actually, today's plan was to hike the king of trails to the kjerag bolten, but somehow everything came different. the weather was a sunny dream, but unfortunately that was an open secret, so all the others knew it, too, and thus the ferryboat was packed. BEFORE we got on board, that is. alternatives were: either take the car and drive around, 2 hours, or pick an alternative hike. and with the norwegian gas prices, the pulpit rock it was. the hike is shorter and rumored to be easier, slightly. the ideal warm-up... so, intrepidly we all got in the cars and there. vicky, having won the race for body weight, was named self-runner and paired with gramma, while benG was to travel with mama in the kangaroo bag and collin had booked the gold elite member first class premier donkey back. off we went. the trail did start relatively steep, but at least there was gravel, so halfway easy walking. for about a hundred yards. after that there was just rocks, roots and galore of them. only with a steeper grade. donkey, kangaroo and gramma were fit as a three legged gym, as was the gold elite member, however, the kangaroo bag was too shaky and the food & beverage service sucked and WIY (walk it yourself) sucks, anyways! so the pace started to suffer, radio collin, my own personal cheerleader quit playing AND leading the cheer, drinking and eating breaks became more frequent and finally we came to a halt alltogether. and then there was this nice norwegian couple we asked how the trail continues, and they said, honestly, it would be best to turn back now. too dangerous with the kids, and probably not doable in a day, plus the last 300 meters would be really narrow and right along the cliff. boom! the moral was eroded, and the family counsil decided to head back: we just didn't want to make tomorrow's headlines and continue with a 3 minus x headed dragon. so we just called it a teaser for the dragon - after all, they will live for another 90 years, easily. should be time galore. and we will go by ourselves tomorrow... :)