Niingen, Norway

[jmarkb]

After our first two days in the Narvik area with tremendous inversion conditions (see here and here), the weather took a turn for the worse - not much rain but lots of low cloud covering the higher tops. for our next day out we hedged our bets a bit, with a high level and medium level options available from the same start near the village of Bogen. Niingen and it lower neighbour Domniingen look steep and impressive from the main road, and the start is fairly brutal: the climb to Domniingen rises 700m in just over 1km. The path initially follows a hydro pipeline, and at one point you are confronted with a metal ladder up a cliff: thankfully you can duck under the pipe and go up some concrete steps on the far side (I guess the ladder is for winter time?). At the top of the pipe we had to decide whether to follow the path across a shelf towards the Niingshytta hut, or carry on up. Since the weather was overcast but otherwise OK, we decided to carry on up, on a fainter path which makes its way up a steep gully through the cliffs. At the top, the summit of Niingen came dramatically into view, and the more level ground was certainly a relief, crossing rocky slabs to join another path that comes up from the hut. After a while this path head back downhill towards another hut, but a line of stone markers continues on a broad rocky ridge towards Niingen.

The finally section is steep an rocky, and is outflanked by a traverse across and up a big snow patch, which was steep enough to require some care, and made us wish we hadn't left the ice axes behind in the car! Thankfully the snow was soft enough and the runout below not too serious. Once up the snow, much easier ground led to the summit, and good views downwards, if not sideways! Oddly, views were a sort of mirror image of those from Litletinden a couple of days earlier when the cloud top was at more or less the same level as the cloud base today.

We retraced our steps to the upper path and followed this to the Niingen hut, descending a shelf and then weaving up, down and around to find an unlikely looking way through the crags and outcrops. Once past the hut, the path does some more contortions to avoid outcrops, before eventually dropping down through the trees to the head of Strandvatnet lake, where a short walk along a track by the shore takes you back to the start.

Online map


Niingen from Domniingen


Typical terrain on Domniingen


Looking down to Niingsvatnet


Waterfalls fed by a big snowfield on Skittendalstinden


Summit of Niingen - the route crosses the snowfield to reach the skyline ridge


Looking down to Bogen from the summit


Blåvatnet - still mostly frozen


Djupåvatnet


Niingsvatnet


Looking back to Niingen


Strandvatnet and Bogen


Twinflowers in the woods