A Family Hike Kjærlighets Stien

My husband has been working all weekend, so while I did not want to give up our weekend hike, I certainly did not think I was willing to take both kids with me up a mountain by myself. So instead I took them up Kjærlighets Stien, which translates as 'Lover's Path.' The name has always confounded me as there's certainly no place on this hike to get cosy, anywhere. The pictures I have will show this. Most of the time it's pretty wet as well.

In any case I chose this hike today as it actually allows us to circle our house. We walk down the hill from our house, along the main road....



...through this tunnel and about another 500 meters along the main road before turning upwards into the woods.

Here is the very beginning of the pathway that heads upwards. As one can see, in the beginning both my children were full of energy.

I do have to admit that I did let the kids decide how fast we would be hiking. So this involved stopping at every creek and water hole (4 of them), inspecting every large hole in the ground for sleeping animals (of which thankfully there never are....), and playing on every fallen tree.

Here is a picture showing one of the easier parts of the hike. One has to watch their feet all the time. My son did well - my daughter however fell flat on her stomach 4 times. But she's tough - never once did she cry or complain. She's a real trooper.

While they took time playing, I was able to have fun looking through the trees.

At this part of the path, the forest clears out and a number of large trees appear. No one has told me this, but I can only assume that when this land was owned by farmers 50, 100, 150 years ago, this was part of the area where they used to plant trees for their children and grandchildren. The building of resources for future use (in this case large, straight, wide trees that could be cut into planks to build houses/barns) needed to be planned. I *think* these trees must have been planted sometime in the past as they are all growing in pretty much a straight line. But their usefulness is not needed these days.

More of the rocky path..... (certainly no place here to bring a blanket and snuggle up for the night). :)

Finally, it appears that we have found the very last blueberries to be found in this forest!

This is usally a hike that takes my 40 minutes when I partially run it. Today it took me/us 2.5 hours. But we had fun!