Packing for a triple trip!

Soon it's time to travel again! 

In February I'll be lucky enough to go on three trips: The first one to Bilbao in the Basque Country, the second one to Kiruna in Swedish Lapland and the last will be a roadtrip in Rondane and Jotunheimen Nationalparks in Norway, ending with Vasaloppet skiing race in Mora. So I'm looking forward to a lot of sunshine, waves, delishious food, snowy mountains and exciting adventures!

In the Basque Country we're going to start off with some days of surfing, mostly around the wonderful city of San Sebastián and later a bit more west, close to Santander. Surfing is something I'm really looking forward to, alongside with some more sunlight and warmth. Self-explanatory you don't get much of that in the swedish winter (if you're not a hardcore surfer, who jumps into almost frozen water- which I'm clearly not). 

After the surfing part were gonna head for the mountains, namely Picos de Europa in Cantabria and Asturias. weather conditions in these mountains are fast changing and fickle year round and I'm not sure what to expect now in winter. There might be anything between 20ºC and sun or a snowstorm. Therfore I make sure to be equipped for every possible scenario, being safe is an absolute priority, many hikers have disappeared in this area before.  
It'll be also important to have an eye on avalanche forecasts, possible fog coming up (the mountains are very close to the coast and moisture is high) and bringing enough water, cause you can't find water sources pretty much anywhere. 

Here's what I'm bringing for the trip: 

(I'm actually bringing some more clothes to look reasonable when I walk into a Spanish Tapas restaurant, they're not in the picture since they're not relevant in terms of  gear)

One of my favorite bits of gear in this picture, is the Exped lightning 60l backpack. It's only about 1kg (2,2 lbs), which is very light for a pack with that capacity. I already tried it on some shorter trips, such as last weekend in Tresticklan Nationalpark and so far it feels very comfortable. I will test it further and find out if it can be the backpack to bring on my long summer trip. 

As you can see I will also bring my snowshoes, which I have last used in June on Kungsleden, gaiters, hiking poles and even crampons. Not in the picture is my ice axe, but I'll bring that one as well for the case of encountering some steeper, icy stretches. 

Because of the lack of water in Picos de Europa, I'll bring my water bladder, besides my normal water bottle of course. If it looks like it's going to be freezing temperatures I'll bring several more water bottles instead. Of course I also have a map of the area and a compass. 

As for the surfing part I'll bring a 4/3 wetsuit, a hooded vest to wear underneath and my good old surfboard, which is by now already 6 years old, but still my favorite. 

Second trip - Kiruna

The second trip to Kiruna will be a rather short one and involve some family business. So the layout of my equipment is not that interesting. The only outdoors activity that is planned, besides some backcountry skiing, is a dogsled tour. I'll make sure to bring some really warm clothes, goggles, a face mask and thick boots. 

I'm not much of a dog person but I still think it'll be fun. A sled dragged by cats is unfortunately not really a thing. 

A pic from last winter. That's what I'm looking forward to see going with a dog sled. Sälka huts.

Third Trip - Norway and Vasaloppet! 

The third trip will, unlike the first two ones, bring me to several places I haven't yet been to. We'll start by driving north to Dalarna, where we'll do at least one skiing tour to a hut in the mountains. Afterwards we'll drive into Norway and stay two days on the foot of the Rondane Nationalpark, which offers more options to ski, eat good food and relax in a sauna. We'll continue to Jotunheimen, an incredible national park, which hosts all of Norway's highest mountains. There we'll stay for five days and join an organized tour.

After that it's time for the exciting last part of the month: Participating in the skiing race Vasaloppet, a traditional swedish competition. Since I'm a beginner on skis and don't feel like I can manage to ski 90km in a couple of hours, I'll do the short version, which is only 30km long. Here's a short video that shows you the incredible dimension of this race. 

Even though I'm a poor skier, I'm absolutely excited about participating and of course I hope I can complete the race, cross the finish line somewhere amongst 10.000 other participants and receive my participant's medal. 

