I would be lying if I told you, as the photos may try to depict, that my adventure through West Lofoten was all snowflakes and candy canes as I frolicked through a winter wonderland of mountainous fjords. Though this frolicking did happen once or twice sans the candy canes, I would say in reality the vast majority of the trip was absolutely wretched.

This was, however, kind of what I was looking for. I knew I could camp in perfect conditions. In Croatia with lots of sunshine and a comfy campground, I spent over 2 months sleeping in a tent no problem. But how would I handle actually roughing it? How would it be with no kitchen shelter, toilets, showers, nearby restaurants, grocery stores? What about the weather? What if it rained a lot? Perhaps snow, cold temperatures? What about daylight, what if it was dark for 18 hours? What if I did this for 2 weeks? What if I did this all alone? Just myself. Just walking. Just sleeping outdoors. How would I hold up physically? Mentally?

When I decided I’d like to revisit Norway, I thought this would be a good opportunity give it a run and boy, what a run it was. The 14 days I spent in Lofoten were easily the most physically strenuous and more significantly, mentally demanding days I’ve ever endured. It was a rough ride. I was exhausted physically. A few times I teetered on mental breakdown. But in the end, I emerged on the other side and when looking back, I find myself reminiscing with a grin on one of the most beautiful experiences of my life.

The first couple days were perfect. Variable clouds and snow showers were often lit up from the the always rising or setting sun. And on the second night, the Aurora Borealis came out to play putting on magnificent display of dancing light. Nice photos were taken. Views soaked in. Things were going well. I was feeling good.

Then… day three. As soon as I got my tent packed, it started raining and it didn’t stop for over 24 hours. Twenty minutes into walking I’d reached 100% saturation, but I trudged on for another two hours in search of a spot to pitch my tent. I needed to find one soon, for if I waited too long, I’d be scrambling to find one with fading daylight in addition to the pouring rain.

Spot after spot I passed, each too rocky for me to drive my tent stakes in. Finally I came upon a large grassy meadow and wandered up in search of a flat spot. Fortunately I did find what I believe was the only flat spot that wasn’t a puddle in what now appeared to be an enormous bog, not a meadow. I quickly pitched the tent, got in and stayed in! At least until the wind yanked a stake out in the middle of the night and I had to angrily emerge to fix it… twice.

Checking the forecast I saw later in the evening the wind was supposed to pick up… to 65kph (40mph). Though my tent can withstand high winds, the soil was too wet for me to get a solid stake placement. Sleeping in it would not be an option, so I had to figure out an alternative.

Looking around in the morning, I had noticed that I set up near some sort of facility and went to investigate to see if there was a place I could hang my stuff to dry. I discovered it was a recycling center only open during the summer months and found an empty shipping container, a perfect place to let my stuff dry. Perhaps even… a perfect place to stay sheltered from tonight’s wind? After laying my things out in the boxcar, I decided to go for a hike while they dried.

The trail, not marked on my map, led past where I had my tent the night before and up into the mountains. I trekked up and after a casual 30 minute hike, I was greeted with a spectacular view. It was a much needed silver lining to the previous day and night’s misery. Had it not rained, I would have walked on right past this trail.

After about 45 minutes of running around taking photos, I headed back. By the time I returned, I had committed to becoming a real Boxcar Kid and arranged my stuff to stay the night. I knew there was a reason I loved those books as a kid!

Any qualms I may have had with sleeping in a boxcar went right out the door and into the wind as soon as it started blowing. That wind was really, really strong. It shook the boxcar, which was on stilts, back and forth the entire night.

With the constant creak of the boxcar and slamming of old appliances outside, I knew that I needed to find a new shelter. Inspecting my map, I saw a “Primitive Shelter” indicated near the village of Skjelfjord. Not knowing what the shelter would consist of, I decided to break my intentions of only walking for the two weeks and hitch a ride to save me enough time to investigate an alternative if the shelter turned out insufficient. So that’s what I did and after about 10 cars passing, I had a ride and made it to the shelter around noon. Fortunately it turned out the shelter was perfect and would be sufficient to hold me for the next 5 days of dreadful weather that would follow.

