Wild Camping In Norway
- Thread starter LewesBushcraft
- Start date
-
Hey Guest, Early bird pricing on the Summer Moot (29th July - 10th August) available until April 6th, we'd love you to come. PLEASE CLICK HERE to early bird price and get more information.
We're looking at Lillehammer as an option now as it's further north and will have snow in March. Does anyone have anyone have any experience of wild camping in this area?
As people on the forum were kind enough to try and help me with the planning of this trip I thought it only right that I put a little report here in case it is of benefit to anyone else planning something similar. I'd highly recommend Finnemarka for wild camping. It's easily accessible, and whilst i don't think Norwegians would consider it a wilderness as it's very popular with cross country skiers, we saw no one at our campsite in three days. What's more if you go in the spring as we did you can have an open fire on the ground which certainly makes cooking for 8 easier!
Finnemarka is a forested area in Southern Norway to the East of Oslo. We flew in on the Thursday evening and spent the night in the city. Friday morning we headed to Oslo Vinterpark where we hired cross country skis, then jumped in the hire van and drove to Finnemarka. Skiing was very hard as a bunch of complete novices. Our pack weights were approx 20kg and these certainly made life difficult. I found myself constantly falling over and then struggling to get upright with the bag on. We travelled 5km at a painfully slow pace but eventually reached our campsite near Glitre lake.
We spent Friday and Saturday in the woods having made our campsite home with a fire pit and tarps rigged up to keep us out of the elements. Most of us were in bivvy bags on the ground whilst one member of the party had a hammock. Temperatures during the day were balmy, normally around 8 degrees. Night time temps dipped below 0 but not by much. On the Saturday it really started to blow a gale, so we had to re think the tarp set up. The solution was to dig a hole in the snow and build a wall around it to keep us out of the wind. We rigged the tarps over the top to make it cosy and keep out any precipitation. It was a lot of effort as the snow was easily a metre deep but it made for a snug nights sleep for all 8 of us. Next time we will think harder about prevailing wind directions and make camp accordingly!
Water camp from the lake filtered through a Millbank bag and sterilised using a Steripen which was effective if a little slow, due to the Millbank bags size a flow rate. The Steripen is a great gadget which I would highly recommend. On a previous trip to Finland we boiled all water which is an arduous process compared with the Steripen.
It was hard work felling trees in the snow but hugely satisfying and it certainly kept us warm processing them down for firewood.
Finnemarka is a forested area in Southern Norway to the East of Oslo. We flew in on the Thursday evening and spent the night in the city. Friday morning we headed to Oslo Vinterpark where we hired cross country skis, then jumped in the hire van and drove to Finnemarka. Skiing was very hard as a bunch of complete novices. Our pack weights were approx 20kg and these certainly made life difficult. I found myself constantly falling over and then struggling to get upright with the bag on. We travelled 5km at a painfully slow pace but eventually reached our campsite near Glitre lake.
We spent Friday and Saturday in the woods having made our campsite home with a fire pit and tarps rigged up to keep us out of the elements. Most of us were in bivvy bags on the ground whilst one member of the party had a hammock. Temperatures during the day were balmy, normally around 8 degrees. Night time temps dipped below 0 but not by much. On the Saturday it really started to blow a gale, so we had to re think the tarp set up. The solution was to dig a hole in the snow and build a wall around it to keep us out of the wind. We rigged the tarps over the top to make it cosy and keep out any precipitation. It was a lot of effort as the snow was easily a metre deep but it made for a snug nights sleep for all 8 of us. Next time we will think harder about prevailing wind directions and make camp accordingly!
Water camp from the lake filtered through a Millbank bag and sterilised using a Steripen which was effective if a little slow, due to the Millbank bags size a flow rate. The Steripen is a great gadget which I would highly recommend. On a previous trip to Finland we boiled all water which is an arduous process compared with the Steripen.
It was hard work felling trees in the snow but hugely satisfying and it certainly kept us warm processing them down for firewood.
You were lucky to find enough standing dead trees to keep you warm!
It may save you some weight for the next trip, the lakes are clean enough for a healthy, refreshing drink!
It may save you some weight for the next trip, the lakes are clean enough for a healthy, refreshing drink!
Similar threads
