| Tourentyp | |
| Lat | |
| Lon | |
| Mitreisende | |
Easter in the snow – 120km cross country skiing on Sweden’s King’s Trail
Close to midnight one evening in late April. It was snowing during the day but the sky is now clear and to the South, where the last memory of winter darkness hangs on in spring-blue gloom, a few stars have broken through. I am skiing over the ice along Abiskojokk River. The silence broken only by the whisper of new snow against my skis. The evening star flickers above the Pallemvagge gateway like a drop of thawed snow. And in there where it points, lie mile after mile of highlands, still bound by winter but awakening to a new summer adventure. (Dag Hammarskjoeld)
Dag Hammarskjoeld, a Swedish diplomat and author, managed to put into words what I felt when I skied the Kungsleden over Easter in April last year. The Kungsleden, in English King's Trail, is a hiking trail in the far North of Sweden, 440 km long, passing through one of Europe's largest remaining wilderness areas. I was in Europe for a conference and it it seemed like a good idea to add a bit of adventure. I decided to ski the northern part of the King’s Trail from Abisko to Nikkaolukta, all together a bit more than 120 km. Briefly I thought about joining a guided trip, but was soon convinced that I could do it by myself. The King’s Trail is after all the equivalent of our Milford Track, well marked and quite populated – at least in summer.
When I flew to Stockholm I saw a landscape covered in snow. The low sun reflected on thousands of frozen lakes. The next flight took me even further north to Kiruna, more snow and colder temperatures. A train ride and finally - Abisko Touriststation, 195 km north of the Arctic Circle.
When I get off the train I have the funny sensation that my nostrils freeze together, it is -20ºC. At the hostel I rent a pair of cross country skis, long and skinny with steel edges and a binding that holds a leather boot via a metal bar at the toe. The heel can move freely, scales under the middle part of the skis help when climbing uphill.
Early next morning I glide through a winter wonderland. The low sun transforms each snow crystal into a glittering diamond. Short birch trees, dark without any leaves, cover the gentle rolling hills. The northern part of the Kungsleden leads through Swedish Lappland. It is well marked with red crosses and dotted with cosy mountain huts only a day’s walk apart. I use my first day on the trail to get used to my skis and skiing with a jam-packed backpack. I carry full winter gear, a bivy bag, mattress and a shovel in case of an emergency. I follow some ski tracks till a gurgling sound under food makes me realize that I am skiing on a frozen river, Dag Hammarskjoeld’s Abiskojokk River. Slightly nervous I clamber up the bank to continue on more solid ground. However, soon enough I am forced to cross the river. The swing bridge seems too much effort, requiring me to take the skis off, and anyway there a plenty of other tracks across the ice....she’ll be alright!
After lunch, my next task, I have to cross a frozen lake and the sign, “crossing ice at own risk” doesn’t do much to increase my confidence, but there is no other way and soon I start to relax and enjoy the smooth, flat surface which offers fast travel. The swishing sound of the skis is all I can hear and it is mesmerising. Much too soon I reach the hut, Abiskojaure. It is cute and cosy in a typical Scandinavian way. It has a well equipped kitchen and even a little shop where I can buy crisp bread and Daim, a Swedish chocolate caramel that will be my substitute for Easter eggs.
The next day is slightly longer with 20 km and I enjoy every bit of it. The weather is fantastic, the snow crisp. After the undulating terrain of the previous day, I am now climbing up into the mountains. I am alone on the track, but it is a comforting to know that there are people behind me. However, since we are all moving in the same direction the only people I meet all day are some mushers with the dog sledges and a lone woman who is travelling with a dog and a pulka. She has been skiing by herself for the last 6 weeks; we chat and take pictures of each other, both of us tired of fiddling around with the self timer on our cameras. When I reach the hut Alesjaure in the afternoon I am welcomed by a very motherly hut warden. She tells me that at 6pm there is women sauna. I am keen to experience a real Swedish sauna and wander down to the little wooden hut. I was told to fetch two buckets of water and chop some wood. The water from the river is collected through a big hole hacked into the ice. One of my buckets is used after the sauna to cool down; the other is poured into a big metal tank where it is heated by the fire to provide hot water for showers. Around 10 women pile into the sauna and we crank up the heat by throwing more and more logs onto the fire. Needless to say that everybody is naked in a real Swedish sauna. The bravest of us race out and roll in the snow. It is awesome to feel the skin prickling from the fast change of temperature.
