Financial Times Europe - 26.10.2019 - 27.10.2019

26 October/27 October 2019 ★ FT Weekend 7

climber William Cecil Slingsby, the first

man to the top of most of the surround-

ing eminences, called the view from up

there “the proudest in Europe”. The

Götterdämmerung backdrop also

repeatedly lured Kaiser Wilhelm II, who

was so smitten with this part of the

world that when Alesund burnt down in

1904 he put up the cash to rebuild the

whole town.

It strikes me we’re doing our best to

tap into the Norwegian character, a curi-

ous and conflicting mindset that com-

bines the stolid appreciation of creature

comforts with a passion for extreme

outdoor pursuits. Halfway up our mini

mountain we’re passed by a father and

his young son, who blandly inform us

that they’re headed for the terrifying top

of Saksa. Norwegians would never laugh

in the face of danger, but they certainly

give it a shy half-smile. When an errant

RAF bomb sent a mountain boulder

crashing through the Hotel Union’s roof,

the staff just shrugged and built a sky-

light around the hole. The boulder still

sits on the landing where it fell.

Our guide throughout is Gordon

Smith, a locally based New Zealander

who has slotted in here very nicely. I’ve

never been in a kayak, let alone tra-

versed a slice of near-vertical rock face,

but his restrained derring-do lures out

my inner Norwegian. At the same time

Smith wisely knows the difference

between exhilaration and attrition, and

nobody complains when he tells us we’ll

be riding up the steep valley behind the

Hotel Union on electric bikes.

The memorable finale is a feast in a

turf-roofed quayside bothy just below

the Union, with steaks grilled al fresco.

Heat and light come courtesy of a roar-

ing fire at the end of an ancient wooden

table that demands to have fists banged

raucously upon it. But that’s no longer

the Norwegian way, so we confine our-

selves to a few rounds of wink murder.

Outside, under the stars on a moon-

dappled fjord, the Gassten bobs beckon-

ingly. A rope slung over its wooden blue

hull holds a lobster pot, which come

morning will be home to three lunch-

time crabs. Norway’s defining contrast

is laid out all around us, from the adren-

alin rush of those looming crags to the

triple-glazed summerhouses whose

lights dot the sleepy shoreline. The per-

fect setting for a warship at peace.

Travel

Vancouver rc’teryx, the manufacturerA

of outdoor clothing and equipment, is

to move into the adventure travel

business. Starting in June 2020, it will

offer a programme of group trips

focused on trekking, trail running, rock

climbing and mountaineering.

Destinations include the Swiss and

French Alps, Corsica, Grand Teton

National Park and the Titcomb Basin in

Wyoming and Tombstone Territorial

Park in the Yukon. As with the

company’s clothing, prices will be high:

a week’s mountaineering in Chamonix,

for example, costs $4,700 not including

flights or transfers. The “brand

extension” follows the example of

others in the sector including the Swiss

ropes and equipment maker Mammut,

which runs an Alpine School, and Trek,

the US bicycle-maker, which has had a

travel arm since 2002.

Arc’teryx was founded in North

Vancouver in 1989 but in 2005 became

part of the Finnish Amer group,

alongside brands including Salomon,

Atomic and Wilson. Earlier this year

Amer itself was acquired by Anta,

China’s largest sportswear brand.

trips.arcteryx.com

Tom Robbins

Short cuts

An Arc’teryx group in Italy

Clockwise from main: the

HMS Gassten at anchor;

theviews from the saloon;

exploring thevalleys off

the fjords; waiting to

re-embark the Gassten

after a cycling adventure

— Gordon Smith; Tanya Sheasby

hunkered down in

the companionable

saloon, slowly pro-

gressing from tea to

single malt via a big

roast dinner.

We wake to clear

skies and an almost

overwhelming vista.

M i g h t y g r a n i t e

peaks rear into the

blue heavens on all

s i d e s , f l a n k s

threaded with silver

streams of falling

water, summits

sprinkled with fresh snow. Autumnal

clots of yellow birch interrupt the coni-

fers that girdle the lower reaches; along

the shorelines, big red barns and white

wooden churches stand in luminous

pastures. This whole stunning scene is

perfectly mirrored in the depthless

waters around. The preposterous

beauty of Norway’s fjords is hardly a

secret, but happily there are an awful lot

of them, and in a small and nimble boat

like Gassten it isn’t too hard to find one

you can have all to yourself. For the next

72 hours we do, under bright blue sky or

a billion stars.

A routine is established. I’m awoken

by an evocative marine medley: the

clank of a weighing anchor, the throb of

the engine, a sloshy hum as the onboard

desalination unit comes to life, convert-

ing 100 litres of fjord into potable water

every hour. After an extensive break-

fast, we layer up as appropriate and

head out to tackle the greatest of all the

great outdoors. We hike up a modest but

impressively steep snow-crested moun-

tain, descending via a rocky staircase

laid down the previous summer by a

contracted team of Nepalese Sherpas.

We paddle kayaks down a narrow finger

of blue water, and bounce up a lonely

hillside in the back of a farmer’s tractor,

to inspect the remains of a Messersch-

mitt shot down in the last year of the

i/D E TA I L S

Tim Moore was a guest ofRed Savannah

(redsavannah.com) which offers six-night private

charters of HMS Gassten between the end of

May and the start of October. Prices start from

£3,750 per person, based on a group of 10, full-

board and including guide, e-bikes and kayaks

and fishing equipment

A warship at peace

second world war. Periodically the Gas-

sten comes into vertiginous view, dain-

tily tied up at a jetty far below. One after-

noon a vast glass and metal Hurtigruten

cruise liner motors past the mouth of

our fjord, despatching a blast of fog horn

that echoes down the granite flanks for a

good 20 seconds. How very pleasing to

be on a ship that graces every scene,

rather than defacing it. With the sky

turning pink, we submit to the lure of a

warm saloon and a cold beer.

