The Yates: Preikestolen (a.k.a. Pulpit Rock)

Hiking Preikestolen was at the top of my list since we found out we were moving to Norway. It's probably the most famous hike near Stavanger. I wanted to do it as soon as possible so the weather would still be warm enough and so my belly wasn't too big, making it more uncomfortable, or waiting too long and then we would have a baby to carry up too. We had planned to do the hike two other Saturdays but they got rained out. So when we saw a sunny forecast on this particular Saturday we started making plans. And it ended up being the most perfect weekend we could have chosen to go! We invited Barrett's coworker, who is another intern at Lærdal from Hopkins, Jenny, and the 4 of us set out early in the morning. You have to take a ferry to get there and then a bus up to the base of the hike, so we left our house around 7:30 am and were hiking around 10.

Here we are waiting for the ferry. This bridge is visible from Stavanger Sentrum and we went under it on the way out.

It was quite a foggy morning and the view on the ferry was beautiful with the mountains barely visible in the distance.

The next two pictures are our first overlook of the hike. I should have taken pictures of the flat grassland in the middle and the really steep rocky parts we went up; but when you're focused on hiking you don't stop to take pictures :)

Luckily Jenny was there to get some good hiking pictures of us :) I was a little happy to be pregnant so I didn't have to worry about packing Lily on my back while hiking. Good thing I have an amazing husband to do that ;)

A couple more Jenny took of us along the way.

There were a couple lakes near the end of the hike. Some people will stop and swim here.

The final climb before rounding the corner to see...

...the famous Pulpit Rock

Here is our friend, Jenny, who hiked with us.

When you google Pulpit Rock or Preikestolen you see all the famous pictures of the cliff edge and the big flat rock spot where everybody sits, so I honestly didn't really think to take many pictures of these. But it is the destination, so behind Jenny is the flat area.

The view was breathtaking! I couldn't soak it all in. You just stare at the view and it's surreal.

When Barrett and Jenny went with CBID last year it was incredibly foggy. Click here for some pictures (scroll down just a little and it's there. It's worth looking at because there is a huge difference!). They said you couldn't even tell you were walking right next to a cliff and it didn't seem nearly as scary. So this was their first time seeing the amazing view too.

We knew we had to take a picture hanging off the edge, but the pictures just don't do justice. It's hard to get the right angle, but it is straight down and SO FAR down. At first it didn't bother me too much, but the longer I sat the more scared I got, ha ha. That night when I closed my eyes to go to bed all the terrible scenarios of what could have happened played in my head, even though I hadn't thought about it all day. I mentioned it to Barrett and he said he was thinking about the same thing. Ha ha!

This gives you a small idea of the drop, but I still couldn't get the camera out far enough to see the bottom. When I took the camera away from my eyes I realized how close I was to the edge. Scary!

We took time to eat our lunches on the rock and enjoy the view.

The view from the other side of the rock before we started hiking back down. It took us 2-2.5 hours to get up and about a 1.5 hours to get down. Lily did so well! She loved being in "Lily's backpack" and slept most of the hike down.

It was hard to leave the view. I felt like I couldn't fully soak it all into my body and soul. And even if I stayed there for hours I would feel the same. Sounds cheesy, ha ha. But compared to everything else we do in life, it's such a short time to see God's amazing creations like this. I wish I could step outside and see views like this everyday, but the pictures will have to do.

Another nap riding back to the ferry.

We had a little mishap with Lily while we had a long wait for the bus to take us back to the ferry. She was playing on one of the benches and it tipped over on her and she fell into some bushes and bit her lip really bad. The bench was so heavy I couldn't pull it off of her myself. We thought maybe her leg was broken because of how she was twisted and part of her ponytail was pulled out; but she didn't have any other scratches or bruises other than the beat up lip. It was bleeding pretty bad, but healed in a week, luckily. We tried to take a picture the next day but it's really hard to see the swollen lip and bite spots/scabs. As soon as we got her cleaned up she said "fell in tree" and most times we asked to see her lip the next few days she'd say "fell in bush". Good thing the bushes were the most traumatic part of the fall rather than being pinned under a heavy bench. It's probably good she did fall into the bushes to soften the landing.