Sunday, 4 September 2016

Start of autumn - Dividalen, Gjømmerdalsbreen

We are getting into autumn now. Particularly the alpine vegetation higher up in the mountains is starting to get their reddish autumn colours. We spent the weekend in Dividalen last week, we camped in the forest and made day walks up in the mountains. It is a good blueberry year, so we also spent a fair bit of time picking and eating blueberries; we brought several liters of blueberries home, which are now cleaned and stored in the freezer to enjoy during the winter.


Open mountain landscape east of Dividalen, the trail towards Dærtahytte

Sami village in the distance

Looking back to Dividalen

Yesterday we walked up to Gjømmerdalsbreen, one of the more accessible glaciers close to Tromsø. It is a beautiful walk, walking underneath the massive cliffs of Blåtinden, and with views to the Lyngen Alps and Jiehkkevarri from the top. Even though the walk is part of the ti-på-topp in Balsfjord this year, it still gets very few visitors: we were numbers 31 and 32 in the top book since June. It was a bit too late to also make it to the top of Gjømmertinden, so we will have to get back to this beautiful and very quiet area.

Walking up towards the cliffs of Blåtinden

Lyngen Alps in the background

Gjømmerdalsbreen

And the northern lights are back! Well, they have always been here, but it does now finally get dark enough again to see them.

Northern lights over Hamna