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 area, and is usually higher t ...

ridge in

Vågå Municipality Vågå () is a List of municipalities of Norway, municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. It is located in the Traditional districts of Norway, traditional district of Gudbrandsdal. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of ...

Innlandet Innlandet is a Counties of Norway, county in Norway. It was created on 1 January 2020 with the merger of the old counties of Oppland and Hedmark (Jevnaker Municipality and Lunner Municipality were transferred to the neighboring county of Viken ( ...

county,

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

. The tall mountain ridge is located in the Jotunheimen mountains within Jotunheimen National Park. The mountain sits about southwest of the village of Vågåmo and about northwest of the village of Beitostølen. 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 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, 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, 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 Gjende 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). 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 (force), lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning Helicopter rotor, rotors. This allows the helicopter to VTOL, take off and land vertically, to hover (helicopter), hover, and ...

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 in

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

Media gallery

besseggen.jpg, Besseggen seen towards east, with Bessvatnet on the left and Gjende 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 Gjende on the right and Bessvatnet on the left Gjende_from_Besseggen.jpg, Besseggen seen towards west, with Gjende 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 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 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 () is one of Norway's largest newspapers and is published in the Tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid format. It has 1,400,000 daily readers on mobile, web and paper. Traditionally it was considered the main liberal newspaper of Norway, with a ...

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, poet and actor. Ibsen is considered the world's pre-eminent dramatist of the 19th century and is often referred to as "the father of modern drama." He pioneered ...

s play

Peer Gynt ''Peer Gynt'' (, ) is a five-Act (drama), act play in verse written in 1867 by the Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen. It is one of Ibsen's best known and most widely performed plays. ''Peer Gynt'' chronicles the journey of its title character fr ...

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

reindeer The reindeer or caribou (''Rangifer tarandus'') is a species of deer with circumpolar distribution, native to Arctic, subarctic, tundra, taiga, boreal, and mountainous regions of Northern Europe, Siberia, and North America. It is the only re ...

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 Municipality in Oppland county, Norway. Skrede was the youngest of seven childre ...

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 one of the official written standards for the Norwegian language, alongside Nynorsk. Bokmål is by far the most used written form of Norwegian today, as it is adopted by 85% to 90% of the population in Norway. There is no cou ...

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

Nynorsk Nynorsk (; ) is one of the two official 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 (''Landsmål''), parallel to the Da ...

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