21st day, Sitashytta–Paurohytta

It’s kind of them to offer that they’ll take our garbage. They’ll walk back to their car, only 7 km away along the gravel road, pushing a stroller. The cocoa is simply a gift, as they’ve been lugging it around for some time and not drinking it.

My toes are wet within the first kilometer, at the spot where the river merrily floods over a bridge, and part of the road beyond has already been swept away. The other side is knee-deep in water.

Next comes a steep climb beneath the power line, up a nearly vertical mountainside. It’s tough. Before descending again, there’s a long scramble across rocks and snow patches. The way down, however, is easy: green slopes, flowers, and below, a lake. Behind me, the snowy end of the lake; ahead, lower, more summery hills. Bits of ice still float on the water. Two Swiss boys are walking the opposite direction, they don’t know a single place name and have managed to lose a jacket.

We pause for lunch in a tiny hut at the lake’s end, sheltering from the wind. The hut is charming but pricey. A daytime stop has always cost 30 Norwegian kroner, here it’s 100. Harsh. As usual, I leave Nikodemus to his cooking and stride boldly across one of those wobbly, creaking Norwegian bridges. The trail briefly dips back into Sweden. A few drops of water land on my head and I realize, too late, I’ve forgotten my hat back in the hut. Already more than a kilometer behind. I hesitate. Surely Nikodemus will spot it on the table, realize it’s mine, and carry it along. But what if he doesn’t? I decide to trust his common sense and press on, though a little doubt keeps nibbling. Should I have gone back? And I never quite figure out whether those drops came from a passing cloud or from spray carried by the wind off the cascading streams tumbling down the slopes.

The way is nothing but challenges. Which side is best to cross a wall of snow? Where is the safest place to ford a stream? Will this snowfield hold, or must I detour? The trail climbs higher, while behind me a dark cloud builds with fierce winds. I no longer want to share the highest point of the trail with a cloud, thunder or no thunder. Gihccejiekna glacier is gleaming ahead.

The view shifts into a different world: grim mountains streaked with black snow patches, looming over a surly lake, as though it was filled to the brim with clouds. It looks utterly uninhabitable, and the idea of a hut by its shore seems absurd. I scan the bank with binoculars and, far away, three houses appear. It exists after all. But first more clambering over snow, more wading through streams.

I meet a father and son. The boy has been walking since May, all the way through Norway; his father joined him for four weeks of the journey. They tell us that a man drowned recently in the river, the very one we arranged a boat to avoid. Brrr.

Nikodemus arrives just as I’m moving in, collecting water from a stream. And with him, my hat! Hooray.

Today: 21.9 km.