Jotunheimen ยท Innlandet
Besseggen
A ridge between two lakes at different heights and, more famously, different colours.
The standard version takes the boat from Gjendesheim west along the lake to Memurubu, then walks back east over the ridge. This matters more than it sounds: the boat is seasonal, it fills, and if you miss it your day becomes a different day entirely. Book it before you commit to the date.
Why it looks like that
Gjende sits at roughly 984 m and Bessvatnet roughly 390 m above it. Gjende is fed by glacial meltwater carrying rock flour, particles fine enough to stay suspended, which scatter light towards green. Bessvatnet has no significant glacial input and stays blue. Standing on the ridge you see both at once, which is the entire reason the route is as busy as it is.
The scrambling section
The steep step up onto the ridge proper is short, and it is a scramble rather than a climb, but it does need hands and it is exposed enough that a queue forms in both directions on a busy day. Walking the route in reverse means climbing this section instead of descending it, which some people find easier and which avoids the boat, at the cost of a much longer day.
Conditions
The season is set by snow on the ridge rather than by the calendar. Late patches of hard snow on a steep traverse are the usual reason a party turns back in June. Weather crosses quickly and there is no shelter along the ridge, so this is a route where carrying a shell you will actually put on matters more than it does on a valley walk.
Staying over
Memurubu and Gjendesheim are both staffed lodges rather than simple huts. If you want the ridge without the day-trip crowd, walking in and sleeping at Memurubu puts you on the ridge before the first boat arrives. See how Norwegian mountain cabins work for the booking and payment conventions.