This travel update is part five of our week in Longyearbyen, Norway. It covers July 30. “Any text in quotes and Italics has been copied and pasted from some informational website like Wikipedia.”

July 30, 2023 – Sunday: Hiking on a Glacier!!!

Today’s hike was approximately 7 hours, beginning at 8:30am and ending around 3:30pm. We hiked 7.5 miles, and climbed 2,532 feet, with the highest altitude being 2,878 feet and the lowest altitude being 245 feet.

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Patti copied the following information from the tour company’s website about this hike:

Trollsteinen Full Day Hike Activities | Snowfox Travel

Join us for an exciting mountain hike, all the way up to the peak of Trollsteinen (Paul Simon).

Reaching the peak of the magical Trollsteinen, will give you a 360-nature view as this is the highest peak in the area. A walk over the glacier and through the moraine is a true Arctic experience. This challenging hike will take you up to the highest point of the mountain, over a ridge, where there is a huge rock tower called Trollsteinen. Here you will have a more than stunning 360 view over the surrounding mountains.

This hike can be defined as a classic mountain hike.

During our trip, we will take our time to explore the moraine and beautiful glacier landscape.

Our goal is to reach the summit of the mountain.

On our way we will make several stops to enjoy the painterly views over Longyearbyen and the surrounding mountains.

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This was a guided hike with an outdoor adventure company here. We had wondered if we couldn’t just hike around the area on our own but decided to go ahead and pay the money (about $270 USD for both of us) for a guide. By the end of the hike we were glad we’d paid for the guide. There were 8 customers on this hike, and our guide’s name was Mareika. You can see Mareika in this picture where she’s giving us our safety orientation. She’s the one with the pony tail to the right of the van with the rifle. She carried the rifle on our hike in case we encountered a Polar Bear.

We enjoyed talking to the other three couples that were on the hike with us, one was from Spain, one from France, and one from Morocco.

For today’s hike we walked over some streams, up the mountain, across a glacier, then climbed Trollsteinen (Troll Rock). Here’s the Google Maps timeline of the hike.

Here’s Patti fording the first stream by walking over a post.

The next streams didn’t have specific fording places so we just tried to pick out shallow places with stepping stones.

After that we were on some nice, easy, grassy hillside.

Every once in a while, Mareika took a short break to give us some information about the area. You can see Patti on the left here.

Before long we got to some steeper climbing with rocks and dirt.

As we climbed we had a nice view of Longyearbyen. You can see how the town in is a valley that leads out to the fjord.

Soon we got to a rock field. When I first saw it I thought to myself “Surely we’re not walking across that?!” But Mareika just nonchalantly started strolling through it and the other (younger) members of our hike just followed along without comment. So, Patti and I followed along at a slower pace. You can see in this picture that the rocks have just been sliding down the mountain and come to rest in random orientations. I found it to be quite challenging to walk on. Here’s Patti starting to make her way across the first rock field.

As we got closer to the glacier the earth got darker, and muddier.

At the edge of the glacier Mareika gave us some pointers on what the footing would be like as we crossed the glacier. We were advised to follow her since it’s possible that unseen ice caves can be underneath and we could possibly fall through a thin ice cave ceiling.

So, what can I say? We hiked on a glacier!

Here’s one of our glacier pictures. It actually wasn’t that cold, about 45°F, especially since we were exercising. I took my puffy jacket off because I was starting to sweat.

It wasn’t very slippery on the glacier, it mostly had a thin covering of snow that was melting and becoming crumbly.

There were streams of meltwater running down the glacier. They were a pretty light-blue color.

Small stones somehow land on top of the glacier then melt holes down into the ice because they heat up when the sun shines.

Here’s a closeup of one of the holes, you can see the dark stone at the bottom.

A reindeer trotted across the glacier while we were on it.

After the glacier we walked up a final slope to get to Troll Rock. Here’s Patti walking up the slope.

At the top of the slope is the rock formation that looks like a troll, this was our destination for the hike.

So we did a bit of rock climbing.

And there was a nice view from the top. To the left in this picture you can see the fjord.

After the peak we descended to an area next to the glacier to have lunch. Here is our lunch site.

The food comes in dehydrated orange pouches, you add hot water, stir, wait 8 minutes, and enjoy. I chose the pulled pork with rice and Patti got Pasta Bolognese.

This area at the edge of the glacier was striking looking. There were waterfalls over the dark earth and chunks of ice that had fallen.

Here the stream was flowing under the edge of the glacier.

After lunch we retraced our path across the glacier, and got a glacier selfie.

We went back across the rock field.

We crossed the streams again and saw this old coal car that probably fell down the hill once the mine it was serving was closed.

This was a very challenging hike. We were glad we completed it, and we were definitely ready to “hit the hay” upon arriving back at our Airbnb. Over the next several days we both experienced various body aches and pains, mostly in our legs.

Future Plans

• We are currently staying at an Arbnb in Longyearbyen.
• August 2: We fly SAS Airlines from Longyearbyen to Tromsø.
• August 2 – 10: We reserved an Airbnb in Tomsø.
• After Tromsø, we may head south down the coast of Norway, making reservations as we travel along.
• October 17 – December 3: No plans yet.
• December 3 – 9: I will be participating in research in Durham, North Carolina, at the Med-El facilities there. Med-El is the company that made my Cochlear Implant. I’ll spend 9am to 4pm for five days being a lab rat. They say they will test various new programming options for my cochlear implant with the goal of improving their systems. It should be fun. I’m looking forward to it.
• December 9: We drive to Bradenton, Florida
• December 9 – 31: We reserved a cabin at Horseshoe Cove RV Park in Bradenton, Florida, where we stayed last year for two months (November and December). We look forward to singing in the Christmas Choir again.

2024

• January through April: We plan to travel through Belize, Costa Rica, and Panama. We don’t have reservations yet.
• May and June: We reserved a cabin at Horseshoe Cove RV Park in Bradenton, Florida. We’ll spend these two months getting our yearly medical stuff done and visiting with family and friends. May and June are “off-season” in the Sarasota / Bradenton area, and the rate is $56 per night for these 61 days, which is pretty good for a place like this in this location. In season, January through March, the price doubles.
• After June 30, we have no plans, but we are entertaining options about where to travel next summer. Maybe Germany/Austria/Switzerland.