Walking the Pilgrim Way over Dovrefjell

Dovrefjell is the high plateau that the medieval pilgrim road to Nidaros has to cross on its way north, and this is a self-guided walk along that road. You pick up the waymarked Pilegrimsleden at the old pilgrim farm of Budsjord Gård, climb onto the fjell, and follow a line of stone cairns north past Hjerkinn to Kongsvold, finishing within reach of the Trondheim trains.

There are three walking days of 15 to 21 kilometres, the longest of them over Hjerkinnhø, on open ground between 1,000 and 1,300 metres. It asks for decent hill-walking fitness rather than any technical skill, and the plateau is properly exposed, so the weather has the final say. A Norwegian operator arranges it self-guided: your bags go ahead by vehicle to four working mountain inns, you walk with a daypack, and the route comes as a written description and a navigation app.

This suits walkers who want history underfoot rather than a summit tally, and who like a landscape with real weight to it: Dovrefjell is where Norwegians once swore to stay 'united and faithful until Dovre falls', and it still holds the country's only wild musk ox. If you have walked Hadrian's Wall Path and enjoyed following an old line across high country, this is much the same pleasure on Norwegian ground.