The next day is overcast. The clouds hang low and I can’t see the mountains. The track is climbing up to a pass and the way down is supposed to be very nice. I don’t want to miss the view and soon after lunch after covering only 13 km I call into the next hut Tjäktja. This is the great thing of travelling by yourself, you can stop whenever you want. I spend the afternoon chopping wood, fetching water and reading. In the evening a group of Swedish students sits together and prepares some Irish coffee and I am very jealous, of their drinks, because I am on limited rations, but also of their friendship. Every now and again it is not so great to be travelling by yourself.
It hasn’t cleared next morning, but by 10 am I set off, bored with waiting any longer. I can see only 2 crosses far and ski into the murk. Soon I make out a dark figure in front of me. We meet at the pass at 1150 m. I know his face from the previous two nights. In broken English he tells me that he is 70 years old and has a daughter my age. His skinny racing skis gave him some trouble on the way up, but my skis seem to be perfect for the conditions.
The longest and steeped descent of the trip lies now in front of me. I make it down without fall, but probably wouldn’t have earned any points for elegance. As soon as I am down from the pass it starts to clear and it becomes one of the hottest days of the trip. At lunchtime I am down to a single layer of ice breaker. The landscape is amazing, hill after snow covered hill. I arrive early at Sälka hut and after dumping my pack and claiming a bed for the night I set off for a trip into a side valley towards Nallo. The sky is blue, only sometimes low clouds roll in and reduce visibility, but I follow some skidoo tracks and feel like on rails. High mountains to the right and left make for fantastic views. I stay long enough to see the light turn golden with the approaching evening. The temperature drops and the snow becomes ice. This makes for an exhilarating ride back down to the hut. When I arrive I have the widest grin on my face, it has been such fantastic day. This is only topped by yet another visit to the sauna. Warmed up thoroughly I decide to have dinner outside, caviar on crisp bread and a celebratory beer while watching the evening colours. You could think that this should be enough for one day but the light is so nice, the evening so beautiful that I don the skis again for a ski up the hill. This is magic. The moon comes up, the sky is still pink from the setting sun and I am alone in the whole wide world. At least that is how it feels. When the cold crawls through my down jacket I head back and into my sleeping bag. When I wake up at 2am in the morning I get up to have a look at the stars. After my eyes get accustomed to the dark, I see a faint green glow on the northern horizon; the glow gets brighter, aurora borealis, the northern lights. I watch in awe as they dance from one mountain top to the other. There couldn’t have been any better end to this day.
Next morning I team up with my bunk neighbour, a German guy, to find a way cross country to Sweden’s highest mountain Kebnekaise 1104 m. Unfortunately it is totally clacked in. The German is crazy and after stumbling around in the mist for some time I leave him to it and return to the track. After a hot soup at the next hut, Singi, the clouds have lifted and I go exploring. The hut warden told me that it is possible to ski around a mountain which is called Big Heart, Unna Jierttáš. I take my little heart into my hands and ski up into the mountains. Unfortunately I have to retreat the same way when the wind gets up and the snow starts blowing. The evening in the hut is the nicest of the whole trip. We are a small group, Singi is bypassed by most skiers, and I know now some faces by now. The old Swedish guy who has been in every hut each night, the middle aged couple that I met in Sälka, a photography student from Upsalla and a group of 4 friends, unusual with snowboards and ski mountaineering gear. We chat and laugh in the warm glow of companionship and candle light and when I am invited to sample the smoked salmon of the snow boarders I can’t imagine that heaven could be any better.
