Besseggen: the ridge between two lakes at different heights
Gjende lies at around 985 metres, Bessvatnet at 1,373, and a narrow ridge keeps them apart. On the two lakes, the hike over Veslfjellet and Ibsen's Gjendin ridge.
Besseggen is a narrow ridge in eastern Jotunheimen with a lake on either side. Gjende lies at around 985 metres above sea level, Bessvatnet at 1,373. Where they meet, nearly 400 metres of height and a rock edge are all that separate them.
It is the view everyone recognises: a turquoise lake far below on the left, a dark blue lake almost at eye level on the right, and a path along the edge between them. Here is what makes the place so unusual, and what to know about the hike.
Two lakes, two colours
Gjende is 18 kilometres long and 149 metres deep at its deepest, according to the Norwegian encyclopedia Store norske leksikon. Its blue-green colour comes from glacial silt, finely ground rock flour carried down from the mountains by meltwater. Trout is the only fish in the lake.
Bessvatnet sits nearly 400 metres higher on the other side of the ridge, and in photographs it is almost always dark blue. The contrast between the two is what makes the view from the ridge.
The hike
The classic route runs between Memurubu and Gjendesheim over Veslfjellet, which at 1,743 metres is the high point of the walk. Store norske leksikon puts it at around seven hours. Boats on Gjende link Gjendesheim, Memurubu and Gjendebu, and many people take the boat out and walk back over the ridge.
The ridge drops away steeply on both sides, and it is busy: around 60,000 people walked it in 2019, twice as many as in 2011, according to the same source.
The ridge in Peer Gynt
Besseggen was famous long before anyone counted hikers. Henrik Ibsen wrote it into Peer Gynt as the Gjendin ridge, and the ridge has carried the play with it ever since.
Why the shape reads so clearly in relief
Besseggen is one of those subjects where the terrain does all the work. Two long, narrow lakes, a ridge between them and steep mountains across Gjende. On the Besseggen piece both lakes are cut out down to the black base, so the shape reads across a room: two dark surfaces and the white ridge that divides them.
One thing to know is that both lakes are cut to the same base. The height difference between Gjende and Bessvatnet shows in the steep sides of the ridge and the slopes down to the water, not in the water surfaces themselves. The window is ten kilometres wide, with Veslfjellet, Gjendesheim and the whole ridge in one square.
If you have walked the ridge and want your own square, with Memurubu in the middle for example, you can draw it yourself in FRMD by You. Why some landscapes come out more clearly than others is in which places work as 3D topography.
