Three days into my solo trek around Norway’s Lysefjorden, I realized my wallet had disappeared. Italian leather, engraved with my initials—a memento from my study abroad. I didn’t expect to see it again; but, it returned five days later by the grace of Lady Luck.
Traveling to the trailhead, I hopped on a bus in Stavanger, a city in western Norway, bound for the tiny town of Forsand. I arrived at dusk at Forsand’s small por
“Behold, the Lysefjorden,” I said to myself. The fjord unfurled between mountains so tall they seemed to close off the world.
Because Norway sits so far north, summer light lingers and dusk arrives late. I was starving but itching to move, so I ate a fistful of homemade GORP and reorganized my overstuffed pack. Then I set out.
Norway’s law, the “Right to Roam”, allows people to sleep under the stars 150 meters away from buildings and cultivated land. You can pitch a tent practically anywhere if you don’t mind stepping off the beaten path.
I was, during those first fifteen minutes of the walk, ecstatic. Mountain giants surrounded the wide winding road, sleeping under an endless light. Farms dotted the road; horses and goats watched me from their fences. These were giant horses and giant goats—fit to serve Vikings.
I walked along the crystal waters in nighttime daylight, a hectic mix of Bob Dylan and Fred Again in my ears. Being alone didn’t scare me, but I was definitely curious how this solo trek would compare to my last Norway trek. One that lingered in my nostalgia and inspired me to come back.
After high school, two friends and I discovered Norway’s hut-to-hut system, the DNT, on a trip through Iceland and Norway. On our first trek, we underestimated a route and hiked twelve exhausting hours through rain, snow, and cliffs. Ending the day, our boots were caked in slowly drying mud when the DNT cabin came into view. At the cabin, there was a very friendly black cow with a yellow bell around its neck. Nipping at its heels was a husky. And then we noticed the stranger we’d be staying with. We were shocked to learn he was trekking for thirty days with his husky to see his girlfriend. The idea of that devotion to the journey—just him and his dog—seduced me.
I vowed to do the same someday; though, the logistics of getting a husky in Norway was too complicated. Nor did I have a girlfriend.
The idea of adventure was enough.
After a semester in Florence, where flights were cheap, I seized my chance for a solo trip—despite owning no backpacking gear.
After an hour of walking, I searched for a flat patch of moss to pitch my tent. Using my camping stove, I cooked couscous with chicken bouillon and spices. On top: bell peppers, carrots, and sausage sautéed in olive oil and garlic. Food always tastes better when you work for it, but this meal was really just held together by hope and prayers; though, it was cooked with a lot of love.
The next day I planned nine hours of walking. Destination was set for Vinddalen, the trailhead. My bag was severely overpacked, and while I had a plethora of energy and music, good vibes wasn’t going to get my bag up and over the hilly road.
Surely someone would see the size of my bag and take pity. Wish to reality, a white car pulled to a stop beside me. I made eye contact with the driver, and found salvation.
We chatted for a minute and I explained my destination. He held up his hand and told me to wait, then jogged to the car behind him.
Walking back, he exclaimed in a deep Scandinavian voice, “She lives in Vinddalen; she can drive you.”
The woman who drove me to the trailhead is named Laila. She works in an office in Forsand and has 2 kids (one a shepherd).
During our drive, I mentioned that I was carrying a water filter and the thought of drinking water from frigid rivers filled me with excitement. She laughed and informed me that Norway’s wild water was clean. The only time I would need to filter is if the river was near a farm or industrial site. Still chuckling, she stopped the car on a random bridge.
“This is going to be the best water you will ever have in your life,” she said to me.
From under the bridge: a black pipe secured with rope, connecting river to bridge. Water gushed out. I understood then that water was the source of all life; this was pure and cold. I could feel it traveling like ice-blood down my throat.
When we reached the trailhead, the fjord was a distant memory. I had traveled deep into the mountains. Bright red T’s painted on cairns marked the climb to the DNT cabin. It wasn’t a very difficult hike; my overpacked bag made it so.
In the first DNT cabin, a huge window framed the sparkling lake, and board games littered the common room. It was at this cabin that I met Zach and Merle. Two college freshmen from the States. To my surprise, they were doing the same trek as me!
The night of day two, we slept in Flørli, a town with one permanent resident. He owned and worked the cafe where Zach, Merle, and I planned to eat dinner; but, as we left the DNT cabin, I couldn’t find my wallet. It was gone. Immediately hitting me: the crushing weight of traveling the next eight weeks in Norway without a wallet.
Inside, I was freaking out. Though, I didn’t want to seem crazy to these strangers so I pushed it deep down. Luckily, I was able to pay at the cafe using Apple Pay.
In the cafe, we met a group of Belgian sports medicine students. They had just come from Preikestolen, a granite cliff overlooking Lysefjorden. That was the final stop on the trek, across the fjord.
We ate dinner together in that homey cafe while it dumped rain. Before it closed, the owner handed us the keys and told us to clean up and lock up.
In a gruff voice: “Walk into the yellow house, door’s unlocked, and put the keys on the front table.”
If Norway gives you the right to roam the land, its people grant you the right to belong.
We stayed chatting for another two hours. Almost enough time for me to forget about losing my wallet.
Day three was a special beast. Our trio woke up in Flørli and set out to finish the largest wooden staircase in the world—4,444 steps. I died. Zach and Merle noticed my slow pace and offered to help offload some of my heavier items. They made those two hours to the top of the steps a lot easier, taking on a heavier load to help a stranger. I was filled with gratitude. I made them salami wraps from my food stores to thank them.
