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/ˈzēˌrō/
(noun)
  1. No quantity or number; naught; the figure 0.
  2. A day in which no miles are hiked.

Trail blazing

camp location
written Jul 15, 2018 @ 12:00 am after hiking 30.00 miles

At 3am, I woke up to rain. Crap, my rock setup wasn't built for this. I almost packed up and hiked, but I decided to just Chuck my tarp over me and hope for the best. If I started getting wet from condensation inside the tarp, I'd just hike.

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Cozy!

It worked okay, though I had to put my rain jacket around the feet of my quilt to keep it from getting soaked (wet down is not happy down).

Anyway, I kept on sleeping and got up a few hours later, packed up, started hiking, and saw this:

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It's the lake at the top!

After that, the trail ended. I knew this would happen, but still, it was not fun. But I knew there was another trail network about 10 miles away that I would link up with and follow into Hardangervidda, so a-bushwhacking I went.

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Looking back towards Hardanger fjord

Along the way, I came across these mysterious houses. How did they get here? Who maintains them? Who visits them? There's no discernable way in, other than a miserable hike. I have to imagine they were helicoptered in, but they can't do that for regular visits, can they?

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So remote

Either way, I'm pretty envious.

I kept hiking along, getting increasingly frustrated. The going was slow, the hiking was hard, and I kept getting cliffed-out or running into waterfalls or big rivers, and I'd have to backtrack to go around or over or under.

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But the views were spectacular

I had been hoping for more sun today so that I could spread out my gear and dry everything thoroughly, but nature wasn't going to cooperate.

So hiking along I went, with only sheep for company.

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Neverending beautiful landscapes

Eventually, I reached Eidfjord, which was even more stunning.

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The sheer drop offs always amaze me

Here was a decision point that I had been thinking about all day. Do I:

  1. Turn right and head into the Hardangervidda nasjonalpark; or
  2. Turn left, and go into Eidfjord?

I had been thinking about it for hours and hours while hiking, and decided: I'm going back. This just isn't the hiking I wanted to do -- this is bushwhacking.

There's something to be said for The Price of Admission, but then there's needless difficulty. Considering I didn't even have a ground sleeping setup, I'm looking at two or three miserable nights.

Anyway, I went left.

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Across this bridge

I hitched a ride into town with some day hikers, and from there got a bus back to Voss.

The next train didn't leave until midnight, so I had like five hours to kill. I did some laundry and washing up in the lake, and just generally thought some thoughts.

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There are worse ways to kill time.

I'll be very excited to go back and do Hardangervidda nasjonalpark properly some day, especially with these reclaimed vacation days.