Midnight Sun Hiking

The "midnight sun" refers to the concept of the sun dipping to the horizon, touching it, but not dipping below it, before rising again. This occurs perfectly on June 21st right on the Arctic Circle, but even either side of that date and north of the Arctic Circle the effect is almost the same.

So who spotted the gross error in my last post?  I talked about having to go to a west facing beach to view the midnight sun.  But if the sun went down in the west how could it immediately start rising in the east?  Of course it couldn't.  Its low point is actually in the north.  So on Sunday we headed to Hov, a north facing beach on Lofoten.  We arrived at midnight to see some golfers playing (a mere $135 for 9 holes on an uninspiring course).

We partly hiked up the mountain in the first photo, to get better views.  We hiked from midnight to 1 pm.  There was much discussion about how close to the horizon the sun would get. Graeme thought that the fact that we were 2 degrees above the Arctic Circle would be cancelled out by the fact that we were a week past the shortest day, and the sun would still touch the horizon.  But when we left near 1:15 am the sun seemed to have not moved since our arrival at midnight. So Judy and I think his hypothesis is wrong.

 Putting with my hiking pole just after 1 am

 Driving home - now after 1:30 am

Leaving Lofoten

Yesterday we had a long drive NE, including one ferry, to get to Senja Island.  It is Norway's scond largest island and reputed to have spectacular scenery.  We are about to head out and see.