The Norway Photos: Preikestolen

If I had to pick my favorite thing we saw during our trip to Norway, it would be Preikestolen. To start this adventure, we set out at 4:30am from Rykene. Because most of the cities in Norway are located along the coast, the main roads follow the coast as well, which meant our drive was a less-than-direct four hours. It also included a quick ferry ride. The upside to the drive was, as Lance said, that we got to drive on one of the most fun roads he's ever encountered. It was super curvy and varied greatly in lane width. I remember gripping the seat in front of me and trying not to watch too closely.

At the base of Preikestolen, we encountered a parking lot and a few tour buses. As it turns out, those tour buses brought about 500 Spaniards with them, and they were the biggest downside of the whole day. We set out on the hike knowing it was roughly 2 hours to the top. We also set out to try and beat the never-ending crowd. After about 40 minutes, we realized our dreams of that were ridiculous and we slowed down our crazy pace a bit. The photo below is probably about an hour into the hike. The majority of the hike involved very large, stair-like boulders that were not hard for our crowd, but would be difficult for small kids and some older folks. 

From this point on, the elevation gain tapered of a bit and was more manageable.

The views also started to really get impressive.

The top of Preikestolen is a jutting, sharp cliff overlooking the fjord below. The views are amazing in every direction and hard to capture in photos. The size, the height, the distance, it's all overwhelming. For a lot of people, the goal is to get very close to the edge. Some dangle their feet. Others lay face-down and peer out over the edge. I'm not really a close-to-the-edge person, so all of them made me incredibly nervous. Regardless, I tried my best to take photos from several angles up top. 

Taking the photo below was hard for me. I wanted my people to back up. And they wanted me to take the photo as fast as possible so they could move. The photo below is as close as I got to the edge. Watching Lance lay over the edge or take photos of his dangling feet, was more than enough for me. 

After taking photos at the top, we ate lunch in a secluded spot and took a less-traveled route back down to the main trail. We never escaped the crowd, but in the end, it was all worth it and we'd go back in a second.