Buer Valley, Jun 4th

Once in city of Odda, I had several hiking options aside from the very well-known Trolltunga hike. One that picked my interest was the Buer Valley as it followes the valley formed by glacier runoff all the way to the base of the Buer Glacier, one of the many fingers of the Folgefonna Glacier. What I didn’t know was that, aside from the incredible views at the end of this trail, the trail itself would offer a nice challenge with multiple ropes, bridges and ladders to go thru.
As with a lot of hikes in Norway, the trail starts at the end of a farm road, going thru the farm and eventually getting on the trail. On this particular trailhead, you can see the price from the very beginning and some would argue that it’s a better view than what you get after. Completely debatable.

After passing the farm buildings and some very hairy cows that looked more like large dogs with horns, I took a slight turn and got on the trail right next to the creek. I had thought that building cairns was a thing here in the US, but it turns out it’s a thing everywhere. I’m guessing the first part of the trail was an old road that became a trail. As hikers go by, the build and leave cairns behind so he whole side of the trail is just that, cairns.

Then the fun began when I got to the first obstacle. Coming from the right hill, a creek was rushing down over rocks and bushes almost looking like a small flood. It was interesting to see that since the creek bed is mostly rock, the water has not been able to dig a trench so instead it just runs over everything and over the span of quite some distance. The first section had only a log that served more as a guide than something to step on. Luckily the water was not that high so several rocks where clearly above water and hopping thru was not that hard. The second section was without a log but with a rope. I had to go a bit around it as the rope goes on the deeper part of the creek while right below there are some bigger rocks that made passing a bit easier.

After that, I got to the steel bridges which was quite easy.

The trail continues up making quick turns to go around big boulders or just going over them with the aide of ropes or chains. It was an easy trail to follow but a full body workout in places. And then I got to the hanging bridge. It was quite impressive to see this small structure anchored to rocks and just hanging there. Quite a scene.

(btw, the red markings on the other side are trail markers. There’s another rope there to climb over that boulder)
As I continued up, I got used to the variety of anchors, ropes and interesting things the trail was throwing at me. It was a lot of fun to traverse all those features

Finally, I got to the end of the trail where another side runoff joins the Buer runoff. You can continue a bit further but there’s no ropes or aides so you’re at your own risks. Since I had come out unscathed from my little ordeal the day before, I wasn’t in the “mood” to get into another pickle, so I decide to stay on the safe zone and just explore around the view area for a bit and enjoy the majestic scenery.

Just as I turned around and was getting ready to hike out, I noticed a little hut on a small ridge to the left and a foot path going to it. I decided to go check it out and found it to be a hut that sleeps 4. It was open and very clean suggesting is open to the public and used as a first come first served basis. From that point I took a last peak at the scenery and then headed back down over the whole variety of small challenges. All that certainly placed this trail very near the top of my most fun trails list.

You can see the rest of the pictures here