path was sometimes faint on the southern shores of Balvatnet. I didn't enjoy having to get my feet wet again either on a big river called Låggijåkka. No bridges on this river - considering we're so close to Sweden here, I imagine the culture of wearing wellingtons is alive and well in this corner of Norway.

Thankfully the next river (the Rasnaelva) did have a bridge. I say thankfully because it was monstrous - no way without a bridge! The path on the north side on Balvatnet was better and I soon found out why. Because it was a Saturday, there were a few people out with fishing rods - soon a few people turned to many. It was a popular path but I suspect that people don't walk all the way round but find some good fishing ground just a little way from the road along the path.

All the while, a frontal system was edgeing in from Sweden. On my final leg to the campsite on the north side of Balvatnet, I could see the eastern summits getting progressively shrounded in mist and then rain. The mozzies were also out again and giving me hell. It was a race against time to find a suitable campsite before the rain came now, and just found one when the heaven's opened as I began to pitch the tent at 2pm. The weather suprised me again, and after the rain went, the drizzle and low cloud remained, this didn't shift until later on the next day.

Sunday 12th July
My campsite was just 20mins walk from the road end at Balvatnet. From there is was an easy walk through a forest on a packed gravel road down the valley to Sulitjelma. I had planned to find a campsite at Sulitjelma and take a bus to Fauske the next day. On the final steep descent I passed the official campsite, but didn't realise it was the only campsite until 3km later in the village center. I didn't want to walk back and so I succumbed to the cruel prospect of a 40km walk to Fauske - not nice when you've just developed a blister.

Sulitjelma is a town/village that used to have a mining industry until 1990, quite recent. The population dropped sharply down to 800. Walking through the village was like walking through a ghost town. The few shops that existed were all closed and the main road saw one car go each way every 5 minutes. Maybe it was the Sunday effect but it felt spooky. After some waiting, I got a lift with a couple all the way to Fauske - YES! RESULT! The grimmest prospects all of a sudden changed to the brightest fortunes.

The couple took me all the way to the official Fauske campsite, better weather here & certainly less gloomy. I could begin the ritual of having a nice hot shower and cleaning all my clothes properly for the first time in 5 days. I met a group of Danes, they couldn't speak good english and so I tried my danish on them, they were suitably impressed saying my danish was very good for an english man. They haven't met my dad who's english, they'd probably say his danish is very good for a danish man! Finally I had a positive forecast for the final days, I was going to look forward to the next few days!