Here's some equipment I'll bring on the road trip

Mostly skis and skiing accessoires, some safety and cooking equipment, maps and ice fishing equipment. A lot of the functional clothes will be the same that come with me on the first trip, that's why they're not in the picture- they're already packed. 

Building an igloo

Yesterday I shoveled up a lot of snow in the garden and let it freeze over night. This afternoon I started carving the pile out, making the walls gradually thinner and I got lucky not breaking through anywhere. I even gave it a little window. 

It looks so cozy and I would really like to spend the night in there- unfortunately I have to go to work at 4 am tomorrow, so that this doesn't really seem to be a good option. 

Tresticklan Nationalpark by ski (plus a moose sighting)

There's places where every swede seems to go to, for cross-country skiing or to spend their weekend in a cabin: Åre, Idre, Jämtlandsfjällen. There's other places, far closer to the big cities like Gothenburg, where very few people go. One of those places is definitely Tresticklan Nationalpark. It's pristine, wild, rather easy to reach, but just not very known.

I can just recommend any outdoorsy person to go there and maybe even spend a night in Budalsvika hut, on the Norwegian side of the border.

Here are some pics of this weekend, on which we saw a moose, glided through a sublime, frozen winter landscape, sat by a warm fire, ate a lot of good food and met some interesting people. Also it was surprisingly cold, with under -20C during the night and early morning. 

Just after the picture the moose walked on bug, fluffy feet back in the forest. This mas my closest moose encounter yet.

The colours were stunning

One ski-pole is not a new trend- the other one simply broke some kilometers into the hike.

Budalsvika in the snow. No footsteps to see.

Beautiful ice flowers

Good to get some fire going, when it's -7ºC indoors

Melting water for dinner

Everybody lined up around the stove

Temperature was dropping steadily

Icy window decoration in the morning

The woodshed

Breathing hurts a little bit, until your lungs get used to the air temperature

Vildmarksleden

Today we decided to enjoy the cold and the sunshine outdoors and walked a bit on the Vildmarksleden. 

This trail is 40km long and goes from Hindås to Skatås, close to Gothenburg. We didn't walk all of the trail, of course. After a couple of kilometers we sat down in a shelter, made a fire and had some lunch. I really enjoyed the spot and I'm already looking forward to returning, maybe even for a night and the whole of the trail. 

Also I tried my recently bought, cheap ice skates for the first time on a barely frozen lake. 

New Year's Eve in the forest

I'd rather spend New Year's Eve in the forest than downtown.

Instead of going to a party or looking at the fireworks, we spent the last/first night of the year sleeping in a shelter just outside of Gothenburg.
I'd chose sitting by the fire with some friends anytime again over the noise of the city on this night. 

Happy New Year 2016! 

Learning what to bring on a trip, or: evolution of my gear

Hiking in northern Spain, 2011 style. 

Learning what to bring on a trip

or 

Evolution of my gear

As I happen to frequently take pictures of all the gear I bring on a trip, I have an overview over how my setup has changed. I haven't been into serious hiking for all too long, but my gear, what kind of clothes and food I bring, has already changed a lot. 

Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of my gear on the Camino de Santiago I walked in 2011, 2012 and winter 2014. I absolutely don't remember what I brought back then but it would be interesting to know. The only picture I have is the one below, of my cotton packpack ready for the Caminho Português in 2011. It's a 50 liter pack and I hiked in summer... my sleeping bag was way too warm and big. I mean, it doesn't even fit into the pack! 

                                             

Caminho Português 2011

But to be honest, I had no money at all back then and buying a second sleeping bag just because my other one is too big and warm, was not really an option. What else I remember from that trip was that I had long cotton pants that I didn't use a single time, also I walked in a heavy skirt, H&M cardigan and with tennis shoes on. Unsurprisingly I was sweating a lot in my clothes and I had aweful blisters from day one of the trip. It never occured to me though that it was because of my clothes, I just accepted it as it was. 

What else would you wear on a 120km hike? Blundering in september 2011. 

In 2012 hiking for me was all about wearing Nike running gear from head to toe. Way better than H&M cotton.

