Andreas the Pilgrim Dane

July 17, 2009

I met my first fellow pilgrim yesterday, a Dane, Andreas. He caught me at breakfast at Sygard’s Grytting where I was having trouble tearing myself away from the hospitality of hosts Stig and Hilde. Andreas was about my vintage and impressed me as better prepared and adapted to the rigors of Norwegian pilgrim life. At any rate, it was raining and he was better dressed than me for wet. Also, while I’d slept indoors in the warm comfort of the Grytting pilgrim loft, Andreas had toughed it out sleeping in his tent. Several things struck me as we two started walking together. First, while I had walked the rough mountain track in to the Grytting farm, Andreas had walked the lower, paved road. And second, when we left the farm, Andreas took his cue from me that we needed rain covers on our packs—so I was apparently impressing Andreas. In the end, though I offered him the lead to set a comfortable pace, we walked together for less than 20 minutes. With a pack a third larger than my own, Andreas did have all the wet weather gear I thought I sorely missed. But he also had a sore back from carrying the pack. He admitted he couldn’t keep up and suggested that I go on ahead. Word from Stig is that I am one day behind an Irish pilgrim woman. More amazing, I know from pilgrim hostel guest books that I am a week behind Jeroom Coenen, a Belgium pilgrim I knew well walking the Santiago Camino in Spain in 2007. The sun is shining this afternoon in Sjøa!

Civilized Life at Sjøa

July 17, 2009

The Olavsleden, not precisely wilderness, is still a rugged natural path. It makes for an interesting Pilgrim trek. Take today. I have never been more than two or three kilometers from the “E6”, a substantial Scandinavian arterial highway. I also walked across sheep and cattle pastures (among the grazing animals) and over numerous fence stiles. And I spent a lot of time traversing brutally steep, often stony, densely forested slope. The views, when they could be had, were spectacularly beautiful walled in Gudsbrandsdal Valley with the Lågen River below that carves it deeper. I was in sight of civilization—farms, lumber mills, small communities—most of the day. But a frustrating challenge of the Olavsleden is that its track carries you into few towns (an added difficulty: Towns conveniences are often widely dispersed). When you are re-supplying as you walk, your only option is often to drop down from your lofty ridge top vista in search of a supermarket losing elevation that you will be obliged to regain. I’ve wimped out in such fashion this evening, if anything on the Olavsleden can be described as wimpy. At any rate, I’m at the Youth Hostel at Sjøa at river level. I was obliged to walk 3 or 4 kilometers of heavy E6 traffic to get here. For that I’m enjoying a shower, clean sheets on a comfortable bed, some internet time, dinner, and breakfast—and my clothes are washing machine clean. Lance is third momentarily in the Tour de France, Leipheimer is out with a broken wrist. I’ve had only my second largely (not entirely) dry day in seventeen today. The locals say the weather here (and forecast) has been mostly fair in recent days. Good thing. I go onto the sparsely populated, above tree line “Oppland” this coming week. Tough country!