Hiking Norway's high peaks

I bend to the river and my hand is frozen by glacial water. I fill the bottle quickly, take a swig and its cold leaves me breathless.

Mid-June and the Norwegian peaks may still keep their scarves of white but each week the snow is losing its grip upon the land and a tide of green seems to rise up the mountain. At the foot of my ascent I realise that I will pass summer, spring and arrive at the top amid winter.

My hike was arranged by the charming Eleanor Stolton, a jolly Inghams rep – no doubt made so by being surrounded by Christmas jumpers all year round in the cute village of Balestrand.

I am in the region of the western fjords and she has sent me slightly north to Nordfjord a region where wild mountains are separated by fjords turning luminous verdigris from summer algae. What to do in Stavanger, Norway Wayne Goddard wants to know whether there's enough to see and do in Stavanger to merit a weekend break What to do in Oslo and Bergen Searching for whales in Norway BACKGROUND Searching for whales in Norway Transporting Austin Sevens to Norway Where do I find a rural retreat in Norway? Troll trouble in Norway I feel like a new fisherman in Norway Related Links Alesund: Norway’s most beautiful city The world's 50 best walks Eleanor is also happy to organise my guide for the day. Kjell Einar Skrede’s real job is as a lecturer. After years of being an Oslo journalist love of nature drove him return to his homeland and the lakes and mountains of the Nordfjord. Asthenic and with a hunter’s eye, Kjell plans a foray into one of his old hunting grounds, a haunt familiar to him under snow or wild flowers. We start up a mountain called Blåegga, meaning “blue edge” because of its knifelike peak. The sun is out and the wind is quick enough to cool the sweat. It is a moderate hike but it’s not a walk in the park. For this is the real Norway, not the cruise liners docking for a reindeer souvenir but a scramble among the gorse and a heart-thumping climb and bloody fingernails on rock. It is wild walking, no paths, no maps, guided not be stars but by the position of the peaks with the sun as your clock. Blåegga is also a teasing climb. Because before you reach the very top you go up to mini snow-crested peaks, then you go down to black bog, up, down, up, down, until I lose count: the folds of the land laugh at my burning quads. The only reward for this frustration is that at each mini peak the view gets more wondrous. Then, with a pounding heart deafening me to a wild wind a single stretch of snow like a manicured hand appeared and we hit the bare granite of the top of Blåegga (1,064m). Kjell was eager to describe what we could see which to my eyes looked like a 360 vista of stunning mountains plunging into fjords. Kjell points to a dramatic family of peaks in a tumble of Norwegian names that I find hard to translate into rock and snow and water. “Looking to the west you can see another peak called Glitteregga (1,297m). You can also see the Hornindal Lake. To the south and east you can see the Nordfjord. And numerous mountains of which Skaala, towering above Loen, is the most famous. You can also see the Jostedal Glacier from here.”