These stirring adventures are largely

played out in the Norangsfjord, where

the scenic majesty is turned up to 11, the

water just a little clearer, the mountains

just a little sheerer. Every savage peak

looks as if it should have played a star-

ring role in Norse mythology, most espe-

cially Saksa — the scissors — from whose

mighty central cleft an angry god might

just have yanked free his battle axe. At

the tip of the fjord stands the venerable

Hotel Union, an oversized Gothic chalet

that hosted the Victorian travellers who

made this place their own. British

Cruises A restored minesweeper is|

the perfect pleasure steamer to

navigate the rugged delights of the

Norwegian fjords. ByTim Moore

Alesund

Saebo

Hjorundfjord

Norangsfjord

Hotel Union

Saksa

mapsnews.com/©HERE

 km

NORWAY

explosion. Launched by the Swedish

navy in 1973, Gassten was one of the last

wooden-hulled warships ever built, a

minesweeper officially known as M31

that patrolled the Baltic and the Gulf of

Bothnia for 26 years, clearing second

world war ordnance from the cold war’s

aquatic front line.

When Stewart bought the ship in 2013

she had most recently served as a coast-

guard vessel, credited with saving 19

lives. Now, after a bold and beautiful 18-

month refit, Gassten is set to enjoy a

more laid-back existence as a bijou live-

aboard pleasure steamer, cruising the

Norwegian fjords in search of gentler

excitements. An accomplished wild

skier, Stewart’s first focus was on winter,

and the extravagant off-piste possibili-

ties presented by the surrounding Sun-

nmøre Alps. But the Gassten will ply the

fjords year round, with Stewart able to

call in expert guides and appropriate kit

on request, encouraging his guests to

hike up peaks, cycle down valleys and

paddle over those depthless waters.

He expects to attract family groups or

close friends with a taste for activity,

though anyone who fancies a day off will

hardly suffer. Board games in the pano-

ramic saloon, a fridge stocked with the

full pantheon of refreshments, deck-

chairs and reindeer skin rugs on the

wheelhouse deck: throw in a fabled sce-

nic backdrop and the onboard hours

won’t drag. The only caveats relate to

communal life in a compact floating

environment. This is an experience to

share with people you get on pretty well

with, and who have at least a passing

acquaintance with marine living. There

are jetties to be leapt on to and a launch

to clamber up from, and in between the

placid waters of the more steeply pro-

tected fjords, we tackle livelier stretches

when Sven goes about the saloon stow-

ing breakables.

My quarters, one of the ship’s five

twin-berth en suite cabins, previously

How very pleasing

to be on a ship that

graces every scene,

rather than defacing it

B

obbing gently at its berth on

Alesund’s granite dockside,

HMS Gassten looks like the

plucky little star of some car-

toon adventure: a blue and

white tugboat made of wood and shiny

brass, its name smartly hand-painted

on the pert bow. It’s only after captain

Sven Stewart helps me aboard that evi-

dence of a rather more hardcore reality

emerges. That hefty mounting plate on

the bow deck, he explains, was once

home to a large-calibre gun, and all

those stout riveted brackets and cross

members were designed to hold the ship

together in the event of proximate

served as the officers’ mess; Stewart has

kept the framed portrait of King Carl

Gustave and Queen Silvia that once

hung on its low walls, and flips it to show

me the signatures of every naval captain

who served aboard. What must have

been a rather claustrophobic hang-out

for several people has been refashioned

as a cosy nest for one or two, largely

filled by a plump double bed. Like all the

best cabins it is wood-panelled and

graced with umpteen little cupboards

and cubby holes; like very few of them it

also has bedside USB sockets and a

beautifully handcrafted en suite wet

room. The first of four extremely good

sleeps is soon under way, catalysed by

light rocking and the muffled creak of

rubber fender against quayside.

Breakfast is brought to the saloon’s big

oak table by Kiwi chef Sarah, an experi-

enced galley hand just back from a long

stint in the Antarctic. HMS Gassten’s

oak hull was intended to ward off mag-

netic mines, and the same wood has

been put to more decorative effect by

the Scottish craftsmen who carried out

the refit, using four trees felled on the

Glamis Estate. The heavy structural

stuff was undertaken in Fraserburgh, by

one of the vanishingly rare boatyards

that still works with wood. “Hard men,”

says Stewart. “I’d see them shin up a lad-

der with one hand on the rungs and a

bucket of bubbling pitch in the other.”

The half-Scottish, half-Swedish skipper

spent 22 years as a deep-sea diver and

was educated at Rannoch — the notori-

ously spartan boarding school where he

doubtless acquired his bone-dry comic

understatement and a willingness to

take on Nordic sleet in a T-shirt. How

apt that he’s ended up skippering a half-

Scottish, half-Swedish ex-minesweeper,

one named after a dangerous rock in the

Stockholm archipelago.

Capricious weather demands a flexi-

ble itinerary. A wintry mist comes down

as we’re cruising into the Hjorundfjord,

so Stewart ties up at the little town of

Saebo, and points at a small garden shed

moored further down the quayside.

“Ever tried a floating sauna?” Two invig-

orating and slightly surreal hours pass

in this rustic, bobbing hot box, periodi-

cally leaping into the foggy fjord with

steaming red skin and climbing out

blue. The balance of the day is spent

OCTOBER 26 2019 Section:Weekend Time: 10/201924/ - 18:35 User:matthew.brayman Page Name:WKD7, Part,Page,Edition:WKD, 7, 1