Svalbard - Part 2

01 Jul 2019 . category: Travel . Comments
#Svalbard

Day 2: Hike to Trollsteinen

This was the best day of the trip in my opinion, a hike to the top of Trollsteinen (“Troll Rock”) with Svalbard Wildlife Expeditions. Doing these guided hikes is quite expensive, but I think absolutely worth the money given the unique circumstances. One can hike alone in Svalbard, but doing so requires renting and carrying a rifle of some kind as any real hiking is outside the city limits. And while I’ve shot a gun a couple times, I didn’t exactly trust myself save the group from an approaching polar bear, or Daniel’s vow to punch any that crossed our path. Furthermore, renting a gun requires having a gun license of some kind from your home country. Because obviously it must have reasonable laws and require you have a gun license if you’re legally allowed to own and fire a weapon…right? The company also provided snowshoes, micro-spikes, hiking poles, and rented some appropriate footwear for the two super wise members of our party who’d decided just bring sneakers to Svalbard. Warning: the shoes they rent are not actually waterproof. They also issued each of us a hiker-meal and a heavy duty water thermos. I recommend having at least one backpack for every two people in order to carry all the stuff, and even then four snowshoes on a pack got a bit unwieldy. Thankfully, they also have backpacks you can borrow for the day if necessary.

The hike began from the outskirts of town, where we first had to cross a couple of streams, before hiking up to the glacier across the moraine. The streams were easy enough to cross by just jumping, but the scrambling across the loose rocks (scree?) was tricky at times. We were also treated to some mini-avalanches on the other side of the valley which was cool. Here’s an example of a dicier part from the way down:

We soon made it to the glacier and had to break out the snowshoes. My first time doing any sort of “winter” hiking / snowshoeing, fun but definitely a workout! The views also started getting really good around here:

That’s Longyearbyen in the valley behind us, and our guide in the yellow with the rifle. Yes, a dog did do the hike with us, more about that later. The guide stopped at the city limits to prep his rifle, and told some stories of polar bear incidents as well as how to behave in an encounter. Strangely, he said that they always keep the safety off on the rifle but no bullet in the chamber, so that anyone can grab it and fire it. We’re not firearms experts, but this seemed like exactly the opposite of what you would want? His gun safety was also rather questionable. He definitely didn’t behave as if the gun was always loaded, at one point leaning it against his pack and reaching across such that it was pointed into his abdomen. Daniel remarked afterward that he was very aware of where the barrel was pointing during this whole maneuver.

After hiking up the glacier, we had to walk across a ridge to arrive at the top. Here I am on the descent, trying not to fall over with the snowshoes and my terrible sense of balance:

and another of us on the way up:

We were finally rewarded with the troll stone itself!

where we stopped to eat our glorious hiker meals (Michal bought some later in the trip as a souvenir!). The dog was even briefly interested in mine, but she didn’t get any.

It’s possible to climb to the top of the large rock without too much difficulty. Here’s most of the group pretending to like each other (check out Daniel’s snazzy shades!):

and us at various stages of walking down:

While we were atop the rock, one of the group’s plastic water bottles accidentally got knocked down the mountain, causing the dog to run down after it. This wasn’t great, especially because the dog was attached to the guide’s pack, which went tumbling down with her. Humorously, the guide was at that moment taking care of some personal business on the other side of the rock… But eventually he went down the mountain to rescue dog, pack, and water bottle:

Apologies for the number of photos, but it feels like the best way to communicate how great the hike was. I’ll leave you with one final shot from the top:

The way down was certainly easier, though it did become painfully obvious that I’d managed to give myself some blisters, oh well. The streams we jumped across in the morning were also unsurprisingly a bit wider in the afternoon after a whole day of the sun melting snow. I unluckily managed to get my boots wet on the very last crossing of the day. We ended up back around 6:30PM I think, having actually left for the hike around 10AM.

Overall Thoughts

I definitely recommend this hike to anyone visiting Svalbard. It feels like we experienced a lot in a single day hike: scrambling around the moraine, climbing up troll rock itself, and snowshoeing across the ridge and glacier. The fact that it was in the 40s and wonderfully sunny the whole time certainly helped. I don’t think you have to be incredibly fit to do the hike, though you may end up causing the group to wait for you if you aren’t (like me). As I mentioned earlier, do bring a bag for the gear you end up receiving, and make sure to dress in layers and have plenty of sunscreen. I was fine with a single baselayer and a lightweight down jacket.

Dinner at Huset

That evening, we had the seven-course tasting menu at Huset, which I think is arguably the best restaurant on the island. Strangely, it also is town’s nightclub? The food was pretty good, but didn’t seem worth the high cost to me. The drink pairing was interesting though, including beer, cider, aquavit, and wine. We did learn that demand for reindeer meat on the island exceeds the local supply, so they actually import it from other Nordic countries. I think we consumed some imported from Sweden? The entire evening, the dining room had just three parties: two pretty quiet couples, and our group of five. I don’t think we were particularly loud, but by the end, it seemed like both the waiter and the Norwegian couple seated immediately next to us were growing weary of us… Overall, I think you’re better off in Svalbard allocating your dollars toward outdoor adventures, as this seemed like a worse value than eating a nice dinner in e.g. NYC.

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