Besseggen or Besseggi is a

mountain A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited Summit (topography), summit area, and ...

ridge in

Vågå Municipality Vågå () is a municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Gudbrandsdal. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Vågåmo. Other village areas in Vågå include Lalm and Bessh ...

Innlandet Innlandet is a county in Norway. It was created on 1 January 2020 with the merger of the old counties of Oppland and Hedmark (the municipalities of Jevnaker and Lunner were transferred to the neighboring county of Viken on the same date). The ...

county,

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

. The tall mountain ridge is located in the

Jotunheimen Jotunheimen (; "the home of the Jötunn") is a mountainous area of roughly in southern Norway and is part of the long range known as the Scandinavian Mountains. The 29 highest mountains in Norway are all located in the Jotunheimen mountains, in ...

mountains within

Jotunheimen National Park Jotunheimen National Park ( no, Jotunheimen nasjonalpark, "Home of the Giants") is a national park in Norway, recognized as one of the country's premier hiking and fishing regions. The national park covers and is part of the larger area Jotunhe ...

. The mountain sits about southwest of the village of

Vågåmo Vågåmo is the administrative centre of Vågå Municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. The village is located along the Otta River, at the eastern end of the lake Vågåvatn in the Ottadalen valley. The Norwegian National Road 15 passes th ...

and about northwest of the village of

Beitostølen Beitostølen is a village in Øystre Slidre Municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. The village is located at an elevation of about above mean sea level on the southern edge of the Valdresflye mountain plateau. The villages of Skammestein a ...

. The mountain ridge is surrounded by several other notable mountains including Veslfjellet to the east and Besshø to the northwest. The ridge runs between the lakes

Gjende Gjende or Gjendin is a lake in Vågå Municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. It is located in the Jotunheimen mountain range and also inside Jotunheimen National Park. The proglacial lake shows typical characteristics of glacial formation, ...

and Bessvatnet. The walk over Besseggen is one of the most popular mountain hikes in Norway. About 30,000 people walk this trip each year. The route over Besseggen starts at

Gjendesheim Gjendesheim Turisthytte has been a staffed lodge with Norwegian Mountain Touring Association (In Norwegian, Den Norske Turistforening – DNT) Oslo og Omegn as proprietor since 1878, and is located in the heart of the Norwegian mountains. The lodge ...

, up to the trails highest point, Veslfjellet (at ), down Besseggen, further over the relatively flat area Bandet (at the foot of Besshø), and ends at

Memurubu Memurubu is a tourist hut in Norway, at the end or start of the famous Besseggen hiking trail. Memurubu is originally an old mountain pasture dating back to 1872, but has had tourists just as long. Cows are still grazing around the tourist hut, w ...

, where one may take the regularly scheduled ferry route back to Gjendesheim. Many choose to do the hike in the other direction by starting at Memurubu after first taking the ferry there from Gjendesheim. The trip is estimated to take about 5–7 hours to walk without rest stops. From Besseggen there is a great view over the lakes

and Bessvatnet. One of the unique aspects of the view is that Gjende lies almost lower than Bessvatnet, and while Bessvatnet has a blue color typical of other lakes, Gjende has a distinct green color. The green color is the result from glacier runoff containing clay (

rock flour Rock flour, or glacial flour, consists of fine-grained, silt-sized particles of rock, generated by mechanical grinding of bedrock by glacial erosion or by artificial grinding to a similar size. Because the material is very small, it becomes suspe ...

). Looking down towards Memurubu one can see the nearby river Muru coloring the water with a light colored runoff.

Impact of tourism

The large number of hikers has led to serious erosion on the trails leading to Besseggen, both from Gjendesheim and Memurubu. In 2005 the Norwegian government authorized spending of towards the restoration of the trails. The project involves placing stone plates on the trail to limit additional damage and prevent further erosion. The stone plates were flown in by

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...

from Vågå since mass harvesting of stone from Jotunheimen is illegal. The technique used to pave the trail is modeled on the methods developed for the

Snowdonia National Park Snowdonia or Eryri (), is a mountainous region in northwestern Wales and a national park of in area. It was the first to be designated of the three national parks in Wales, in 1951. Name and extent It was a commonly held belief that the nam ...

