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Pilgrimage to Santiago- the journey is the goal

Before I discovered hiking, it was the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain, that fueled my outdoors dreams. For several years I had seen the pilgrims walking past my window or overtook them in my car, on the search for waves to surf. When one is comfortably sitting behind the wheel and making more kilometers in an hour than a pilgrim in a week, walking seems really tough. Sometimes 

I felt pity for the tired people trudging alongside the road, with a heavy pack on their back. Still it always nagged me to see the roadsigns that contained information for the pilgrims, or a tiny path, leading fromt he national road into the forest, with an arrow or a scallop on it. It felt like a true adventure, like an undertaking that I couldn't grasp without doing it myself. 

I saw pilgrims on usy beaches, where they seemed out of place, wearing boots and fully clothed. I saw them fighting for their space on the serpentines of the mountaineous national road, being relentlessly overtaken by trucks. Yes, I pitied them - and still I was longing for this adventure. 

In 2011 I finally decided to give it a try. As the starting day I chose my birthday, in late September. I was thrilled but equally anxious. What if I didn't find the trail? What if I got lost?

Without having ever done something similar, I just couldn't picture what was awaiting me. I took the train to Valença (not to mix up with Valencia) by the portuguese-spanish border and made my way from the train station to the albergue (the pilgrims hostel), where I was going to spend the night. Was I a pilgrim? I couldn't really identify myself as a pilgrim. After all I hadn't walked at all, yet. Walking through town with my backpack on was just really odd to me. A pilgrim belongs in the open landscape, I thought. 

As I awoke the next morning, my phone showed it being 7am. Apparently everybody else I shared the dormitory with had already departed. I was gripped by a nervous sensation, packed up all my belongings in a hurry and left as fast as I could. I followed the yellow arrows through town and down to the estuary, where an old bridge, ressembling the style of the Eiffel Tower, crossed the river Minho, into Spain. So far it wasn't too hard to follow the trail, I was content. Soon after I threw away all the papers I printed out at home, which described the path meticulously, meter by meter. 

The sun started rising higher and it got warmer. Now I was in Galicia, the northwestern Province of Spain. A rush of happiness came over me: Now my adventure was really starting!

On this first day of my pilgrimage I walked 23 kilometers, through forests, over tiny old roads that were no longer in use and through the industrial outcrops of the small town O Porriño, which was my goal for the day. By the time I arrived in O Porriño I had no doubt when it came to identifying myself as a pilgrim. I was exhausted from the heat and the concrete under my feet. I checked in at the local albergue and stretched out on the bed for a while. 

After a couple of hours and some lunch I already felt restless again and was wondering what was awaiting me tomorrow. This restlessness unfortunately became my companion for the rest of the trip. There was so much time to just relax and hang out, but I just couldn't make use of it. I had a hard time falling asleep and even staying asleep during the nights. Every morning I woke up with a rush of adrenaline and felt driven to hurry up and away. And I didn't even know why. Every day I was one of the first arriving at the next albergue, often even before it had opened it's doors at 2pm. 

Being by myself, I didn't have to slow down for anyone, I took to few breaks and never even dat down for a lunch or a snack in one of the restaurants along the way. 

Unsurprisingly I started hating the Camino de Santiago more and more. 

It was like a nightmare to me, like a parallel world with no escape. Looking back, this perspective seems overly dramatic and exaggerated, especially when referring to a walk of merely 120km in easy terrains. The lack of sleep and the feeling of isolation made it feel very real though. In the end I was blind for the experience I was having and looking back I can say without a doubt that I simply had a panic attack. I honestly felt like I was drowning. I ended up in a hostel room by myself, unable to sleep or eat, throwing up and shaking all over. And this was only one day before arriving to Santiago. One day, or some twenty kilometers, but it felt so out of reach. As that point I didn't even care about the pilgrimage anymore. In the end I got picked up by my then boyfriend, who drove me back home to Porto, where I finally got out of the vicious circle I felt trapped in. 

After this experience I wasn't to sure if I still liked the concept of a pilgrimage. It wasn't the trails fault that things had gone wrong, it was my own. 

Only a week later I went back and completed the last day of the Caminho Português into Santiago. Walking through the town, approaching the big square with the cathedral and holding the document that confirmed my pilgrimage in hands, certainly felt awesome. I had really earned this one. 

But still I wasn't too sure if I actually enjoyed this experience. Nine months laster I was back in Valença. where I had also started the year before, only this time with a friend of mine and less insecure. This trip became a much more positive one- our week was filled by conversations, rich meals in galician restaurants and exhausting days in rather hot weather. 

