Plans for a big hike in 2016

On a rainy, dark evening, between to long work days, there's nothing better than dreaming about what to do next year!

My goal is to go on one longer tour, outside of the dimensions of what I usually do. Most hikes I've done resume around a week or 100km, but I want to know how it feels to be on tour for a longer time and achieve something bigger. I don't dare yet to put this tour into winter time and go on a long backcountry ski tour. It would feel like I'm not experienced enough when it comes to camping in the snow or dealing with a storm which forces me to dig a snowhole, to wait it out. I will definitely do a winter tour, but it will be something shorter and probably involve sleeping in huts. 

For the summer I have had several ideas: Nordkalottleden, that goes 800km through Norway, Finland and Sweden, Gröna Bandet, from Grövelsjön in Dalarna to Treriksröset, the most northern point of Sweden, or even Norge på Langs. 

Thoughts of the advantages or disadvantages of these tours so far: Nordkalottleden seems to be quite doable and I feel like I know the area already quite well. Part of it is the northern terminus of Kungsleden, the stretch from Abisko to Singi, about 100km. Another part of about 70km is shared with Padjelantaleden, which I hiked last summer. Overall the trail doesn't cut straight through the landscape but wiggles around. The aim is not to come a long way from one point to another but to experience a lot of different places, switching from one country to another. 

Here's a map of Nordkalottleden

I think I would really enjoy this trail, at the same time it just doesn't pose the adventure and challenge that Gröna Bandet or Norge på Langs, does. On these two trails you always know what you are going for: to cross the whole country, or at least the whole mountain range. I like this kind of feeling. It's this possibiliy to complete something, to have finished something from the beginning to the end. I find this very satisfying. 

Gröna Bandet (the green ribbon)

I just drew this line on the map to show more or less how it does look. It's not a single trail designated as Gröna Bandet but there's an abundancy of different trails, that one can make use of. So I could choose to take the easiest, quickest way through, or even do the whole Nordkalottleden on the northern end. Without taking any bigger detours the trip whould resume itself at about 1300 to 1400km. 

There is an organized way to tackle this challenge, it's basically a website where you sign up and have to go with a GPS so you can be tracked all along the way. You can find it on www.vitagronabandet.se

I'm not so sure yet if I would do that. On one hand there's no real need to sign up for something like that, you can just do in on your own. On the other hand knowing that your blog is featured on their page and that they even follow you with facebook posts etc. can give that extra little pressure that one needs to make it through a tough day. Giving up gets a little bit harder. 

When it comes to Norge på Langs this is the trail I know the least about. It's really long. 

Last summer I met a Swiss guy who was doing this hike and it kind of inspired me. According to www.norgepaalangs.info only 320 people have completed this trail, and that since 1951! Yes, that's a real motivation. 

I'm not sure how long it would take and I think it would be about twice as long as the hike through the Swedish mountains, so about 2600km. It should be doable in about 4 to 5 months I guess. This one I would definitely only tackle with a hiking partner. If you're interested, just write me! ;)

Here's apicture from the webpage I linked above, that shows how it could look:

Norge på Langs

Resuming 2015, part 4: autumn in Sweden.

This is the last part of what is like a summary of my outdoors 2015. Since the year is not over yet, this part will stop by the end of November, and there's still another adventure to be had! 

Back in october I went to a Bushcaft course that was specialized on axe skills, given by Nordic Bushcraft, close to Jönköping. I learned a lot of useful basics when it comes to handling a tool like an axe. Those things can be damn dangerous if you don't know how to use them and one single mistake can be the end of your foot or hand. We even did a lot of different fires, which is something I'm really into. There are so many different ways of starting a campfire, depending on the materials and situation. On the pictures below you see a fire which i call a flame-baguette. It's a traditional Sámi fire, that was/is used to stay warm during the night, while you are sleeping. It burns slowly and does not spread too much heat. 

For all of you who speak Swedish I can even recommend the book Eld from the author Yngve Ryd, in which he interviews a row of Sámi people who talk about their knowledge about different fires among other interesting topics regarding the Sámi culture. 

Other things we did on this weekend were: eating a lot of bacon and egg and building some tools. This bowsaw, that you can see on the second picture, took me several attempts. Bending the branch, that I chopped of a fir over the fire was not that hard, but getting the metal part screwed into the branch without breaking the wood was not quite that easy. 

On another weekend in october I went to Tresticklan Nationalpark, which is located just by the Norwegian border, only two hours of a drive north of Gothenburg. It seems to me like it's one of the 29 Swedish nationalparks that tend to be forgotten, or the least to say: less popular. 

It's my goal to visit all of the nationalparks, so I figured out this one was the next on my list, since it's not too far away and it seems to be a fitting place for an autumn hike. We walked from the parking into the forest and it was a really magical, green, mossy forest. I always especially like it when I know there could be a lot of wild animals around, even when I usually don't get to see them. In Tresticklan there are wolves, lynx and sometimes even bears, just to list some of the predators. 

