Kungsleden: Hiking above the Arctic Circle
Trip Start
Jun 15, 2004
1
3
40
Trip End
Apr 03, 2005
Abisko, Sweden
Tuesday, June 29, 2004
Jacquie and I have just returned from a 6 day, 112 km backpacking trip along the Kungsleden, which means Kings Trail in Swedish.
After an all night train ride from Stockholm and a grocery stock up in Kiruna, we took the train to the small town of Abisko where we were dropped off right at the trail head. Our first day of hiking saw us starting out in the trees for the first 10 km and then we climbed above tree line at about 800 meters. A little different than the Rocky's. We stopped off at the first hut where we thought we should fill up our water bottles. I asked the hut steward where I could get some water. She looked at me in a rather strange way and pointed at the very large river that I was standing beside. Turns out that you can drink the water from any flowing river. As we were in the area during the height of the melt, no problem finding running water. We continued on our trail with our mindset of trying to get to camp before dark. Oops, sun never sets up here. We managed to hike another 9 or 10 km's before the feet gave out and we came across a beautiful spot to camp for the night. We were on the top of a pass, about 900 meters, surrounded by beautiful peaks with snow and raging water falls. We cooked dinner at about 10:00 pm and it felt like 3 in the afternoon, why did we bring those headlamps
Day two dawned a bit rainy and we had a hard slog through both boggy and rocky terrain. There were several rivers that had to be crossed and not a bridge in sight. We learned later that these rivers would pretty much dry up in a month. Gaters and water proofing can only do so much and our feet were soon soaked. This added to the blister situation that was already plaguing our soft pink feet. We were not in the best of spirits and realized that our plan to get 20 km a day was not realistic. We spoke to the steward of the next hut that we came to to see about our options. The passes that we had planned to cross through were waist deep with snow and we could see avalanche signs on both sides. Taking the advice of the steward, we had a plan. We walked another few km's before making camp. that made for about 23 km for our second day. We had another beautiful spot. Sweden has a law that allows people to pitch their tents anywhere on private and public lands for free. This, coupled with the fact that there were few people in a massive area, we rarely saw any other people.
Day three was a sunny and warm but we had to cross our highest pass which we had been told was fully snowed in. We had about 6 km of hiking through the snow with an elevation gain of about 3oo meters. The pass topped out at a little over 1100 meters. We had been told of hikers sinking up to their hips on every step so we got an early start hoping for hard snow. The view was breathtaking and we managed to get to the top of the pass sinking up to our knees on a few occassions but mostly only to a depth of 6 or 7 inches. We met a nice couple from Germany at the hut at the top of the pass and spent too much time chatting over lunch which allowed the sun to warm up the snow making our decent from the pass a little tougher. We did sink up to our middles a few times on this part. Soaked and very tired we found another beautiful site to pitch our tent. Did we mention that the sun never sets. It rained and blew all night but the rain had stopped by the time that we were ready to break camp. After a Capaccino, a handful of granola and a Mars bar, we were on our way again.
The rest of the hike was amazing. We saw herds and herds of reindeer throughout the hike. These are managed by the Sami people who are the Native People of Sweden. It was baby season so lots of little ones around making Jacquie ooo and ahhh. As we walked the reindeer would move ahead of us just like we were herding them. In one narrow valley we were apparently herding them in a direction that the big male was unhappy with. He climbed to a highpoint in the trail about 50 feet in front of us and gave us the eye. Jacquie and I simply stood where we were and allowed all of the females and babies to cross in front of us and move back down the valley. Once all of the herd was safely on its way the big male, with the realllllly big antlers, gave us a snort and moved off with them. Bit of a National Geographic moment.
We are off to Norway next and will report further when we have some time.
J and D
