Gullruta is a DNT signatur route here in Norway and only a few hours drive from home here in Stavanger. Having already done Massiv and Saga (twice) it was time for a new challenge. The project idea was born about a year ago and I enlisted super trail runner Silje Skarpeid to come along for an adventure which would also serve as good training for her upcoming UTMB revenge. There were a few blogs from hikers (this route is usually done cabin to cabin over several days) which gave us some good intel and Finn, who already has the FKT on the route filled us in where we were confused on the map.
Seljestad-Simlebu: Left from Hesjabakk parking just before kl7 on Saturday 19th July, crossed the 134 and the river and started watches from the DNT sign to Simlebu. We each carried a 12L pack with 1.5 liters of water carrying capacity between us (lots of nice tasty free clean water everywhere in western Norway), our cups for drinking on the go, headlamps, Tailwind and electrolytes, jackets, sunscreen, extra socks, inReach emergency beacon, a first aid kit/emergency blanket and our food. We were prepared for a record hot day and knew it would be a factor. We had 7 nice and easy km up on mostly tractor road to Steinavatnet; which took us a little over an hour including a first of many snack breaks. We decided to use expedition style eating - go for about 55min, with 5 min stop to eat and do whatever. We went unsupported so we had all our food for the day with us - beef jerky, nuts, some gels, candy (Seigmenn for Silje, knockoff Rema1000 brand candy for me), lefse, baby food, and some chocolate. Silje had made peanut butter polarbread, I made my favorite denver rice cakes from Feed Zone Portables. The chocolate had to be eaten first! Fine flat high plateau terrain until the muddy and slippery downhill below Simlebu. Up a 100m steep climb and we were there! More sunscreen was applied. 18km. No one around at Simlebu.
Simlebu-Sandvasshytte: Sun was getting pretty hot at this point. My phone recorded around 29degrees! But this was the best quality trails - passing on a lot of rock over the source of Langfoss and then an amazing 3km flytsti into Sandvasshytte - no one was around but the trout smoker was on! We were now at 32km and took a slightly longer break to use the bathroom.
Sandvasshytte-Blomstølen: A quick section, first with a steep descent on pretty slippery schist down into a nice valley with amazing waterfalls. Trails were a bit more muddy and jungly approaching the cabin and we were a bit slower, but made this section in exactly 1 hour. 37km total.
Blomstølen-Storavassbu: Undoubtedly the hardest section with the heat. Luckily we got some cloud cover for the 400m climb out of the Blomstølen valley. This climb had a decent rocky trail, pretty alpine in nature, but we did get a little lost at times weaving our way up the cliff. Fantastic on top of the plateau again, but very little water on the climb due to the recent heatwave and we were both out. Started the very rocky descent (this would be very slow if raining) and found the first good looking water we could. It was a nice little waterfall and we both stuck our heads under! We took the high trail into Storavassbu, at this point the sun was back and I was dying from the heat but Silje kept me moving. Switched from tailwind to nuun with caffeine and felt much better. We had some nice encouragement from folks at the cabin and then took the lower trail out. 48km total.
Storavassbu-Løkjelsvatnethytte: Leaving Storavassbu on the lower trail was unrunnable with difficult trail finding, cliff sections with chains, and some no fall zones. It was also about this time that we started hearing a lot of thunder and luckily had service to check the lightning map - which looked ok but we made a worst case scenario plan just in case. After some steep and very muddy uphill and a nicer down hillsection, we came over the bridge at Flåtevatnet and then proceeded to quickly get lost as the trail just vanished. So we bushwhacked for a while, happily found a T, ran a little bit longer in relatively gentle terrain and then came through the rocks to the cabin. We got a ton of encouragement from the overnight cabin folks who were out enjoying the sunset and had a nice chat to refresh our brains. 64km total.
Løkjelsvatnethytte-Olalia: This we knew was really the last stage, but we were racing the darkness at this point. We absolutely cruised for another few km, due to nice slabby downhill and quite a bit of gravel road. I had to really stop at this point though to deal with horrible blisters and this was causing me a lot of terrible pain. So the first aid kit had to come out and I spent some time trying to wrap my heels up a bit. Alas, crossing the dam at Ilsvatnet the sun finally set and we had a relatively dreadful 7km in bog and mud in the dark with little trail to follow. We did our best to take turns leading and sharing the mental energy between us to stay on route. And it was still hot! Finally, after a grassy and slippery decent with many frogs we arrived late at Olalia. We had it! This section I had run before and I knew it was easy. Quick text message to the husband to come pick us up as we were about done. 81km total.
Olalia-Opheim: With an amazing moonrise at our backs, we started the last bit which was all gravel. After a good climb out of Olalia, we were able to descend down to the lighted trails (why the lights were on at 01:30, I do not know) and then we touched the last cabin - the varmestova at the Opheim parking lot, stopped the watches and that was it! 86km arriving before 2am on Sunday 20th, just under 19 hours.
After digging into the Strava segments and online Norwegian blogs, we cannot find evidence of any other women who have done Gullruta straight through. There is high probability that we are the first. As Silje says «Kanskje neste gang vi fra hytte til hytte i stedet».