Hiking High

After our time in Stavanger, we headed over to Olden. This little town has about 670 residents. There are some shops and such, but the big attraction we participated in was the next town over, 3.7 miles away, Loen. A quick bus ride took us to the town of about 200. Despite this low population count, they have a really cool Skylift and a devastating history.

Back in the early 1900’s, the city of Loen had a thriving tourist economy and was a farming community. On the night of January 15th, 1905, around midnight, 50,000 cubic meters of rock fell from the mountain Ramnefjellet from 500 feet into Lake Lovanet. This created a 40.5 meter (120 ft) high tsunami! Here is a great scientific article about that Rockslide.

Then on September 13th, 1936, 1,000,000 cubic meters of rock fell down from 800 meters into Lake Lovatnet, pushing up the water and creating three waves, the highest being more than 74 meters (222 ft) high! It is almost incomprehensible to think about how high this wave would have been in this small valley. 134 people lost their lives due to these 2 incidences. Here is a great summary article for the Rockslide.

Once we arrived at the top of the Skylift, we decided to hike around the mountain. We chose a path that went 5.8 kilometers (3.6 miles) round-trip. As we ascended to the top, the wind started whipping like crazy! There was definitely room for improvement in our dress. The boys were a bit chilly at the top and decided to hide behind a rock.