A note from the trail-end at Memurubu
Picture the end of a July day at Memurubu, the privately run lodge on the middle shore of Lake Gjende. A walker who has come over the Besseggen ridge from Gjendesheim, the harder way round, sits on the boot-bench unlacing a pair of well-worn boots. Say he has done the Coast to Coast twice and this is his first Norwegian week. The country is different, but the work of the day is the same work, and the shape of the trip is closer to the walk he knows than he expected when he booked.
That is the answer this note tries to give: if you've done the Coast to Coast, the central Jotunheimen hut-to-hut traverse is the closest Norwegian equivalent. Six to eight walking days, point-to-point through high country, a fresh staffed lodge at the end of each day, shorter days on the map than a Coast to Coast stage, on rougher ground. What changes is the lodging (staffed mountain lodges instead of village B&Bs), the food (often a three-course lodge dinner instead of a pub meal), the language (English in every conversation, Norwegian on every signpost), and the bail-out option (limited).
It is not a route we sell as a single package. The two Jotunheimen weeks we recommend are described at the end of this note, and the wider difficulty calibration sits in our companion note on Norwegian walking difficulty.
What the Coast to Coast actually teaches you, and what transfers.
Wainwright's Coast to Coast trained you for the central Jotunheimen traverse in three useful ways. First, the rhythm of a multi-day walk with a fresh bed every night - the pace of packing each morning, walking through the middle of the day, arriving at the lodge in time for a shower before dinner. Second, the ability to sustain twelve to eighteen kilometres a day for a week or more on rough ground, with a 30 to 40 litre pack. Third, the practical British walker's instinct for weather: when to start early, when to wait it out, when to turn back. All three transfer cleanly.
What it didn't teach you: how to read a Norwegian weather window in country that holds no shelter for hours at a time, how the staffed-lodge culture works (it's social in a quieter, more European way than a British pub), and how the Norwegian terrain underfoot - rounded boulder fields, scree above treeline, snow patches well into July - differs from the well-trodden Lake District path. None of these is hard to learn; all three become natural in the first two or three days.
How the Jotunheimen traverse compares, side by side.
Day for day, the two walks line up like this:
- Total distance.
Coast to Coast: 190 miles (306 km) over 12 to 15 days. Central Jotunheimen traverse: roughly 75 to 110 km over 6 to 8 days. Under half the total distance, and fewer kilometres a day; the country between lodges is more demanding underfoot than most of the Lake District, so the hours on the trail are closer than the distances suggest.
- Daily mileage and climbing.
Coast to Coast works out at about 13 to 16 miles (20 to 25 km) a day over the 12 to 15 days most walkers take, with the stiffest climbs in the Lake District and on the Cleveland Hills. The Jotunheimen traverse averages 12 to 18 km per day with 600 to 1,000 metres of climbing. The Norwegian days are shorter on the map and harder underfoot.
- Terrain underfoot.
Coast to Coast: a mix of bridleway, packhorse path, fell-path and the occasional lane. Mostly walked-in, recognisable from any Wainwright. Jotunheimen: marked by small cairns, some painted with a red T, at sensible intervals; the ground is rougher (boulder, scree, occasional snow), the path less worn-in. A pair of stiffer boots than your Coast to Coast pair is the right call.
- Lodging.
Coast to Coast: village B&Bs, the occasional pub-with-rooms, the rare bunkhouse. You walk into a working English village each evening. Jotunheimen: staffed mountain lodges, all canonical names in Norwegian walking, three of them DNT's own (Gjendesheim, Glitterheim, Gjendebu) and two privately run (Memurubu, Spiterstulen), with meals, showers and drying rooms at every one. No village to walk into; the lodge IS the destination.
- Food.
Coast to Coast: a pub meal to close the day, a cooked breakfast and a packed lunch from the B&B. Jotunheimen: a three-course Norwegian mountain dinner (soup, slow-cooked main, dessert with cream), a buffet breakfast, a make-your-own nistepakke packed lunch from the breakfast spread. The food is properly good and the dining-room atmosphere is closer to a Lake District-fell-house than to a pub.
- Navigation.
Coast to Coast: Cicerone or Trailblazer guidebook, National Trail waymarks, sensible OS map at 1:25,000. Jotunheimen: a 1:50,000 topographic map and a compass are essential; the route is well-marked on the ground but the maps assume an experienced walker. On the self-guided Dovrefjell pilgrim walk we recommend, the route comes in a written description and a navigation app.
- Bail-out options.
Coast to Coast: railway stations at St Bees, Kirkby Stephen (on the Settle to Carlisle line) and Glaisdale, bus services through most villages. Jotunheimen: limited. The lake-boats on Gjende (Gjendine and Kåre Johan) and Bygdin (M/B Bitihorn) shortcut some sections; otherwise the walk is committed. If the weather closes in, you stay put at the lodge for an extra night rather than walking out.
- Best months.
Coast to Coast: walkable all year, at its best from spring to autumn. Jotunheimen: late June through mid-September, peak July to mid-August. The Norwegian season is narrower because the high passes hold snow until late June and the staffed lodges start closing in mid-September. Our best-season-for-walking-Norway note has the month-by-month read.
Who this trip is for.