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

Media gallery

besseggen.jpg, Besseggen seen towards east, with Bessvatnet on the left and

on the right. bessegen_pano.jpg, Besseggen ridge seen from east. besseggen2.jpg, Besseggen seen towards east Walking_on_Besseggen.jpg, Hikers along Besseggen seen towards east, with

on the right and Bessvatnet on the left Gjende_from_Besseggen.jpg, Besseggen seen towards west, with

on the left and Bessvatnet on the right Utsyn_over_Gjende.jpg, View over Gjende seen toward east, with Besseggen on the left 002 Jotunheimein reindeer - tourist on Besseggen trail in Jotunheimen National Park, Norway.jpg, Tourist observes reindeer at Veslfjellet part of Besseggen trail.

Competitions

In 1961, 1962, and 1963 a race across Besseggen called «Besseggløpet» was held during the summer. The race was organized by ''Norges Orienteringsforbund'' in cooperation with

Den Norske Turistforening The Norwegian Trekking Association ( no, Den norske turistforening, DNT) is a Norwegian association which maintains mountain trails and cabins in Norway. The association was founded on 21 January 1868 with the scope "to help and develop tourism i ...

. The record time from 1963 is held by Reidar Andreassen who was almost four and a half minutes ahead of the next finisher. The record time of 1 hour 16 minutes and 48 seconds still holds today. The women's record, set in 1963, is held by Valborg Østberg from

Gjøvik is a municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Toten. The administrative centre of the municipality is town of Gjøvik. Some of the villages in Gjøvik include Biri, Bybrua, and Hunndalen. The ...

with a time of 1 hour 39 minutes and 47 seconds. She was a 32 year old housewife and mother of two kids and the

Dagbladet ''Dagbladet'' (lit.: ''The Daily Magazine'') is one of Norway's largest newspapers and is published in the tabloid format. It has 1,400,000 daily readers on mobile, web and paper. Traditionally ''Dagbladet'' is considered the main liberal newsp ...

newspaper said that she "ran like a goat over Besseggen".

In literature

Besseggen is known from act 1, scene 1 of

Henrik Ibsen Henrik Johan Ibsen (; ; 20 March 1828 – 23 May 1906) was a Norwegian playwright and theatre director. As one of the founders of modernism in theatre, Ibsen is often referred to as "the father of realism" and one of the most influential playw ...

s play

Peer Gynt ''Peer Gynt'' (, ) is a five- act play in verse by the Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen published in 1876. Written in Norwegian, it is one of the most widely performed Norwegian plays. Ibsen believed ''Per Gynt'', the Norwegian fairy tale on wh ...

. Peer tries to convince his mother, Åse, that he has ridden over Gjendineggen, now known as Besseggen, on a

reindeer Reindeer (in North American English, known as caribou if wild and ''reindeer'' if domesticated) are deer in the genus ''Rangifer''. For the last few decades, reindeer were assigned to one species, ''Rangifer tarandus'', with about 10 subspe ...

bull. Besseggen is also described in the poem «Besseggen» by

Ragnvald Skrede Ragnvald Skrede (24 April 1904 – 16 August 1983) was a Norwegian author, journalist, literature critic and translator. Biography Ragnvald Skrede was born in Vågå in Oppland county, Norway. Skrede was the youngest of seven children. He was a s ...

Name

The mountain ridge is named after Bessvatnet, the last element is the finite form off ''egg'' which means 'edge'. In the local dialect, the form is ''Besseggje''. The

Bokmål Bokmål () (, ; ) is an official written standard for the Norwegian language, alongside Nynorsk. Bokmål is the preferred written standard of Norwegian for 85% to 90% of the population in Norway. Unlike, for instance, the Italian language, there ...

written form of the name is ''Besseggen'' and the

Nynorsk Nynorsk () () is one of the two written standards of the Norwegian language, the other being Bokmål. From 12 May 1885, it became the state-sanctioned version of Ivar Aasen's standard Norwegian language ( no, Landsmål) parallel to the Dano-Nor ...

written form is ''Besseggi''.

References

External links

Infopage Jotunheimen / Besseggen

Gjendesheim cabin

Infopage Besseggen

Ferry on Gjende (Gjendebåtene)

Article on Besseggløpet

UT.no about hiking on Besseggen
* https://www.ncbar.org/news/norwegian-hiking-adventure-tests-members-mettle/ {{use dmy dates, date=May 2022 Jotunheimen Vågå Mountains of Innlandet Landforms of Innlandet Ridges of Europe