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10 hours in the mountains, stormy weather, 32 km to hike, 4444 steps up a staircase and more than 1200 meters of elevation. The day trip up the world’s longest wooden stairs became a rather unusual hike.
For several years we have wanted to travel to Flørli, a tiny place in Norway where the only connection to the rest of the world is a small ferry. There is a cabin here, a small museum and spectacular nature. But ask the locals what this place is known for and they’ll all give the same answer: Flørlitrappene, or the Flørli stairs as it’s known in English.
Known as the world’s longest wooden stairs it follows an old pipeline up the mountain side, 4444 steps from the bottom to the top. Whether or not it is in fact the longest wooden stairs in the world is somewhat debatable, but at least this is what it is known as. As a matter of fact it doesn’t feature 4444 steps either, but around 4527. Someone probably figured out that 4444 sounds better, and towards the top the steps are levelling out. This last part is probably what makes it difficult to define the longest wooden staircase with absolute certainty, as far as we know there’s not internationally recognised definition of what a step really is.
The Flørli stairs have been on our bucket list for quite some time and are located a mere 42 to km from our home (well, in a straight line that is, crossing a lot of fjords and mountains). Despite this it took 7 years from we moved here until we finally went on the hike. Well, at least one of us did. This is because the ferry that goes here runs just a few times a day and the timing has always been poor.
Then, one day Jørn heard from a colleague that it is possible to hike the Flørli stairs without using the ferry. This hike starts on the opposite side of the mountain. In other words, you have to hike up the mountain, down to Flørli, up the stairs, then to the top of the mountain and down again on the other side. That is perhaps the reason why this route is not very well known.
After carefully examining the map we decided that it was best for me, Jørn, to undertake this hike on my own. Although we are both experienced hikers I do walk quite a bit faster than Tora, and with less than 12 hours of daylight this 11,5 hour hike was already a stretch time wise. The weather forecast wasn’t very promising either, with wind speeds at strong gale (known as a small storm in Norwegian), the gusts being a lot stronger.
Therefore I started the hike alone early in the morning. The sun was hiding below the horizon and the first section went towards Skåpet, some famous cabins by a small pond. This was by far the easiest part, traversing along a well marked path. Further on the challenges were about to line up.
The first challenge started when I approached the top of the mountain. From being almost windless and warm the weather suddenly turned towards heavy winds and cold air. The trees and green vegetation was replaced by bare and slippery rocks. More than a few times I tried to film how strong the wind was, every attempt ending abruptly with the camera being knocked over by the wind.
It wasn’t particularly tempting to stay here longer than necessary, so I decided to pick up the pace and get towards lower elevations on the other side of the mountain as soon as possible.
Fast forward an hour and the wind started to calm down. The landscape turned greener and for a short moment the sun came out of hiding from behind the clouds. As quickly as the trees had disappeared they returned again and I managed to locate the hiking path going parallell to the Flørli stairs. You see, one can only hike up the steps, going down you have to use this parallel path. Along this path there is a viewpoint overlooking a waterfall, this became the first break of the day.
After the break the path turned steeper, and this is where the next challenge awaited. During the summer I managed to injure my knee. After having hiked to the highest point in Norway and immediately doing a 14 km hike with a decent elevation at Besseggen the next morning my knee suddenly decided to call it quits. There was little choice but to start limping down the last few kilometers of the hike and the next days consisted of very little movement. I hoped that this was just a temporary overexertion of the knee, but going down towards Flørli the pain in the knee returned again. Luckily this was worse going down and I was almost at the lowest point, about to do nothing but go upwards for the next 4444 steps. This also marked the halfway point of the hike, making it pointless to turn around.
Down in Flørli it was very quiet and everything looked closed. Not really a surprise since the tourism season had just finished. I really wanted to stop by the museum, but that had to be saved for later. There wasn’t really much else to do than to start hiking up the steps.
Every 500th step was marked with the current progress. It certainly helped on the motivation and made it easier to keep track of the progress. After about 700 steps there was an option to make a right and go down to Flørli again, an option for those that want a shorter hike or who simply realised that they’ve ventured out on something a lot harder than they expected. You see, after this point there is no way of turning around.
Higher up a bench suddenly came into view, perfect for a lunch break. The view towards the Lysefjorden fjord below was also excellent. Going even further up there was a café. “Open on rare occasions” said a sign, which seemed very fitting. It was obviously closed. The building housing the café was also an old cable station used to drive the cables with the cars up and down.
It is easy to assume that this point is at the top. However, there are two cable stations and this is the lower one. I therefore had to continue upwards.
The sign marking step 3500 came into view, but at the same time my knee also started to give clear indications that it had had enough. Oh no! Luckily there was “just” another 1000 steps to go. The sign reading 4000 was passed and then finally step 4444.
As I discovered there were another 83 steps after this one, but they were much more level and faster to walk than the previous 4444. At the very top there is a dam and a gravel road. Although the pipelines next to the stairs are out of service the area is still used for hydroelectric power production.
It almost felt like walking through a dystopian movie, where buildings and roads are left with no people in sight, stormy weather and a landscape barren of trees and life. Because yes, the wind was back, going at full strength up here. So strong that on several occasions I had to take a step back to avoid falling over.
The knee really did not appreciate this. The only way forward was by limping – with 15 km left to go.
There aren’t many photos from the next couple of hours. The weather didn’t make it a good place to enjoy the view and every second spent on the mountain was a second more with wind, cold and knee pain. It didn’t exactly improve when a strong gust of wind forced me to really put my feet down to avoid falling over, making my knee even worse. Still, nothing to do but to keep on going towards the car.
After I had passed 9 hours of hiking I could see Skåpet again and everything changed for the better. Hard rocks turned into soft soil, the wind came down and knowing that it was less than an hour to go surely helped the motivation. While I wouldn’t describe the last part as pleasant it sure felt good compared to the previous part.
Almost back down, looking up at the mountains.
After 9 hours and 50 minutes I reached the parking lot by the car again. By this time I had hiked 32 km, 4444 steps and scaled about 1250 meters of elevation (and the same elevating going down).
The next day was spent on the couch with a knee staying veeery still. Thankfully it has improved over time and planning of the next hike is already underway.
Both of us will definitively return to Flørli, but it will probably be by ferry, to give us more time to explore the area. Because there is a waterfall and several viewpoints here that we have yet to visit.