I know that there's different opinions about this, but I don't think (anymore) that Fjällräven cotton clothes are optimal for glacier hiking, or any hiking really. Too heavy, too bulky, too warm. Sold all of that stuff.
February 2014, Solheimarjokull, Iceland. 

Some years later I finally discovered the existance of hiking gear and clothes that need less than three days to dry after they become sweaty. Still there was a quite limited perspective on what was available, but I think that's perfectly natural when you are just getting in to a new hobby. At first it's always hard to see what you really need, what products are just useless and which are your personal favorites. It's a process of buying, trying it out, selling stuff second hand and starting over. 

Here's two pictures of my first Kungsleden in summer 2014. Since then I have changed basically everything you can see in this picture. The sleeping bag was colder than sleeping naked, the hiking poles broke right after this trip, the compression bag was incredible heavy and bulky, the water bladder leaked and got permanently green on the inside (blergh...). The gas stove is not bad but very sensitive to wind and quite slow. Why I brought several meters thick rope and a headlamp (midnight sun) is still a mistery to me...

I still have the gore-tex jacket though and it's still awesome, same for the Lifestraw water filter (that you don't need in Lappland though) and my compass. I also still use the first aid kit which I restock accordingly to the trip I'm on. 

Taking a look at the food I brought... it's actually not too bad. It just lacks some fresh stuff and there's definitely too little proteins and fat in the picture. I remember that I was dreaming about cheese, fries and oily stuff. Nowadays I would be bringing a salami, a little bottle of olive oil (I'm not a big fan of butter) and more canned fish. If I had space maybe also some fruit or veggies for the first days.

Here's what I brought on a snowy trip in Jämtland in the end of September 2014. I finally got better hiking poles and a better sleeping bag and sleeping pad. If your sleeping equipment is bigger than your backpack and heavy as a stone, it just can't work out. I also got some durable, light metal cutlery, which I'm still very fond of. 

I still use most of these clothes, besides the gaiters that were not breathable at all and made my legs sweat that much, I could have stepped as well in any puddle around. After this trip I swapped out my drinking bottle for a Nalgene. The aluminum bottle from Sigg was freezing every night and ended up leaking all over my sleeping matress which willingly sucked up half a liter of water. Not so nice in a cold night...

In March 2015 I went skiing on Kungsleden and spent a week in Abisko. I didn't camp though, so my packing doesn't include a kitchen or a sleeping pad. I still think that this is quite a good setup and I would bring basically the same on a similar trip. Of course I also brought skiing boots, they're just not in the picture. The sneakers I brought are a bit too heavy and in the meanwhile I got some secondary shoes that I can wear indoors or just for going to the outhouse that are less than half the weight of these. I sold some of my sweaters and ski underwear on a flea market in summer and substituted them by merino wool products. Wool is just the warmest and most comfortable material. 

The sleeping bag felt a bit too heavy for me, with 1,6kg. I recently sold it and ordered a new one from Roberts.pl that will be only about 800 grams while having the same comfort temperature. 

In June 2015 I went for a two week camping trip in Lappland again. There was so much snow left that we went on snowshoes, it was actually not that different from March...

I try to bring all my socks and underwear in wool and go lightweight. The Smart Wool socks are so warm, fast drying and never start smelling, that it's enough to bring two pairs for the whole trip. One pair that I wear during the day and one pair for the evening and night. 

The crampons and the Therm-a-rest didn't make the cut and I left them at home. 

A look into the Trangia kitchen. The idea is to fill out all small spaces and bring just as much as needed. There's no need to bring more detergent or more than half a sponge for washing the dishes. 

Around the cooking pot you can see all other kinds of stuff I brought. I don't save on lighters, matches and a fire steel. 

I'm being realistic though and know that in a couple of years I will look back at these pictures and think 'was I crazy?'. Or just imagine how it will be, looking back twenty years from now!?

Picking gear and equipment, improving it, changing it,... is really just one of my hobbies and I think it's a lot of fun. I'm not regretting any of the "poor" choices I've made in the past, all of the blisters I got from Lidl socks and pain I had from my too heavy backbacks. I think it's interesting to evolve and be able to look back to see where you've come from.