Trip to Preikestolen - Pulpit Rock

Back in August, 28 participants from Lura Karateklubb, including Larsen Sensei, travelled to the Pulpit Rock to record some video footage for a promo for the JKA European Championships in karate. The Championships take place in Stavanger, Norway, on the 6th of April 2019.

The Pulpit Rock, one of the most popular tourist attractions of Stavanger, is a mighty cliff, 600 MASL, with a spectacular view over Lysefjorden. Read more about the Pulpit Rock here: https://preikestolen.no/?lang=en. As it's one of the most famous landmarks in the region, it seemed natural to include the Pulpit Rock in the official logo for the Championships. 

To avoid the masses of tourists visiting the cliff so that filming could happen fairly undisturbed, we decided to do the hike in the evening, camp overnight and film at sunrise. It's a 1-1 ½ hour drive from Stavanger or Sandnes and a short ferry trip to get to the hiking trail. The hike from the parking area and up to the clifftop takes approximately 2 hours by foot.

At 7.15pm, we had parked the cars, and we were ready to begin the ascent. The weather was good, and we were in a good mood. When we finally reached the top, we spent the last hour of daylight to find a suitable place for our tents.

When it got dark, and we had finished setting up our tents, we lit a bonfire and enjoyed the evening with music, song, food and drinks, until we were interrupted by a sudden rainfall, a warning of what we had in store... at 5am we awoke to more rainy, foggy weather - filming was hopeless. Wet and cold, we finally decided that the weather was too bad for filming that day. After a short photoshoot in the fog, we began the descent and the trip back home. Although we weren't able to film for the promo, everyone agreed that it had been a great trip, to be repeated :)

Have you seen the latest Mission Impossible-film, Fallout, starring Tom Cruise? Parts of the film was filmed at the Pulpit Rock, although the cliff was "moved" to India. See the trailer for Fallout here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wb49-oV0F78.