Since all good things are three, I completed the same route one more time in march 2014, with my now husband. It was important to me to share all these impressions from my previous experiences, which are impossible to transmit just by telling stories about it. 

We had a pleasant week with quite bad weather, as it can be expected in march and ended up even continuing to Fisterra, the westernmost point of continental Spain, 90km from Santiago. As that point I was already more familiar with hiking equipment, which made the walk a lot more comfortable. The company of a friend or partnet is a huge factor when going on a trip, a hike or apilgrimage, at least for me. Together with another person it is so easy to just live in the moment, sit down and relax. Small and big experiences want to be shared, there is an outlet for thoughts and feelings. A beautiful view or a taste meal are worth so much more when enjoyed in company.

I gave pilgrimage on my own another chance in late summer 2014, when I embarked on a stretch of Camino del Norte, the trail that leads along the Bay of Biscay. In the meanwhile I had gotten so familiar with hiking, spending a night in a bunk bed and living out of my backpack, that it didn't seem like a big deal. To be honest I don't even remember a so many details from this walk, because it didn't really touch me that much.
I enjoyed walking by the sea, taking off my shoes and standign barefoot in the water, spending the afternoons hanging out and eating a lot of delicious spanish food.

At this point I felt ready for something more secluded, closer to nature and with proximity to the mountains. The Caminos are quite urban and one can never walk many hours without seeing or hearing cars or walking on concrete. Some might argue that the most important part of a pilgrimage is the spirituality. For my part I'm not a catholic and foreign to their rituals and believes. From my point of view, if there is a god or a bigger force, it clearly exists within nature. I don't need to visit churches or walk on a trail that leads to a cathedral. Standing atop any mountain range I can appreciate how mighty and incredbly beautiful this earth is. In this way the Camino de Santiago has taught me a lot and I'm happy to have discovered how sublime nature is, superior to anything manmade.

A glimpse of some wilder landscape on the Camino was possible in January 2015, when we headed out to experience a bit of snow on O Cebreiro, one of the higher points of the Camino Francés. Of course the snow there never really lasts long, nor is it deep enough to go on skis or snowshoes, but just walking uphill with the trail hidden underneath a layer of snow and glittery white everywhere in the trees was magical. In the evening it became really windy and the snowflakes danced past the window of the albergue while we were sitting in the kitchen, having dinner. It was magical and truly stunning, even more because snow on the Iberian Peninsula is not all too common and therefore a real treat. 

Even this winter, in February 2016, we had the chance to see one of the more wild and beautiful spots of all Caminos, the Collado Lepoeder, highest point of the Camino Francés, located in the Pyrenees. 

This was my last Camino experience so far, but I will alway keep the adventures on these trails in memory, as the beginning of my discovery of the outdoors. 

The 10 essentials- 10 thing to always bring on a hike

There are a couple of things that one should always carry when leaving for a hike, or other activities in nature. Two things are important to be said right in the beginning: No, this doesn't mean that you need to walk with a huge, heavy backpack. And: No, owning these things is not expensive, nor exaggerated. The list is of course not an invention by myself but recommended by hiking organizations, the scouts and featured in books, like ' Mountaineering- the freedom of the hills'.

It doesn't matter if you are going for a weekend camping trip, a day hike in the mountains, a tour in your kayak or on your mountainbike- as soon as you are away from the town, the road, from other people and possibly also from phone coverage you should carry some extra material. The reason for this is not some kind of over-dramatized survival scenario or fear of something very improbable happening, it's simply a way to ensure you are comfy and safe, even if things go different than planned. 

A hike can take a bit longer than expected. The weather might change and suddenly it starts raining, or the sun might burn down on you from the sky. You might be unsure about which trail was the one you were supposed to choose on a way crossing. Your hiking buddy maybe stepped on their shoelaces and they ripped off. The way down the mountain after your climbing afternoon can take some more time cause you are stiff and tired. Having the 10 essentials is of advantage in any of those cases and prevents you starting to feel uncomfortable or potentially even getting in danger. 

And even without unforeseen events you should carry these things. Taking care of your basic physical needs like drinking, eating, being warm, not being blinded by the sun or getting a sunburn are fundamental for enjoying your day out in nature. Bringing a map and compass and/or a GPS, or even your smartphone with offline topographic maps, is not an option but a must. 

Don't be selfish and rely on your phone to call for help in case you get lost. And this point is valid not just referring to navigation but to all the gear you should bring with you, in order to ensure your own well-being. If you need to call mountain rescue because you failed to bring gloves in cold conditions and can't feel your fingers anymore, you are wasting the emergency services' time (and a lot of money). 