The most spectacular mountain scenery is supposed to be the stretch tomorrow, but I don’t see anything. The weather is foul, snow is blowing at the pass and visibility is zero. The worst weather of the trip! I am grumpy and only the long and gentle downhill from the pass lets me forget my disappointment. And then I run out of snow. Wind and melt have removed all snow and I have to take off the skis and carry them for 10 minutes. Soon I reach Kebnekaise Fjellstation, a luxury accommodation with showers, restaurant, library, sauna and shop. I watch the sunset out of the sauna. Later in the restaurant I run into two Aussies that I met in another hut and we spent the evening in front of the fire, drinking beer and swapping antipodean tales.
I had planned 8 days for the trip, 7 for skiing and one bad weather day, but the weather was never bad enough to keep me in the hut. I have a day spare now and use it to ski up a valley to Tarfala. Another glorious day. The mountains here are higher and steeper, attracting some ski mountaineers. However, for me the huge glacier overhanging the frozen Darfaljavri lake is the highlight. I ski across the lake till I am as close to the glacier as I can, blue ice, crevasses, tons of it. The ideal spot for a small research station to study Swedish glaciers. Over lunch I chat with the station leader. What an awesome place to work!
On the last day I get up early since my bus will be leaving Nikkaluokta at 2pm and I have 19km to ski. I am rewarded with a beautiful sunrise and two reindeers that dig through the snow for last year’s berries. I pass frozen waterfalls with meter long icicles. The track runs close to the wide and braided river and I need to cross flooded and refrozen swamps, terrible skiing. Soon I lose my way on the blank ice. Once away from the river skiing becomes fun again and I savour the last kilometres amazed how much more confident I am now than I was 8 days ago. I reach the village of Nikkaluokta far too early and enjoy another caviar-on-crisp bread lunch in the sun before the bus takes me back to Kiruna.
Before I fly back to Stockholm the next day I visit the famous ice hotel in Jarusjarvi. The hotel is build entirely from ice. Each year ice artists design individual ice suits, corridors and chandeliers from ice. One room for example is themed Adam and Eve and has an ice snake and apple adorning the wall, another has a space rocket and life sized astronaut in it. I am fascinated by the “reception” with pillars of ice shimmering in an unearthly blue. Big reindeer skins lie on beds of ice. Causally I stroll to the ice bar and toast with a glass of ice to a truly amazing trip.
Close to midnight one evening in late April. It was snowing during the day but the sky is now clear and to the South, where the last memory of winter darkness hangs on in spring-blue gloom, a few stars have broken through. I am skiing over the ice along Abiskojokk River. The silence broken only by the whisper of new snow against my skis. The evening star flickers above the Pallemvagge gateway like a drop of thawed snow. And in there where it points, lie mile after mile of highlands, still bound by winter but awakening to a new summer adventure. (Dag Hammarskjoeld)
Dag Hammarskjoeld, a Swedish diplomat and author, managed to put into words what I felt when I skied the Kungsleden over Easter in April last year. The Kungsleden, in English King's Trail, is a hiking trail in the far North of Sweden, 440 km long, passing through one of Europe's largest remaining wilderness areas. I was in Europe for a conference and it it seemed like a good idea to add a bit of adventure. I decided to ski the northern part of the King’s Trail from Abisko to Nikkaolukta, all together a bit more than 120 km. Briefly I thought about joining a guided trip, but was soon convinced that I could do it by myself. The King’s Trail is after all the equivalent of our Milford Track, well marked and quite populated – at least in summer.
When I flew to Stockholm I saw a landscape covered in snow. The low sun reflected on thousands of frozen lakes. The next flight took me even further north to Kiruna, more snow and colder temperatures. A train ride and finally - Abisko Touriststation, 195 km north of the Arctic Circle.
When I get off the train I have the funny sensation that my nostrils freeze together, it is -20ºC. At the hostel I rent a pair of cross country skis, long and skinny with steel edges and a binding that holds a leather boot via a metal bar at the toe. The heel can move freely, scales under the middle part of the skis help when climbing uphill.