That day, we started at sea level and climbed into the clouds. From sunny day on the ocean to a barren, frozen land. After the steps, nine miles of hiking carried us higher into the mountains, where snow crunched underfoot and lakes froze over. The air was crispy.
I breathed deep. Sweet solitude. Solace. I could think.
This day was physically exhausting, but still fell short of the last day. That day tore me apart.
Day four had us hiking back to sea-level. On this hike, my twin brother Dexter called me to inform that someone with a Norwegian number had my wallet. For Dex, it was 2:00am—thankfully, he was awake.
I slapped my face in my stupidity; it must’ve slipped out in her car. After getting Laila’s number from Dex, we made a plan to meet when I re-entered civilization.
I remembered that, in my wallet, a hastily written down card with: “If lost, call this number”. I didn’t have a phone for a month while studying abroad, leading me to write Dex’s number when I visited him studying in Barcelona. It’s fortunate that I never took the card out of my wallet afterwards, otherwise Laila would never have texted Dex.
After that call, my day was filled with sunshine. I carefully stepped onto Kjeragbolten, a boulder suspended between two cliffs. It hung high over the ocean. The stability of something looking so fragile was astounding.
The path down to the town of Lysebotn was treacherously steep, but kept hikers safe with a chain hooked into the mountain. The path led to a parking lot, where we took a shuttle down to the town.
The shuttle driver chatted up a storm with us. Apparently, she was a base-jumper, which I’d never heard of. She described it as the total act of freedom: looking down from a cliff above the world and choosing to jump.
Base jumpers are suspended in free fall for under a minute before they pull their parachute. If the parachute malfunctions, or if they don’t pull the cord fast enough… She told us that she loses a couple friends every year.
She said, “Of course I’m scared. I hike to a cliff and jump off. Jumping is the scariest thing I’ve ever done, and I do it every day. I worry for the base jumpers who look off the cliff without a hint of fear. Those are the ones who don’t make it. You have to be scared. The exhilaration comes from facing your fear. From knowing that you’re afraid and jumping anyway. And then the wind is in your hair and you are free.”
On day seven, the forecast looked promising: light misting, but we were fine with that.
It was not a light misting. Zeus was furious that day. Thunder tore the skies open for the rain to pour down, turning the trail to slurry. Fog smothered the ridge until the world ended ten feet ahead. The winds raced across the peak of a barren, rocky hill, sweeping frigid air through my body. The winds focused on my exposed hands, turning them bone-white. I told Zach and Merle to go on; my knees were cooked from days of steep ascents and descents.
I wanted to quit. I wanted to curl up on muddy ground and stay there forever in cold and misery. I didn’t, and around mile six, the skies started to clear. The view from Preikestolen was a testament to my accomplishment. It was a sheer cliff face where you could see as far as the eye could. The sun gleamed over the fjord, and over the sapphire waters, I imagined soaring as a bird. Floating on a breeze, swift with steady feathers.
Somewhere beyond the water, my wallet was soaring as well—hand to hand, town to town—while I climbed into the clouds.
Below the Preikestolen hike, I will never forget the restaurant. I ordered a three course meal: Smoked salmon on a Norwegian waffle with a creamy tarragon sauce, mountain stew with braised beef on mashed potatoes, warm waffle with vanilla ice cream and homemade jam. Good food heals the soul.
The legs were jelly, but I needed to find a place to sleep. Because the dark crept in slowly, I never hiked in the dark until that night. My flashlight was the only thing I could see for a while, and then I looked up. The stars twinkled, dazzling me with their playful wonder.
Day eight was the last day, and the journey had caught up with me. With every step, I had to suppress a wince or a groan from my knees. My saving grace was a spot on the hike where a small pond met the sky. A natural infinity pool where the mirror-water reflected the clouds and shades of sky blue.
The end of the trek was a dingy parking lot next to a construction site. The place I would meet Laila was an hour’s walk on a highway. Cars sped by me as I skipped and sang in exhilaration. I walked through a tunnel, holding my flashlight up so the cars could see me.
I met Laila at a concrete lookout spot built into the side of a mountain over the Lysefjorden. Across, I could see the mountain I had started my trek on. Below, a sparkling plane of sapphire.
Laila had the biggest smile on her face when I saw her. She immediately handed me my wallet, and my body deflated. She asked how my trek was, who I had met, my favorite places. During our chat, I learned how my wallet came to her.
Apparently, I had not left my wallet in her car. She had walked into a grocery store near her office in Forsand and the storeowner had asked if she met anybody from LA. They had a wallet. Laila responded that she had driven someone a couple days ago, and asked to see the ID in the wallet. It was my face.
Because I had never entered a store in Forsand, someone had to have picked up my wallet from the ground on the port (where it presumably fell) and given it to the store worker. That person then spent the next few days unsuccessfully searching for someone from LA or knew someone from LA, until Laila walked in.
On the trail, I’d learned how to rely on the terrain—on red markers, on sunlight that felt never-ending. People aren’t meant to be wholly alone. We travel not only through landscapes, but through people’s generosity. Every step of the fjord depended on someone else’s quiet kindness. If Laila can drive an hour away from her home to give a stranger his wallet back, what are the limits for my own kindness?
I will forever attribute this salvation to fortune and goodwill. At the lookout, I stared over the fjord, unfurling between the mountains. Turning the leather over in my palm, I wondered: Where it had traveled?