We walked about 5km through the forest to come to the Norwegian border, which runs through a little stream. There's a cute little sign on the middle of the bridge, which you see on a picture below. Despite the short walk we had decided to spend the night in Budalsvika hut, which also belongs to DNT. It felt like a real adventure spending a night in a forest hut, without electricity, phone reception or running water. It was a bit scary but also quite cozy. 

Budalsvika, a hut from the Norwegian Hiking Association (DNT)

If you want to enter the building you need to order a key that fits these locks, same in huts all over Norway. 

The cute, little border between Norway and Sweden.

In the end of October I was lucky enough to get a week off from work and me and my friend Lea went on a trip to Dalarna and Norway. We drove about 700km to Grövelsjön, a little village with Sweden's most southern mountain station and the offical beginning of the Scandinavian Mountains inside Sweden. We spend the first nights in the STF mountain station and did some day hikes around. The weather was brilliant, not a single moment of rain. Unfortunately there was no snow yet either.

Me looking at Städjan

After two days of warming up we hiked over the mountains to Hävlingen, a hut 15km away from the next sroad and as well without any electricity. It was expecially exciting since it was Halloween and we were probably the only people to be around and the first ones to come there in some weeks. It actually felt a bit creepy. It didn't get better when we realized that there was no petroleum lantern or candles and we were having 16 hours of darkenss ahead of us. Oh, and also you couldn't lock the door. In the end it turned out to be a nice evening: we had our headlights and some small candles I found in my pack, and we lit a cozy fire in the oven. It was a really nice expeience and it centrainly wouldn't have been the same if I went on my own. 

I want to come back here when there's snow and ice everywhere... And also in summer to paddle around on the lake and cath some fat fishies....

Evening light at 2.30pm.

The day after we went over to Norway, more exactly to Femundsmarka Nasjonalpark and spent the night in a little hut in Elgå. Our plan was to hike into the nationalpark and sleep over in the forest. In the end we changed our minds and decided to climb the peak on the highest mountain around, Elgåhogna with 1640m over sealevel. It was an awesome tour, quite a lot of gravel and a steep slope closer to the top. Once we were on the peak we could see all over the area, at least some 50km into every direction. It was really awesome- until my camera broke. So half of the pictures I upload here are actually taken with my old iPhone 4. 

Taking a closer look the map

Start of the trail to the top

The views get better

it's always a good feeling to have achieved something. Even more with weather like this in the first week of November, 

Later in November Lea visited us and we spent a day fishing and sitting by the campfire. You don't always have to drive far away to have a little adventure or spend a day that makes you feel glad. As you can see on the picture below we were embarassing enough to all wear the same hat. But to be honest this Norrøna wool hat is like the warmest and coziest thing that ever touched my head. Also I was the one who had it first! 

Resuming 2015, part 3: Padjelanta, Lofoten and southern Sweden

July started off with what was thought to be a hike through Sarek. Because of unusual high snow, that was staying till summer in the higher altitudes, we had to change our plans. 

We hiked along the Padjelantaleden instead, a trail that surrounds Sarek Nationalpark on the western side. It has bridges over all the bigger and smaller rivers, while in Sarek you need to cross any stream just as it is. Not so hard to imagine that this is a risky and very uncertain thing to do, especially when you see the landscape for the first time and it's drowning in melting snow.
Due to flooding in the lower areas we even decided to skip the first 3 stages of this trail by helicopter. Some bridges had broken under the floods and parts of the path itself were flooded. We didn't know about this as we arrived on the trailhead but were told by the staff of the mountain lodge. So the helicopter trip was a spontaneous decision.
At the end of the 160km trail from Kvikkjobb to Ritsem we had some spare time left and since my friend Moa had a bad knee we decided to have some daytours in Lofoten instead of hiking further on Nordkalottleden or a similar trail. 

The helicopter tour was not planned, but sitting in a chopper is always awesome. 

crossing a smaller river with about 2 degrees water temperature.

I had never been to Lofoten before and it turned out to be one of my favorite places of all time. I will definitely go back there as soon as I can. There's surf, incredible fishing, steep, snowy peaks right next to beaches with turqoise water,...

The only downside is the norwegian prices, but since we slept in our tents and brought food in our swedish rental, we didn't have to spend that much money over there. 

Turquois water, dolfins in the water and sheep on the beach. 

Kvalvika strand

Picture taken around midnight

Reine village, probably one of the most photographed in Norway.

Munkebu hut, the little red dot in the middle of the picture. It's an interesting hike there and a scenic place to spend the night. You need to be member in DNT or rent a key for the hut at the tourist information. 

This was taken at 1 am. 

After the summer I did some smaller weekend adventures, mostly in southern Sweden and close to where we live. Some fishing, visiting Tiveden Nationalpark and some smaller hikes. 

I really like this picture. I wonder how the tree roots grew that way. 

Tiveden Nationalpark, where the trolls live. 

Sunset over Nävsjön, close to Norrköping. I took this with my iPhone 4 without any filters or stuff. 

Foggy semptember morning at Nävsjön. 

I spent my first night in my new Hilleberg tent, which was my birthday present. It's a awesome little 4-season tent and I hope I'll spend a lot of nights in it next year.