Climbing the Monk

It was our last couple of days in Lofoten, with only one hike left on the agenda; the Munken (the Monk), which is a mountain in the southernmost part of the archipelago. It overlooks the sea and on a good day one could oversee large parts of the islands and even catch a glimpse of mainland.

But on this particular day the weather wasn't that good and we were quite tired. The bus had dropped us at the idyllic village Moskenes and from there we made our way to the trailhead. It was foggy and wet and no one really felt like climbing a mountain if there would be no great views, so we decided to set up camp after a good hike and walk back to the village the next morning.

My brother, though, had a horrible night. His gear wasn't fit for the temperatures this far north and in the middle of the night he decided to run around a little bit to warm up. He ran up the mountain, watched the sun set, came back down very early in the morning and woke us up hollering about how we should go up this mountain with him and see the view. The skies had cleared, all blue skies now.

We had fallen asleep to this weather:

and woke up to this:

Now a climb seemed worth the effort. It was! On our last day we were rewarded with the most stunning views of the islands. I could have been there for hours, but we had a ferry to catch, back to the real world.

#norway #europe #hiking #mountains #munken #lofoten