Friday Photo #554 – Vaeroy

Photo: Misty clouds swirls around the steep mountain peaks of Værøy. June 24, 2022. 22:13

Unlike this photo, the weather forecast for this weekend is looking quite nice so I’ll be catching the ferry over to Værøy to finish up a few more hikes which I never managed on last year’s trip – such as the mountain ridge in the background of this image. I’ve already added a few of the hikes to the website: Håen, Hornet, Måhornet. But as I get a couple missing routes in, then I’ll add everything to the West Lofoten Hikes ebook sometime later in the year when I updated things.

I wrote last week’s post a few days in advance as I was traveling down along the Helgeland coast. But the temperature broke 29˚c in Leknes – Hot! The hottest day for the last couple years, if I remember correctly. I was lucky with mostly good weather down on the Helgeland coast as well, and was able to visit some new areas for a bit more research. But good weather was to be expected, as checking the weather forecasts and looking for a decent weather window are a primary deciding factor in when and where I might travel when I’m on a short road trip out of Lofoten.

Standing in a t-shirt in the bright morning sun while waiting for a ferry to cross the lake to the east side of the Svartisen glacier a British couple and German couple were having a conversation about their travels. The British had been mostly in northern Norway the last weeks and were complimenting on how nice the weather had been, hot even for them. While the Germans had recently driven up from the south and were complaining that this was the first day without rain since their trip started a week ago. They sounded skeptical about ever coming back to Norway again, as they experienced so much bad weather.

While there is always some luck involved, looking at the weather forecasts and maybe altering your plans a bit, especially if you are in a motorhome/camper van and don’t need to rely on pre-booked accommodation, can be the difference between a sunny or soggy trip to Norway. To put it another way – travel to where the nice weather is! There is also somewhat of a north – south divide to the weather in Norway. Rarely does the whole country experience the same conditions for any continuous amount of time. The last couple years Lofoten has experienced rainy summers while the south has been warm and dry. This year was the opposite, with northern Norway having endless amounts of sunshine while there have been torrential rains and floods in southern/central Norway.

So off to Værøy I go. The sky looks perfectly clear on Sunday, and I have already heard that the first aurora of the year were seen Wednesday night, so maybe I get lucky and will have my first sighting of the year!

Head over to my Instagram account for (almost) daily postings of the local conditions here on Lofoten: @distant.north

Camera Info:
Nikon Z7 II
Nikon 24-200mm f/4-6.3
70mm
ISO 100
f 8
1/20 Second
WB Daylight