These 5 days were the most mentally challenging days of the trip. The wind blew incessantly nearly every day often gusting up to 80kph (50mph). One of the days I was stuck inside all… day… It poured rain constantly and I had only 5 or 6 hours of adequate daylight for reading and writing in my journal. The other 18 hours I had to lay in the dark and do… nothing. Nothing but think. Battery life in cold temperatures is abysmal and due to this I can’t use either my phone or headlamp because I need both in case of emergency. So no reading, no writing, nothing. Just. Thinking.

As soon as the wind settled for a day, I got the hell out of there! I woke up early and hiked nearly 3 hours to Kvalvika Beach. While here back in April, our group set out for a casual hike and hit the trail that leads to the beach. The day unexpectedly turned into quite an adventure, so one of my goals for this trip was to head back to Kvalvika to relive some of the memories, retake some photos I lost, and set up camp on the beach. I did just that!

Unfortunately the weather only allowed me to stay on Kvalvika for just one night. The next day’s weather would be nice, however the forecast indicated it would turn bad during the evening hours. So early the next morning, I packed my stuff and headed off to the second primitive shelter and final place I’d be staying.

As I reached the road from the Kvalvika trail, the sky sparked ablaze in softly saturated hues of pink and purple and the distant mountains colored with a purple tinted haze painted one of the most spectacular sunrises I’ve ever witnessed.

I spent the remaining few days in this shelter hidden amongst the planted pines. The first couple days I had a mix of rain and snow, so I wasn’t able to take any photos, however the lack of wind did allow me to get out and hike with an umbrella. Then on what was supposed to be my last full day, I managed get out for about 5 or 6 hours of hiking and taking photos!

My plan to close out the trip was to hitchhike back to the port, catch the ferry to Bodø, sleep at the airport, and finally catch my flight the next day to Oslo. So I set out early the next morning towards Moskenes and ended up having to walk 3 straight hours in the pouring rain from Selfjord to the highway without a soul passing by. Fortunately as soon as I intersected the highway, I managed to hitch a ride from Ruben and his girlfriend, a Spanish couple on holiday traveling through Scandinavia. They drove me 25 minutes to the grocery store in Reine where I could get some food for lunch and dinner as I ran out of food that morning.

I now had 7 hours to waste before I needed to be at the port. There is a coffee shop in Reine, however, it was a 20 minute walk from the grocery store and by now the wind had picked up and was blowing at 40mph once again. I couldn’t be bothered to walk through this awful weather anymore, so I decided I would just hangout in the front room of the grocery store.

I sat around reading for the next 5 hours until I had to decide if I was going to tough out the weather and walk or try to get a ride. This wind made the latter much more appealing so I called and arranged for a cab in 2 hours. Shortly after calling, the cab driver called back and informed me that the ferry was canceled due the high wind and rough seas!

Shit… Now what!? I have no back up plan. I needed to get onto that ferry! It’s raining. The wind is blowing again at 40+ mph. I have no where to stay the night! I asked the store manager for some help and he gave me the number to a cabin just down the street. I called and fortunately they had one available and $125 later I had a place to stay for the night.

After arriving in the cabin, I hung all of my wet clothes to dry and took a long, hot, glorious shower. My first real shower in two weeks! After, I ate dinner I tried to get some sleep, but wired from the day’s drama, I was unable to get any. However, it wasn’t so big of a deal because I did have to find out if the next ferry, the one arriving at 7am that would place in Bodø 2 hours before my flight, was canceled or not. And of course, the bad luck continued to flow and it was indeed canceled!

Now unable to reach Bodø in time, I would be forced to miss my flight and had to get on the phone and figure out a new flight. You know, exactly what I wanted to be doing at 2am after a stressful, chaotic, miserable day…

Fortunately there was now no need to wake early the next morning, so the 3am bedtime wasn’t a problem. The next morning I was able to slowly get out of bed and casually start packing. Finally the bad luck ran out and things began to run much more smoothly. I eventually headed out towards the port to catch the evening ferry and leisurely walked stopping for rests and photos along the way. Reaching the port several hours early, I decided to stash my heavy bag under some rocks and go for one last hike. After a few hours I made it on the ferry and headed back to Bodø. We arrived just before midnight and after grabbing a burger from a kebab stand I headed for the airport where I spent the night. The next day I finally boarded an airplane escaping from this godforsaken north!

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