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!