Early next morning I glide through a winter wonderland. The low sun transforms each snow crystal into a glittering diamond. Short birch trees, dark without any leaves, cover the gentle rolling hills. The northern part of the Kungsleden leads through Swedish Lappland. It is well marked with red crosses and dotted with cosy mountain huts only a day’s walk apart. I use my first day on the trail to get used to my skis and skiing with a jam-packed backpack. I carry full winter gear, a bivy bag, mattress and a shovel in case of an emergency. I follow some ski tracks till a gurgling sound under food makes me realize that I am skiing on a frozen river, Dag Hammarskjoeld’s Abiskojokk River. Slightly nervous I clamber up the bank to continue on more solid ground. However, soon enough I am forced to cross the river. The swing bridge seems too much effort, requiring me to take the skis off, and anyway there a plenty of other tracks across the ice....she’ll be alright!
After lunch, my next task, I have to cross a frozen lake and the sign, “crossing ice at own risk” doesn’t do much to increase my confidence, but there is no other way and soon I start to relax and enjoy the smooth, flat surface which offers fast travel. The swishing sound of the skis is all I can hear and it is mesmerising. Much too soon I reach the hut, Abiskojaure. It is cute and cosy in a typical Scandinavian way. It has a well equipped kitchen and even a little shop where I can buy crisp bread and Daim, a Swedish chocolate caramel that will be my substitute for Easter eggs.
The next day is slightly longer with 20 km and I enjoy every bit of it. The weather is fantastic, the snow crisp. After the undulating terrain of the previous day, I am now climbing up into the mountains. I am alone on the track, but it is a comforting to know that there are people behind me. However, since we are all moving in the same direction the only people I meet all day are some mushers with the dog sledges and a lone woman who is travelling with a dog and a pulka. She has been skiing by herself for the last 6 weeks; we chat and take pictures of each other, both of us tired of fiddling around with the self timer on our cameras. When I reach the hut Alesjaure in the afternoon I am welcomed by a very motherly hut warden. She tells me that at 6pm there is women sauna. I am keen to experience a real Swedish sauna and wander down to the little wooden hut. I was told to fetch two buckets of water and chop some wood. The water from the river is collected through a big hole hacked into the ice. One of my buckets is used after the sauna to cool down; the other is poured into a big metal tank where it is heated by the fire to provide hot water for showers. Around 10 women pile into the sauna and we crank up the heat by throwing more and more logs onto the fire. Needless to say that everybody is naked in a real Swedish sauna. The bravest of us race out and roll in the snow. It is awesome to feel the skin prickling from the fast change of temperature.
The next day is overcast. The clouds hang low and I can’t see the mountains. The track is climbing up to a pass and the way down is supposed to be very nice. I don’t want to miss the view and soon after lunch after covering only 13 km I call into the next hut Tjäktja. This is the great thing of travelling by yourself, you can stop whenever you want. I spend the afternoon chopping wood, fetching water and reading. In the evening a group of Swedish students sits together and prepares some Irish coffee and I am very jealous, of their drinks, because I am on limited rations, but also of their friendship. Every now and again it is not so great to be travelling by yourself.
It hasn’t cleared next morning, but by 10 am I set off, bored with waiting any longer. I can see only 2 crosses far and ski into the murk. Soon I make out a dark figure in front of me. We meet at the pass at 1150 m. I know his face from the previous two nights. In broken English he tells me that he is 70 years old and has a daughter my age. His skinny racing skis gave him some trouble on the way up, but my skis seem to be perfect for the conditions.
The longest and steeped descent of the trip lies now in front of me. I make it down without fall, but probably wouldn’t have earned any points for elegance. As soon as I am down from the pass it starts to clear and it becomes one of the hottest days of the trip. At lunchtime I am down to a single layer of ice breaker. The landscape is amazing, hill after snow covered hill. I arrive early at Sälka hut and after dumping my pack and claiming a bed for the night I set off for a trip into a side valley towards Nallo. The sky is blue, only sometimes low clouds roll in and reduce visibility, but I follow some skidoo tracks and feel like on rails. High mountains to the right and left make for fantastic views. I stay long enough to see the light turn golden with the approaching evening. The temperature drops and the snow becomes ice. This makes for an exhilarating ride back down to the hut. When I arrive I have the widest grin on my face, it has been such fantastic day. This is only topped by yet another visit to the sauna. Warmed up thoroughly I decide to have dinner outside, caviar on crisp bread and a celebratory beer while watching the evening colours. You could think that this should be enough for one day but the light is so nice, the evening so beautiful that I don the skis again for a ski up the hill. This is magic. The moon comes up, the sky is still pink from the setting sun and I am alone in the whole wide world. At least that is how it feels. When the cold crawls through my down jacket I head back and into my sleeping bag. When I wake up at 2am in the morning I get up to have a look at the stars. After my eyes get accustomed to the dark, I see a faint green glow on the northern horizon; the glow gets brighter, aurora borealis, the northern lights. I watch in awe as they dance from one mountain top to the other. There couldn’t have been any better end to this day.
