This is not, sadly enough, exclusively, a story about Man seeking, finding roots...
   Last summer I went back to the Norwegian high mountains. For many reasons, really. For the Challenge and the "sport", of course, but most of all for the Seeking, my continued Search for the ancient Human Being, the all too essential qualities lost, misplaced in the present day world, in gray, dreary civilization.
   I went most of the way, using a car. You have to, really, unless you have unlimited time on your hand and also a thick wallet. We always return to the notion of the thick wallet, don't we? So also here, so far from ordinary existence.
   You see, you can't escape it, even here. The joy, the wild feeling of being There, is tinged with the realization that civilization is sinking its hooks in everywhere.
   400 kilometers from western norway, over a huge, flat mountain plateau, slowly rising to Jotunheim to the north, Jotneheim - the home of the old Norse myths and creatures of legend.
   I'll come with some practical advice now. I knew about the greedy bastards operating the quite a few "huts" in the national park. So I brought a tent, and equipment to generally survive alone in the wilderness for some time. I had brought some food, mostly canned with me, from home. The rest I intended to buy, as close to the mountains I could come.
   This year I did it in the city (village, really) of Fagernes, as this was revealed last year to be the last place selling non expensive groceries, before the mountains, and it was still a considerable distance to go. At least I didn't find any grocery-store at all, and I checked and searched, (once again this year) without success. So I could skip the added trip to the north side of the mountain area, to another last outpost, the village of Vagamo (as I had done the previous year).
   I loaded my backpack with food. (Free going) chickens (I was told... that means they spent at least a considerable amount of their short life outdoors, before someone chopped their head off), fruit, drinks and all I could think of, to avoid being victimized by the inflated prices in the mountains. My backpack turned very heavy, but I hardly noticed. Anticipation (after all) raged within me.
   After a long drive on a bumpy private road, where you're supposed to pay taxes (I didn't do it this year either), I arrived on the parking lot, late in the afternoon. I knew well that it would've taken me over an hour to walk to the Glitterheim "cabin"(it would've made any medium sized hotel green with envy). So this year I had brought a bike.

   It was really late in the afternoon, and I decided to camp on the spot, a bit further up from the parking lot, outside the national park. Setting up the tent went fast and in a fury. It had to, since a pack of Mosquitoes had decided to make a feast of me… I had borrowed a tenth this year, too, and I hadn't really practiced. It still went like a dream. In spite of the Mosquitoes I started to get the feeling. I was just 50 meters from the parking lot and the wilderness had already moved into me. Or rather; from the inside and out. I saved the chickens and started digesting my on the spot prepared sandwiches. It was amazing. The taste was so much… richer. It was the same sandwiches I used to eat at home, exactly the same.
   I had trouble sleeping. A roaring river and a very loud mobile stereo unit down on the parking lot fought for my attention. It never gets completely dark in Northern Europe during the summer, only an eternal twilight. I had gone to bed too early, I knew that. For me it has never been any use without being sleepy. And now I was here. A place I had waited 20 years to visit again and was everything I remembered and had dreamed. And… the damn infernally loud speakers distracted me from everything important. I can't really remember how many times I was tempted to race down to the parking lot and murder all the party participants, but it was many.
   The speakers finally fell silent and only the river remained. The roaring river sent me deep into sleep, high on the wings of Night.
   Next morning was just as sunny, just as beautiful. Ground was dry to the point of desert like. I decided on wearing the running shoes, leaving the boots in the car. After dismantling and packing the tent. I grabbed my (heavy) backpack and the bike and I was off.
   I had slept just a few hours. I felt like a million "bucks". The road to the "cabin" was dusty. The trip took far less time than last year, of course, but even so, the enormity of the landscape imposed itself on me. Every twist and turn of the road seemed to be miles away, and finally after reaching that particular one, there was another just as far away. A minute felt like an eternity. A mile was just a tiny spot below the mountains, still stretching towards the heavens. The world was big once again. I could draw breath once again.
   I parked the bike outside the Hotel, walked inside shortly to sign my name in the guestbook (noticing that the inflated prices had grown even more inflated since last year) and was on my way.