At first it looked like it would end up raining after all, but as the ferry pulled off, the clouds held. We had one stop across the fjord before heading up to Fjaerland. As we were pulling into the dock, a woman upstairs almost got washed down the stairs by a huge wave of water running off the top deck. Luckily she had an extra pair of pants with her. And lucky she didn't actually get washed down the stairs - that could only have ended very badly. Water continued to wash around for most of the ride, but nothing like that first wave.
The morning light with the low lying clouds was so beautiful. Periodically a sun beam would shoot down into the water. The clouds seemed to be coming out of the mountains, rather than catching on them.
The ride up to Fjaerland was like a ride through fairy land. Low clouds continued to float along like wisps, sometimes coming almost all the way down to the water. There were waterfalls where ever you looked. Every quarter mile or so, there would be a few houses nestled in next to a waterfall. I would imagine these are just summer homes. Whatever they are, they would be an idyllic place to stay.
The bus was waiting for us when we got off the ferry. It was a short drive along the fjord up to the Glacier Museum. That may not seem like a very interesting museum subject, but it was actually very cool. And the building was designed by a world renowned architect - Sverre Fehn - so Todd was excited to see it. The view from the roof was the most spectacular - Fjaerland is right at the end of a very narrow fjord - and the museum is not far from the water on the very tip end. So to one direction you are looking back down the fjord, and in the other you are looking up at a glacier. I had never seen a glacier before, so I was very excited!
After about an hour at the museum, we all loaded back onto the bus and headed off to the first of the two glaciers we got to visit. (They refer to them as individual glaciers, even though they are technically arms of one huge glacier. I can imagine this is helpful in avoiding confusion, since the Jostedalbreen has lots of arms.) Our first stop was perfectly set up - getting off the bus and looking around, you couldn't really see the glacier. We had to walk up a short path to get around the corner, so the whole scene came at you all of a sudden. The river running from the glacier was a smokey white color from the silt, and I know this isn't going to surprise everyone, but it was unbelievably cold.
Even though we only had about 20 minutes before moving on to the next stop, we hurried across the boulder field to actually get up close with the glacier. (It's generally not terribly wise to get too close to a glacier unless you know what you are doing - they are in motion and chunks of ice can break off at any time. This glacier wasn't of a particularly dangerous sort, so we were fairly comfortable with it.) These mountains are so steep, it makes you feel very small standing at their feet. To look at the top, you practically have to lean back. The hustle over to the actual base of the glacier was well worth it. It's only ice, but when you look at the valley and remember the ride up the fjord, it's daunting to think of what ice can do. And glacier ice can be thousands of years old, which in itself is pretty cool.
The bus ride to the next glacier was a short ride through sparsely populated farm land. We passed a rock slide at one point, that according to a handout on the bus, when it happened covered the road with 6 meters of stone. Kaiser Wilhelm also apparently used to come here a lot. Anyway, the second stop was a more popular glacier. There were a couple other cars in the parking lot, but there still weren't very many people. The valley floor was a bit wider here, so you got a better view of the whole valley. As with all the mountains in the fjords, there were waterfalls running from the peaks all around.
We made a vague attempt to hike out to the base of this glacier, but the ground was very muddy from all the rain, and it didn't seem like that big of a deal. So we just stood on the edge of the lake and enjoyed the view.
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