So this summer of 2013, we set out to the north of sweden to do a 7 day hiking trip through the arctic wilderness. We have actually never stayed out in the wild, on foot, out of civilization, without electricity/internet/running water (in that order) etc etc for this long a time ever before!
We walked on a trail known as the Kungsleden (swedish word that means the King's way, when translated). We started at Abisko and ended at Nikkaluokta, a distance of a little more than 100 km (I think we walked about 120 km in all). Here is a map of our journey: STF trail map Kungsleden Abisko
We stayed at STF huts all along the way, which meant we didn't need to carry tents/sleeping bags. It also meant that we didn't need to carry cooking utensils or food for all 7-8 days, since there were some supplies at some of the STF huts along the way. But being vegetarian, and kind of finicky about food, I insisted we should carry enough and more supplies of food for the whole way. These huts were super nice, almost bordering on cozy, given where they were located and the wilderness through which we traveled everyday. Here is a description of our trip - the pictures tell the story that's too long for words.
We left home on the midsummer day, and took a train from Uppsala to Abisko, it took us about 16 hours to get there. Abisko is a small village located in northern sweden (about 300 km north of the arctic circle), and to me this was the top of the world! It is the starting (or ending) point of Kungsleden, and symbolically located just south of a big lake called the Torneträsk. The lake makes one feel like it's the end of the world, and I was sure this was the remains of some ancient glacier. (Of course, this is not the end of the world, we were just at 68 degrees N latitude, and had a long way to go until land ended). We spent the night there, and started our hike the next morning.
Day1: Abisko to Abiskojaure (about 14 km) (Day 1 pictures)
This first day was the easiest of all the days, it was like taking a stroll through a park. Well, almost. We were walking through marshy, swampy, rainy forests, and along the Abisko river almost all the way, and this area was the Abisko national park. On this day, we realized that the Kungsleden trail marking was going to be really easy to follow, we made friends with some people who had left on the same day, and were doing more or less the same thing we were planning to do. We also realized that there was a walking trail and skiing trail on kungsleden, and the big red crosses which we originally thought was what we should follow often led to the middle of some crazy rocks or ended in water. (apparently, these big red crosses were the ski trail). We saw a LOT of mosquitoes, which were bigger than any I have ever seen before in my life (that is a BIG thing, coming from an someone who has braved many a south indian summer. or winter, it does not matter.) We also saw about a million (at least a million!) tiny, yellow-green worms. They were everywhere, on the rocks and stones, on the wet ground, on the trees, leaves, hanging down from branches, and if we stopped anywhere for more than a minute, in our shoes and bags as well. So they helped us keep a good pace, and we later learnt that these were actually caterpillars that were killing the forest, because of their unchecked population (the swedish winter temperature has to apparently be below -30C for 3 successive days to kill the eggs, because each of these caterpillars would become a butterfly in autumn that would then lay about a 100 eggs!) This was the first time I had heard a butterfly being associated with something so destructive.
We left at about 10.30 in the morning, and we had reached Abiskojaure at about 16.00. Once we had passed the wormy place, we took lots of breaks and enjoyed the sunshine (never sure how long it would last), and so this was at a very easy pace.
Day 2: Abiskojaure to Alesjaure (Day 2 pictures)
This was the longest, hardest day of the whole trip. It was about 24 km to walk, and we set off at about 8 AM. We reached about 10 hours later. The first section was a good climb on very stony sections, and then we walked on flatland for a long long time (this was the best section of the walk, since we were blanketed by distant snow-covered mountains, we had the sun on our faces and we were walking along a river). No more yellow worms or marshy land, there were many a good rock to sit on and enjoy the sereneness of where we were, and we did that quite often. And then, Shyam twisted his ankle pretty badly on a stone. After this, the going was much much slower, and he did remarkably well, given how much pain he was in, but still, every km now felt like a distant milestone. At this point, we also encountered our first river crossing. (without a bridge). We did several more of these over the next days and were quite used to them by the end of the trip, but this was our first, and also one of the biggest crossings. Water was flowing quite fast and you had to place your feet on the right stones which were perched rather precariously under the water. We didn't have any water shoes and we didn't want to walk barefoot, for fear of sharp stones that could hurt our feet, and shyam's ankle was rather bad. And after this, the ground was so swampy and boggy that it was a nightmare crossing this area. We finally came to a sign that said the Alesjaure huts were just 3 km away. 3 km! We were very very pleased, but that day was a lesson on how different 3 km is, on a stony patch of ups and downs where you had to choose carefully where to put every foot. We finally made it, and taped up shyam's swollen ankle, spent a good long time in the sauna (yes, sauna!), ate well and rested.
Day 3: Alesjaure to Tjäktja (Day 3 pictures)
Only some 14 km to walk today, and shyam was doing much better. We had the choice of going straight to Sälka today, without staying in Tjäktja for the night - a distance of almost 25 km but it would have meant that we had an extra day which we could use to go up Kebnekaise (this is the highest mountain in sweden. It's not very high, just a little over 1000 m, but with the mountain being permanently covered in glaciers and this part of the world being renowned for crazy, unpredictable weather, we heard that going up this mountain is not like going up any other). But we chose to do the smarter thing. Walk only up to Tjäktja, and let the ankle recover, and enjoy what we were doing without any stress.
Day 4: Tjäktja to Sälka (Day 4 pictures)
About 12 km - another easy day. By now, we were doing river crossings like pros! We also saw some reindeers today - they were running around a lake but unfortunately, they were very far away for our simple point and shoot camera to capture.
Day5: Sälka to Singi (Day 5 pictures)
About 13 km - shyam was completely fine by now, and while walking, I wondered how it would feel to walk on soft non-stony ground again...
Day 6: Singi to Kebnekaise (Day 6 pictures)
About 15 km. We had been very lucky with the weather until today. Apart from an occasional shower, we had had sun every day. Today, our way was so foggy that we could not more than a few metres ahead. It was horrible, rain was just beating down our faces, and we walked in rain and cold and thick fog for about 4 hours. It was a pity because the valley near Singi is supposed to be one of the most scenic parts of our whole hike, and we didn't even get a glimpse of it. Finally, after a long time, it kind of cleared, when we came close to Kebnekaise, but not much.
Day 7: Kebnekaise to Nikkaluokta (Day 7 pictures)
I was happy that we were not going to climb the mountain. The weather had been so bad for the last day or so, that despite staying right at the mountain station, and having spent a whole day walking towards this mountain and the next whole day walking away from it, we never once got a glimpse of the top. As we left Kebnekaise, the weather got better and better, and we walked about 14 km, and then took a boat for some way, and then walked some more kilometres. But this walk was really easy, and after the boat trip, we were once again in lush green soft-earthed land, with flowers and song birds. This was quite different from our quiet time in the swedish lapland (mountains), where we almost never heard anything other than the sound of flowing water for a whole week.
Day 8:
We stayed at Nikkaluokta Sarri for the night, took a bus to Kiruna the next morning and a train home from there. On our way, we met some fellow travelers that we shared some very nice cabin time with - a Dutch couple, a French couple, a father and son from Scotland now living in Stockholm, a Swedish couple, 2 Swedish girls, 2 Dutch men, 2 sisters from the US and some solo travelers from Germany. A few of them came with us from Abisko all the way to Nikkaluokta, and most others part of the way. We met in the huts every night, shared a kitchen and sauna and often our bunk beds were in the same room, traded stories, played cards(we learnt several new games!) and read our books by the fire until about midnight every day. After all the walking and alone time in the mountains every day, we enjoyed this small society every night.
I think we should get away like this at least once a year.
