The beginning of this week brought me to Dovre, a stunning National Park in the center of Norway.

The viewpoint on Snøhetta in Dovre

The area is sitting a 2,5 hours of steady uphill driving south of Trondheim, and was covered in a beautiful November snow blanket.

A little juniper sticking its head through the fresh November snow

Yet the beauty and the vastness of the place were not the reason why I went there. No, that reason was science: we met with a team of 4 to officially launch our recently started PhD-project on the effect of trails on mountain vegetation.

Hiking up a trail in winter will affect plants in summer

The 3 days of discussion turned out to be the kind of meeting every scientists dreams of once in a while: little distractions, just brainstorming with fascinating ecologists about what could be happening along our mountain trails – and how we could figure that out.

Tea and talks with a view

We all are very much looking forward to the coming 3,5 years, with fieldwork both in this area and higher north, in Swedish Lapland. If all goes well, these years will teach us how hiking trails affect the vegetation in our mountains, and what we should do about it.

Betula nana

Exciting times ahead!

More pictures of Dovre on the right of this blog.