Norway

This past weekend I caught a flight to Stavanger to visit my friend Sam. We caught a ferry Saturday morning heading up the Lysefjorden towards Lysebotn. Don't worry, I don't understand what I just typed either. In Scandanavia, it's not as easy to translate the language as in other parts of Europe. I'm used to being able to detect similarities with the English counterparts, but I've found that with words like Fartt and Slutt that rule of thumb doesn't apply. But I digress... Heading up the fjord, we witnessed some incredible views of the cliffs thousands of feet above us. The most noteworthy of these was pulpit rock--a large flat diving board shaped schist (ask Sam if you want to know more about the metamorphic features of this rock) where people congregate to peer over the edge at the chasm below. Unbelievable. We finally reached the end of the Fjord and decided to look around for a shop that might be selling maps. As it turned out, there was only one shop open that was selling some type of outdoors equipment. Curious, I peeked in the window and recognized the familiar shape of parachute rigs hanging on the wall. In disbelief, I proceeded to venture into the shop where there was a list of prices for lessons and rentals. I'm not making this up. Base jumping is LEGAL in Norway. After further inquiry, I discovered that I am currently about 100 freefall airplane jumps shy of being eligible for the course.

We then proceeded to venture up about 30 switchbacks until we reached the base of the hike toward Kjeragbolten. This four hour hike quickly found a place on my High Fidelity Top Five Hikes list for reasons that will become clear if you continue reading. The hike combined the verticle incline of Square Butte, the longevity of Baldy (almost), and the adventure of the Ice Caves. After nearly rapelling down several rock faces, hurdling over chasms that were about a foot wide and 1000 feet down, and stopping to pet the sheep along the way, we made it to the last plateau before reaching the summit. As we were chatting it up with some of the locals who passed us on their way down, we learned that there were some jumpers preparing for liftoff just a short distance ahead. We quiickly scampered to the top, exhausted from the journey but determined to get there in time. Finally, we scurried over the last boulder and stopped in our tracks. There in front of us was a kid that couldn't have been more than 17, perched on the edge of the cliff. The look of sheer terror and fear in his eyes was something I had never witnessed, even during my years as a jumpmaster. As I reached down for my camera, he leaned forward, stretched out his arms, and was gone. Several seconds later we could hear the distinctive sound of opening shock. He was followed by four more jumpers. As we were waiting for the last two guys to make their tandem plunge, one of them encouraged us to come stand next to the place where they would be jumping off. Turns out you can get better pictures if you're actually hanging over the edge of the cliff. During the 20 minutes we spent waiting for them to dive, Sam and I asked about 10,000 questions about base jumping. Finally, our new friend announced that he would be doing a gainer. Specifically, this one would be a "Jesus Gainer." This of course prompted the question: What is a Jesus Gainer? He replied: "A Jesus Gainer is when you slowly rotate backwards with your arms oustretched like Jesus...and hope that you don't meet him at the bottom."



After there were no more jumpers to talk with (all of them having taken the plunge) we made our way toward our target destination: Kjeragbolten. We were almost there when we noticed a group of people standing at the edge of the cliff across the Fjord from where we were climbing. Sure enough, within seconds three of them went airborne and we witnessed their entire free fall. I was convinced that one of them was going to ride it in until at the last second I caught the faint glimpse of his pilot chute from behind his rig. Finally, we kept pushing on until we reached our destination. There are some other details to the story, but since my mother might be reading this blog and I know she already has a pretty lengthy list of things to pray about, I'll just leave you with a picture.