This might sound far-fetched, but there are plenty of accidents and incidents in the mountains every year (in basically any country you get statistics for) and a big number of those are caused by poor navigation, lacking material and inexperience in how to use the carried material. If we take a look at Spain, a country with plenty of mountaineous regions and many tourists, the statistics talk about around 800 rescues a year, executed by the GREIM (Grupo de Rescate e Intervención en Montaña) which is part of the Guardia Civil, a military force. Of those rescued, more than 50% are injured and more than 10% die, or are encountered already dead. 

You might think that it's mostly the more 'extreme' activities that are risk filled and that a simple hike is rather safe, but in reality it's contrary. In Scotland, for instance, 77% of all casualties in the mountains between 1996 and 2005 happened while hiking. Compared to Spain there is a lower number of fatalaties though, with an average of 26 per year. 

The same picture can be seen in the Alps, with Austria as an example, where over 80% of all fatalities happen during 'hiking in easy terrain'. In 2013 those where 162 persons, in 2014 156 persons. In comparison: only 6 persons died during ice climbing and glacier tours in those two years put together. I do believe that these numbers do show that a lot of hikers do understimate their hobby and do not equip and prepare themselves sufficiently. 

These numbers are not ment to scare anyone away from going to the mountains, it just shows the importance of realizing that is is literally not 'a walk in the park'. In the end, safety in the mountains is an equation with many variables, such as weather, clothing, preperation and planning, experience and the activity you are doing. Bringing the gear to keep you safe can not prevent all possible problems, but it's part of what you can contribute and what's inside your control. 

Here's a pic of what the 10 essentials can look like. Extra clothes (in this case long underwear), sunscreen and sunglasses, matches, a compass and a map, tiny first aid bag, a knife, my waterbottle, some high energy snacks, a bivaque bag and a headlamp, including extra batteries. (The headlamp is not needed in summer far up north of course, cause the sun doesn't set between late May and early August.)

This is what I would bring for a longer dayhike in the mountains, in summer. Not including my normal food for the day and the water in the bottle, it's all together only around 1,5 kg. Not too much to carry on your back, even if you are conscious about the weight you want to carry. Besides that, there are plenty of ways of making this setup even much lighter.

I'm by no means an expert but here are some more ideas about each of the 10 essentials: 

1. Navigation- it is good to have an idea about where you are going; not only as a picture in your head, but a bit more reliable. It's not only about avoiding getting lost, but as well about finding an alternative way, in case you want to make a short cut or change your plans. The optimum is a map with anything between 1:20.000 to 1:100.000 as a scale to reality. It's not enough to just own a map, you should also stadily have a look at it and not wait till you are actually lost to get it out of your pack. It's even fun to look at it, see what are the names of mountains or lakes you walk past and see what's behind that forest you are walking through. The same is valid for your compass. Use it and get used to it and you might never even come in the situation where you are seriously lost.

Personally, I use my phone for navigation quite a lot. I draw trails into maps at home and upload them to wikiloc.com. I have offline maps for all places I go hiking in and track myself with the phone's GPS. I really do trust that system, but still I try to not walk around looking at the trail on the phone and rather search for the next trail marker ahead of me. Technology is really useful, but as opposed to a phone a paper map will never run out of battery.

2. Sun Protection- This one should be quite obvious. As nice as it is to get a tan, the sun can be destructive and it's wiese to protect your eyes, your skin and your head. Dark lenses are especially important when walking or skiing on snow. Becoming snow blind is painful and annoying.

Me, using textbook sun protection and a sunproof shirt on a  35ºC portuguese summer afternoon. 

3. Insulation- It's easy to get warm and sweaty while excercising. When you take a break it's always a good idea to have an extra layer of clothing at hand, especially when it's windy or overall cold. Even in temperatures around -10ºC I can still comfortably walk uphill in only a fleece, but once I take a rest, putting on my down jacket is mandatory.

Even on the warmest days I bring an extra sweater in my pack (and yes, there's an empty can of tuna dangeling from my backpack).

4. Illumination- As I mentioned before you need to adapt the light sources you bring to when and where you are going. In wintertime in Sweden I bring plenty of candles, extra batteries for my headlamp and even another light I can put on the table. That way I try to adapt to the 16 hours+ of darkness, which need to be spend one way or another. In summer I don't bring any light source at all, or just a tiny headlamp to use inside huts that have at times very few windows.

