I had a wonderful weekend in Dovrefjell with my friend Linda some weeks ago. We took the train to Kongsvold after work on Friday. We stayed at Kongsvold fjellstue during the weekend. A very nice place in the middle of nowhere. They are famous for their fantastic kitchen and we have to say that we fully agree that the food was something extra here! They even have musk ox on their menu!

 

On Saturday we went out on a guided walk to try to find some musk oxes. The musk oxes live originally in Greenland, but a small population was brought to Norway in 1931, with some "refills" at later stages. Now there are a couple of hundred musk oxes living in Dovrefjell. You can also find a smaller population of musk oxes in Härjedalen in Sweden. They immigrated from Norway in the 1970's.

 

We didn't have to walk far to find them this time. We spotted them after a 30 minutes walk from the road! We sat down and watched them for a while when they were eating. Interesting animals! :-) They have a very thick fur that protects them from the bitter cold in the mountains. We also learned that they don't like snow. When the snow comes they climb higher up in the mountains where there is more wind, and hence less snow. The reason why they don't like snow is because they are heavy animals, and it's not so fun to walk in deep snow when you heavy. :-)