Kilpisjärvi to Nordkapp ( North Cape)

This summer I did a walk from the top of Finland's pan handle to North Cape at the top end of Norway on the island of Mageroya( which should be spelt with the Norwegian o slash character but the windows alt code crashes this page!)

After starting the walk I realized that there is an officially marked route to North Cape , the E1 long distance trail from Norway to Italy, I kept to my own route however linking marked ATV trails with long sections of off trail hiking. My cross country routes as far as possible kept to the high and dry tundra hills, valleys are filled with wet bogs mires and willow scrub with dense bushwhacking around streams below the tree line.

Distance was about 300 miles, stages were Kilpisjärvi-Kautokeino-Maze-Stabursnes-olderfjord-Nordkapp. Took about 6 weeks with rests.

memorial to 'those buried elsewhere' which I think (?) is a reference to Finland's war with Russia.

1st campsite Kässivarsi wilderness area

some rocks

more rocks, is this like Arizona with water?

lots of bogs and mires, is this what you call muskeg?

slow to cross with all the cloud berries that must be picked.

no shortage of water here

Dwarf birch Betula Nana on the dry tundra

campsite near Maze

wet murky weather (lots of this)

It's not wilderness as Americans might be used to but pastureland for domesticated reindeer herds and most man made artifacts are associated with herding

traditional turf hut used for hunting and fishing

Approaching Stabbursdalen National Park

In Stabbursdalen I arrived in the summer reindeer grazing pastures, in November they are herded to areas around Kautokeino and Karasjok to survive the winter on lichens.

Stabbursdalen high country in yet more wet weather .

The lower areas of Stabbursdalen NP protect one of the world's most northerly pine forests.

Near Olderfjord

North Finnmark coast

Looking toward the island of Mageroya, and the fishing port of Honningsvag. I hitched a ride through the 5 mile long tunnel though some people do walk.

Mageroya is a strange place, it  looks mountainous with steep slopes cliffs and fast streams but in reality they are only hills not much over 1000 feat above sea level. Good place for mountain hikers who suffer extreme altitude sickness.

Looking toward North Cape

I ran out of food the last night before North Cape and arrived quite hungry and bedraggled at the visitor center.

terminus of the E1 trail, but my trail was much more interesting and dramatic at times, for some reason the E1 on Mageroya just follows the road to north cape.

The real terminus of my walk was the road less peninsula of Knivskjelloden, this is the view from there with a white tailed sea eagle in the frame. Eagles are common here and I saw one or two almost daily.

At the end of this section I still had a week left and so returned to Stabbursdalen for some autumn colour pictures, but i'll save that for another thread.