Dear community,
Mid -june I will visit the Lofoten Islands and will bring with me my gears. I hope I will be able to make at least one activation, hopefully two. Can you please tell me if I can expect snow in the area in that time of the year? So far I am interested in an apparently easy 2 pointer (LA/NL-526) close to my accomodation, which is in Lødingen, but I might well change planes. I would like also to ask how the 20 meters band will look like with the sun up 24 hours a day. My wish is to keep my baggage as light as possible as we will visit all Norway (I will also be in Oslo, Bergen and Stavanger before flying north, but I will unlikely have time to activate then). Thanks in advance for recommendations! Marco
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Hi Marco,
I have spent 2 weeks in Southern Norway in 2022. I was further South, near Oslo, Skien and Stavanger not even close to the Lofoten Islands.
For hiking in Norway, I recommend the app Norway Topo Maps, available for iPhone and Android. Aside from SOTL.AS, it’s the only map I used for planning and hiking. There’s a small one-time fee to use it offline—well worth it!
Another valuable resource is ut.no, where you can find hiking route descriptions from all over Norway. Google Translate can help with the language
Norway especially far up in the North is barren but beautiful, with no trees and bushes. Bring some tent-pegs to secure your antenna mast!
73 Heinz, OE5EEP
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Hello Marco,
I’m on Senja right now, and while there is some snow left especially above 300 m, it’s not a lot, and I expect most of it to be gone in a month. Here are some photos from a hike to Segla 640 m yesterday: https://sotl.as/summits/LA/TR-338.
So I’m pretty sure you won’t have any trouble with snow on the summit you mentioned, especially considering that winter temperatures in Lofoten are known to be extremely mild 
I’ll continue to Lofoten later this week and will likely do an activation or two (and upload photos to SOTLAS as always). Band conditions on 20m have been poor in the past few days, but that may well be a temporary issue.
73,
Manuel LA/HB9DQM/P
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Unfortunately, I can’t help you with a recommendation for summits, as I’m not locally familiar with that part of the country.
I would assume that 20m is the best band from northern Norway in the summertime.
We at SOTA Norway have gathered some tips for activation in Norway, hope you find some of them useful. Have a good trip and welcome to Norway.
Hard, but successful activation today on LA/TN-471, the most activated summit in Tromsø area. Really poor propagation, too early time for the 20 meters band and not very satisfying deployment of my dipole resulted in only 6 QSO, which is by the way more than 4, so eventually I made it. I was a little in a hurry as XYL was waiting at home and I had promised her to be home for lunch so couldn’t stay longer, there was also many children from the local kindergarten interrogating me 
, I made the mistake to try to respond them with my poor Norwegian so eventually they became even more curios and asked even more. From the top, really beautiful views of Tromsø and the surrounding areas, with the highest mountains still covered in snow. I also obtained a bunch of new badges, being my 10th association. I hope I will be able to activate something in the Lofoten were I will be heading tomorrow, but now that an activation was successful, I know that at least I didn’t carry my rigs with no purpose! 73 SP9BIJ
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