Getting light into a hut in Norway. 

5. First-Aid supplies- In your first aid bag you should have medicine you are familiar with and other supplies that you will probably use. There is no need in buying a first-aid kit at a gas station and bringing surgical scissors and other stuff you don't even know how to use, on your hike. Make your own kit instead. Fill it with pain killers you know work on you, pills against diarrhea, maybe antihistamines, tape, band-aids and blister band-aids. Think what you would want to use to take care of a wound and get it at a farmacy. Bring something to clean sores and a tiny tube of cortisone or antibiotical cream. In the end, what you should bring, depends mostly on your destination.

Participating in a wilderness First-aid course is a good way to learn about dealing with injuries and accidents. It's also fun to wrap up one of your friends like this. 

6. Fire- The least you can bring in order to make a fire, are of course matches or a lighter. If you even plan on making a camp fire, a knife to make feather sticks and tinder ist very helpful. In an emergency situation there are countless objects that can help you make a warming fire. From tampons, to batteries, wet toiletpaper or potato chips. You might have more burnable or easily inflammable things with you, than you might think.

My first try on making fire with steel wool and a phone battery- it worked! 

7. Repair kit and knife- This, again, depends a lot on your activities and where you are going. I always bring a knife, which I even use to prepare food. Usually it's my Mora knife, which is useful and cheap. besides that I have duct tape, which I wrap around my water bottle, so I don't have to bring a whole roll of it. It's awesome for repairs of all kind. Some thin rope and a sewing kit is also always a good idea on a longer trip and has hardly any weight.

Can you discover the duct tape bottle amonst all our stuff? 

8. Nutrition- Food should not be underestimated when it comes to lifting you mood. I always bring at least a müsli bar or some crackers on a trail. For longer trips I usually pack for one day more than I plan being out there. That way I'm more flexible and I don't have to spend a day on an unvoluntary diet if I get stuck in bad weather and have to spend an extra night somewhere.
Food for a whole day, including 3 meals and snacks, doesn't have to weigh more than 500gr, dehydrated food is the key to going light.

Eating outdoors can be a real pleasure. Taking in the view and waiting for the water to boil. 

9. Hydration- I go by a simple rule: I bring a bit more to drink than I plan on needing. Going thirsty and looking for a water source is no fun at all... When you're in the cold try to melt snow instead of eating it, you will lose a lot of body heat and energy that way. Try to be informed if water is good to drink, or if having a filter, or other means to clean your water, are necessary. I usually have some Catadyn micropur pills in my first aid kit, which I use whenever I'm in doubt.

The colour of this source in Iceland was not promising... It's supposed to be a water especially good for your health though. Cheers! 

10. Shelter- A shelter can be anything between a feather light space blanket, that fits in your pocket, or your tent. Finding shelter from wind and rain doesn't have to imply an emergency, but is a simple commodity to have a moment of rest, look on your map or have a quick snack.

Looks like I'm member of a weird cult, but I'm actually just trying to ice fish without freezing myself into pieces. Here I'm sitting in a windsack from Hilleberg, which can be used as a bivaque bag for up to 3 persons, or just as a wind protection. 

Back to Portugal!

Since I moved to Sweden in May last year I had not been back to Portugal. At first I couldn't even imagine that I would start to miss this place a lot. Everything just felt boring. It was home, I took everything for granted. 

This week I got to spend to days in Porto and now I'm already able to see the beautiful things from a tourist like perspective, instead of just being too deep into my day to day life and chores. I got to eat some delicious food, sit on the beach, hang out with a friend who was also kind enough to host me, drive along the same roads I drove on pretty much every day for years, and even had time to go to Portugal's only national park. 

So lucky to land with weather that permits these views. Porto from above. 

A snapshot from the descend into London, my first stop to Portugal. 

In most other countries I know national parks pretty much seem to be made to accomodate hikers, visitors and nature lovers. In Portugal it feels like the exact opposite- you can't buy any topographic maps that show you the trails of the only national park, there is pretty much no service or information at all for visitors and many areas of so called 'total protection' are even forbidden for hiking. Weirdly enough nobody knows what the fines are and why these areas are forbidden, year round. Without any signs in the park or maps it's probably even a bit too much to expect from visitors to actually stick to the rules. So you'll find small trails all over the place and there's hardly ever a ranger who enforces the laws. It's a shame really that the park doesn't get any better trails and maintenance, because it's such a beautiful and rich place. 

Further down I posted a number of picture from this visit, on which I hardly went further than a couple of hundred meters away from the car, but still you can see that the place is definitely worth the visit if you come to Portugal!