Next morning I team up with my bunk neighbour, a German guy, to find a way cross country to Sweden’s highest mountain Kebnekaise 1104 m. Unfortunately it is totally clacked in. The German is crazy and after stumbling around in the mist for some time I leave him to it and return to the track. After a hot soup at the next hut, Singi, the clouds have lifted and I go exploring. The hut warden told me that it is possible to ski around a mountain which is called Big Heart, Unna Jierttáš. I take my little heart into my hands and ski up into the mountains. Unfortunately I have to retreat the same way when the wind gets up and the snow starts blowing. The evening in the hut is the nicest of the whole trip. We are a small group, Singi is bypassed by most skiers, and I know now some faces by now. The old Swedish guy who has been in every hut each night, the middle aged couple that I met in Sälka, a photography student from Upsalla and a group of 4 friends, unusual with snowboards and ski mountaineering gear. We chat and laugh in the warm glow of companionship and candle light and when I am invited to sample the smoked salmon of the snow boarders I can’t imagine that heaven could be any better.
The most spectacular mountain scenery is supposed to be the stretch tomorrow, but I don’t see anything. The weather is foul, snow is blowing at the pass and visibility is zero. The worst weather of the trip! I am grumpy and only the long and gentle downhill from the pass lets me forget my disappointment. And then I run out of snow. Wind and melt have removed all snow and I have to take off the skis and carry them for 10 minutes. Soon I reach Kebnekaise Fjellstation, a luxury accommodation with showers, restaurant, library, sauna and shop. I watch the sunset out of the sauna. Later in the restaurant I run into two Aussies that I met in another hut and we spent the evening in front of the fire, drinking beer and swapping antipodean tales.
I had planned 8 days for the trip, 7 for skiing and one bad weather day, but the weather was never bad enough to keep me in the hut. I have a day spare now and use it to ski up a valley to Tarfala. Another glorious day. The mountains here are higher and steeper, attracting some ski mountaineers. However, for me the huge glacier overhanging the frozen Darfaljavri lake is the highlight. I ski across the lake till I am as close to the glacier as I can, blue ice, crevasses, tons of it. The ideal spot for a small research station to study Swedish glaciers. Over lunch I chat with the station leader. What an awesome place to work!
On the last day I get up early since my bus will be leaving Nikkaluokta at 2pm and I have 19km to ski. I am rewarded with a beautiful sunrise and two reindeers that dig through the snow for last year’s berries. I pass frozen waterfalls with meter long icicles. The track runs close to the wide and braided river and I need to cross flooded and refrozen swamps, terrible skiing. Soon I lose my way on the blank ice. Once away from the river skiing becomes fun again and I savour the last kilometres amazed how much more confident I am now than I was 8 days ago. I reach the village of Nikkaluokta far too early and enjoy another caviar-on-crisp bread lunch in the sun before the bus takes me back to Kiruna.
Before I fly back to Stockholm the next day I visit the famous ice hotel in Jarusjarvi. The hotel is build entirely from ice. Each year ice artists design individual ice suits, corridors and chandeliers from ice. One room for example is themed Adam and Eve and has an ice snake and apple adorning the wall, another has a space rocket and life sized astronaut in it. I am fascinated by the “reception” with pillars of ice shimmering in an unearthly blue. Big reindeer skins lie on beds of ice. Causally I stroll to the ice bar and toast with a glass of ice to a truly amazing trip.
Kommentar