A walker who has done the Coast to Coast (or one of its close cousins - the Pennine Way in sections, the Hadrian's Wall Path, the South West Coast Path in pieces) has the right shape of fitness and the right shape of mind for the central Jotunheimen traverse. The transfer is well-judged. What additionally helps: experience walking in proper mountain weather (a wet day on the High Stile ridge counts), familiarity with map and compass (the Norwegian staff don't carry your route for you), and a willingness to spend an unhurried evening in a quiet dining room. If you would rather book the week through a British operator, our comparison covers Inntravel in Norway alongside Exodus and Headwater.
Who this trip is NOT for: walkers whose Coast to Coast was their first multi-day walk and whose pace was firmly at the easier end of the Wainwright spread. The Norwegian week is a notch more committing - the country is wilder, the bail-out is harder, the lodges are remote. Start with a gentler Norwegian week (the Rondane hut walk, three short walking days between three mountain inns) and graduate to the full Jotunheimen traverse the following year.
What changes when you swap B&Bs for mountain lodges.
The biggest cultural adjustment for a Coast to Coast walker is the lodge model. Three things change:
- The lodge IS the destination.
On the Coast to Coast you walk into a village - Patterdale, Shap, Kirkby Stephen - that exists for reasons other than your walk. There's a pub, a shop, possibly a church to look in. On a Jotunheimen traverse you walk into a lodge that exists FOR the walk. DNT built Gjendebu at the inner, western end of Lake Gjende in 1871; Memurubu sits alone on the lake's middle shore. There's no village. The lodge is where the evening happens.
- The dining room is the social space.
Where a Coast to Coast evening might begin in your B&B and end in the village pub, a Jotunheimen evening happens entirely in the lodge dining room. Communal long tables, a three-course dinner at a fixed hour (18:30 at Glitterheim, with later sittings in the high season), conversation with whatever other walkers happen to be on the same stage of the same traverse. It's good company in a different register from a British pub - quieter, more European, more deliberate. Bring a book if you'd rather not chat; nobody will mind.
- The morning leaves at the lodge's pace.
Breakfast, a packed lunch for the day, and you are away while the morning is still cool. Three of the five lodges above, Memurubu, Glitterheim and Gjendebu, have no road for cars, so a luggage van is not the whole answer; on Lake Gjende the boats will carry the bag you do not need on the hill. Buy a baggage tag on the boat or at the lodges, leave the bag under the right sign on the jetty, and collect it at the jetty you are walking to, under the sign for arrived rucksacks.
What we recommend, and what we leave out.
The week we recommend that comes closest to the Coast to Coast in spirit is the Dovrefjell pilgrim walk: self-guided, five days, three of them on foot (15 to 21 km a day, the longest with 700 to 800 metres of climbing), over the Dovrefjell plateau on the medieval St Olav pilgrim road, with your bags moved ahead between the lodges. It is much shorter than the Coast to Coast, and we do not currently sell a Jotunheimen traverse.
What we leave out: the more committing Norwegian routes that sit beyond a fit-but-civilian walker. The high traverses across the Hurrungane ridge, the long crossings of the Hardangervidda from north to south, the long day over both Galdhøpiggen and Glittertind - these assume meaningful mountain experience, and none of them is among the weeks we recommend. The Coast-to-Coast graduate is well-placed for the central Jotunheimen traverse; they're not automatically ready for those harder routes.
For the operator-versus-curator framing, see our how we work page. The wider editorial premise sits in our comparison with Inntravel and Exodus.
Common questions
I've only done the Coast to Coast east-to-west. Does the Norwegian traverse direction matter?
Less than on the Coast to Coast. There is no fixed direction for the central Jotunheimen routes; what usually decides it is the boat on Lake Gjende, which links Gjendesheim, Memurubu and Gjendebu. On Besseggen itself most walkers take the boat to Memurubu and walk back to Gjendesheim, and the boat operator calls the opposite direction the tougher one.
How fit do I need to be, in Coast to Coast terms?
If you completed the Coast to Coast in 12 to 14 days without using rest days and felt the week's end was earned but not punishing, the Jotunheimen traverse is well within range. If you stretched the Coast to Coast over 18 days with two rest days and felt comfortable at that pace, start with a gentler Norwegian week, such as the short Rondane hut walk, first. The companion Norwegian walking-difficulty note has the proper calibration.
Will I miss the pubs?
Honestly, sometimes. The Norwegian lodge dining room is good company, the food is properly good, and the Norwegian craft-beer scene has caught up with the British one over the last decade, but it's not the same as a working English pub at the end of a long day. If you've booked the post-trip extension in Oslo or Bergen, you'll find the pubs there. On the traverse itself, the lodge bar is the substitute, and it does the job.
Can I extend the trip into a longer Norwegian walking holiday?
Yes. The natural extensions are a couple of nights in Oslo before the trip (the city is good company for a long evening), a few days on the Sognefjord after, or a coastal extension to Lofoten if you want the Arctic counterpoint to the inland fjell. Write to us with what you have in mind and we'll suggest the right shape.
Which operator runs the weeks you recommend?
Operator names stay out of our public materials; that is editorial policy. Both Jotunheimen weeks are run by a long-standing Norwegian walking specialist with the local knowledge this kind of week is built on. Your first note triggers the introduction, and the booking then belongs to them. The underlying reasoning is on our how-we-work page.