Sunrise over the river Cávado

Early morning fog, rio Cávado and Gerês mountains.

One of the best lookout spots I can imagine, casa de Leonte, Gerês.

The entrance to one of the few forests in Portugal with actual old trees and a big diversity in Flora and Fauna. 

I drove over the border into Spain to enjoy another of my favorite spots: natural hot springs! Such a relaxing experience to have a steaming hot bath in nature- and it's even for free. It feels especially amazing after a day of hiking. 

Hot springs in Lobios, Spain. Right by the border. 

3ºC air temperature, 39ºC water, no one around, free entrance. One of the nicest things I can imagine. 

Cascata da Portela do Homem, mountain ridge 'Encosta do Sol' in the background. 

Another picture on the same lookout spot, now with full sunlight. 

One of the many fountains. 

Back in town I deserved some proper brazilian lunch.

A view over the beach at Aterro, where it's still quite winterly. Big waves.

Vasaloppet - Kortvasan

Vasaloppet

The skiing marathon Vasaloppet is probably one of the most classic and traditional events in Sweden. By now there is not only one race but a whole week of competition that caters different classes of participants. Since this was my first time, I decided that it would be the wisest to decide for a modest distance, instead of the full 90km race. I had done fairly little training specifically for cross-country skiing, but I had my hopes up that all other excercise I had been doing would be sufficient. 

The day before the race we had to drive about seven hours from Jotunheimen in Norway to Mora and I felt everything but fit on the morning of the competition. With headache and unsteady stomach I was waiting on the start line with about thousand fellow excited skiers. All in all, this day of competition, the Kortvasan, had 7000 participants. I had low expectations on the quality of the tracks, after so many others had already gone through them. But fortunately the weather stayed cold and there were still some frozen rails that made coming forward rather easy. 

The first kilometers were rather slow, the group of starters were still so close to each other that I could hardly make a move without having another ski stepping on mine or a skiing pole almost stuck in my face. After about half an hour the whole situation loosened a little bit- the faster skiers were already far ahead of me and the slowest ones were left behind. After some more kilometers I even started to overtake some skiers that had started in other groups earlier than me. That was easy to see by the system of startnumbers. everybody with 11xxx had started at the same time then me, 10xxx a quarter earlier, and so on. After two hours I had even spotted some 4xxx, which means they had started almost two hours ahead of me. That was a nice motivation of course. But I also needed motivation: I still had a annoying headache and my stomach hurt with every movement. 

But in the end, after some pretty long 30km, I came into Mora. My time was not really worth talking about, but it was a nice start into the exciting world of cross country skiing competiton and I'll be back for sure, maybe even with some more training and perhaps even on a longer distance. 

Some meters to the finish line, picture taken from a live video stream of the event. Since I was busy skiing as fast as I could, of course I didn't take any pictures on this occasion. 

After this adventurous month, now, I'm finally at home, watching tv with the cat.

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Jotunheimen - home of the giants

Jotunheimen

This norwegian National Park is home to the 29 highest mountains of the country and has thus received it's name 'the home of the giants'. I was really excited to come here for the first time and see the landscape. Even though we have only been in one part of the region, I can say for sure that it's really the home of the most impressive mountains in Scandinavia. For the past days we have stayed in Gjendesheim, a hut by the Norwegian Trekking Association DNT. There is plenty to do around here, mostly on skis of course. 

It was overall a pretty nice experience, I must admit though that I feel more at home in some other parts of Scandinavia. The mountains in Jotunheimen are big and impressive, the distances between the huts are long and there are no apparent 'cozy' spots, just rugged rocks and steep cliffs. As amazing it is to look at this kind of landscape, it's not the type of terrain that I really feel comfortable in. It might be for a reason that the swedish are considered 'valley crawlers' (dalkrypare) compared to the norwegians, that move higher up in the mountains. For a trip where I spend a longer time outdoors camping and hiking or skiing, I really do prefer places with a good mix of interesting peaks and cozy forests where you can find some shelter against the wind. Probably good I'm living in Sweden and have all those lame little mountain areas in reach ;)

Here are some impressions! 

Early morning over lake Gjende

Trying to get through the 40cm thick ice to catch some fishies. 

Me, freezing inside my windsack. 

There are two persons inside this picture...

Digging a hole for a shelter

Lunch inside our self built shelter, away from the biting wind

The first sunbeams hit Besseggen

Same perspective at night

View from the way up to Bessvatnet

Another lunch, another wind protection

Here are two of the day tours we did.

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