by ELLIE WOLVERSON
In the middle of September I boarded a plane to Oslo with 42 freeze dried meals, 4 kg of dried fruit, 28 mars bars and my fingers crossed. Ahead of me I had two weeks of completely self-sufficient living in the Norwegian wilderness as well as a shit ton of blisters and hopefully some reindeer. I was really excited. I told my mates and they all said I was an idiot; I hoped I wasn't but wasn't sure. The plan was to walk a 190km round route through one of Norway's most beautiful national parks collecting data for my dissertation as I went along.
The weather was incredible for the end of September; the autumnal colours were sublime and no camera could do the views justice. The next week was wonderful with good weather, easy navigation and suitable ground each night for pitching my tent. Norway had surpassed all my expectations and I was content. However I began to get bored and lonely in the evenings. I would pitch my tent around six, put the stove on and wolfed down one of the freeze-dried meals while listening to a podcast. But there's a limit to the number of hours you can listen to a podcast for and how many things you can think of to entertain yourself. One thing I discovered was that I could fit 123 raisins in my mouth. I sat in the porch of my tent and stared out at the fjords and mountain peaks and as clichéd as it sounds I felt blessed to be experiencing it all. By now I was really into the wilderness, and hadn't seen any people for several days. I was still on track to complete my planned route in time, averaging 13-18km a day depending on the terrain and altitude. I camped by a river and in the morning unzipped my tent to see a herd of reindeer on the other side. It was crazy and unexpected. I ate porridge and watched them graze: they were beautiful. After that things got a big bad. The weather began to get worse, it rained continuously and walking against the wind was tiring. The wind was so strong it made my tent poles buckle and I didn't sleep much as every hour at night Ii got up to check the tent was pegged securely. I started to fall over a lot as the terrain was very rocky and slippery. Once I tripped and landed on my face, getting a black eye and breaking my glasses. Creatively I taped my glasses together with medical tape and cried.
My route began to get take me higher into the mountains and I started to get more apprehensive. But I was around the halfway point on my route and didn't want to turn back. Then I had my first accident. I needed to cross a river but the bridge was completely broken so I hiked up and down the stream trying to find a safe place to cross. The river flowed through a steep gorge so there wasn’t anywhere to cross safely. I decided to just try anyway. I double wrapped my stove, GPS, phone, passport and sleeping bag in waterproof bags before attempting the crossing. The river was far deeper and more powerful than I had thought and the glacial water took my breath away. The weight of my rucksack weighed me down under the water and I was getting battered against the sides of the gorge and the hidden rocks in the water. I managed to unclip my rucksack and get to the surface. I hooked my hand through my rucksack strap and panicked my way to the other side of the gorge. I climbed the couple of metres up the side of the gorge and then went into shock. I stripped out of my wet clothes and pitched the tent. As soon as I was in my sleeping bag I made a hot chocolate and assessed the damage. The finger I’d used to hook my rucksack out was blue, at a horrible angle and definitely broken. The rest of my body felt bruised. I felt lucky to be alive. Even though it was only half four I was so exhausted I cried myself to sleep. The next day the weather cleared up a bit but walking was tiring and I ached all over. The sunset that night made up for it though. I camped high up and the colours of the sun made the snow beautiful. The constant mist and fog made navigation impossible and two days after I fell in the river there was a snowstorm. I realised I was very lost. In the end, I put the tent up, cried, and realised that all my friends were right. I was an absolute idiot. But in the morning, the storm had stopped and I could work out where I was. I was really fucking miserable; I hadn't seen anyone for over a week and all I wanted to do was ring my dad and ask him to come get me. Then I had my big accident. I was walking up the side of the mountain on a precarious ridge. The terrain was difficult and involved scrambling up sections of cliff face with my heavy rucksack. I lost my footing and fell two or three metres, landing badly on my left side and lost consciousness. When I came to I knew I’d fucked up. I tried to put on my backpack to continue walking but passed out again. Where I’d fallen there wasn't anywhere flat to put up the tent so I dosed up with the last of my painkillers and climbed the same section again to find flatter ground. Doing anything was agony. I couldn't wear my rucksack properly and even just breathing was excruciating. I decided to quit my planned route and head to the nearest mountain hut which was only 30km away. Every few metres I would have to stop, try and get my breath, and have a little cry. I was walking at less than 2km an hour. The song “Ain't no mountain high enough” came on and I’ve never hated a song more in my life. The four days it took me to walk to the mountain hut were some of the worst days of my life. I broke down when I saw that there were people there. Two very helpful but very racist Swedish men gave me a lift all the way to Oslo. We stopped in a McDonald's where I used the WiFi to contact my family for the first time in two weeks. They called me an idiot and I completely agreed.