I’ve Seen the Great Heights! Posted on October 4th, 2011 by

Bergen is surrounded by 7 mountains, from anywhere you are in Bergen you can see at least 3 or 4. Never in my life did I imagine that I could climb a mountain that high.  Saturday morning, when most people my age are sleeping in from a long night of partying, I woke up early and met my travel buddy Reed near the place he was staying. Originally, we planned to get a cup of 5NOK coffee but then I saw a flag on top of a mountain. He told me he was already up there once and I told him I would also like to climb the mountain. Then we changed our path and proceeded towards the mountain. Before we even got to the foot off the mountain we were already huffing and puffing, blowing down houses of bricks like the big bad wolf. He said the hike would only be about an hour, I didn’t believe him though because it seemed so high.  A quarter of the way to the top we found some benches and took a short break there to catch our breaths. The scenery was already beautiful, I didn’t think it could get any better. After our break we continued hiking. Half way there the path started getting rocky, it was like the bed of a river. We climbed slippery, mossy rocks, stepped in mud, and came close to falling down to a rocky death. Luckily we made it to the top fine and came across the flag that we saw from across town. It was so beautiful, you could basically see the whole town.  Looking down the valley I couldn’t help but imagine a horde of Orcs running through with their giant wolves, raiding Bergen.  When we were done taking pictures and videos of the view we climbed back down.  The way back down was even more treacherous and even more slipper, which was probably the reason it took less time than it did to get up.  On the way down I also noticed a couple of colorful mushrooms, I honestly hate mushrooms though, I especially eating them, but the color on these made it beautiful.

We originally planned to climb three mountains but the first hike took a toll on our bodies and couldn’t climb the second, we also didn’t have enough time after exploring the city.  By the time we knew it, it was already dinner time. We rushed our way to the bottom of the third mountain we planned to climb, except this time we cheated, we took a cable car up to the top of the mountain, Ulriken.  When we got to the top we saw pictures of the scale of the mountain, saying it was taller than the Eiffel Tower.  I really felt like I was on top of the world. We only had about 1 and a half hours until it the cable car officially closed. We ran down the valley and up through a mountain pass. On the other side off the mountain there were lakes and surprisingly, houses! On top of Ulriken we could see that the city extended further than we thought.  By the time we got back to the cable car it was dark. There was a red light that lit up the tower, whose purpose I couldn’t figure out for sure.  Soon we noticed that it was getting foggy, then we realized it wasn’t fog, it was clouds! How amazing! We were in the clouds, and like everyone says, it was light and fluffy; you could basically sit on it. Just kidding it was cold and super windy but it was one hell of an experience, the whole time I couldn’t help but to sing to myself Tyrone Well’s song “More To Life,” repeating the line “I’ve see the great heights , reminding me I’m alive!”  I’ve always laid on a patch of grass and watched as clouds passed by, trying to figure out what shape they were taking. Now I was in the clouds where people could guess what form I was taking! It was amazing, I didn’t even want to come down but if I stayed too long I would have to hike back down and who knows how long and treacherous it would be.

 

I apologize for not being more clear on my experience, but I cant put them into words so here are some picture, hopefully they can do my experience some justice.

 


3 Comments

  1. Blong says:

    AWESOME!!

  2. Adegun Psalm O says:

    Dat was wonderful…am suppose to give a̷̷̴̐͠ speech today on the great height’s,Sọ̥ decided to check out some view’s from other people…we’ll this really inspire’s me!!!
    I’ll chip in some few words from your experience on those mountains.

  3. Tong Thao says:

    Let me know what you used, just out of curiosity