MONDAY, JULY 05, 2021
Celebrating Midsummer in a Kayak in the Archipelago
Celebrating Midsummer in a Kayak in the Archipelago
Because we usually paddle out to the outer edge of the archipelago, we had originally had thoughts of paddling in the middle this year. But that kayak rental place required a ferry trip, and between the high holiday and Corona, we were expecting crazy lines to get onto the boat. To avoid the crowds and the stress of maybe not getting to board the ferry and missing out on our weekend of paddling, we decided to rent from a place that you can get to by bus. There are a few to choose from, almost all of which we have used before. This time we chose to rent and start from Dalarö, in the southern part of the archipelago.
We picked up the kayak on Thursday morning and paddled 20 kilometers more-or-less straight out into the outer archipelago.
After
about 90 minutes of paddling, we stopped for lunch, and then another
hour after that, we stopped for fika on a beautiful island before the
last big open crossing.
After another hour, we were at the edge of the world, on the last island before open water and in the Biskopsö Nature Reserve.
The kayak-rental guy had given us a recommendation for a tentsite out on the island of Finnskär. We didn’t find his site, but we found one nearby. Because the wind was almost non-existent, we could camp extremely close to the water without fearing that the tent would get wet from waves. We have camped close to the water before, but never this close on such an exposed and potentially wave-crashing point.
The kayak-rental guy had given us a recommendation for a tentsite out on the island of Finnskär. We didn’t find his site, but we found one nearby. Because the wind was almost non-existent, we could camp extremely close to the water without fearing that the tent would get wet from waves. We have camped close to the water before, but never this close on such an exposed and potentially wave-crashing point.
The lack of wind meant that the mosquitoes could have been terrible, but while there were hordes buzzing around, they were not aggressive in the least and mostly stayed away from us. We did get a couple of bites but it could have been so much worse—we could have ended up covered in bites and forced to hang out in the tent to hide from the swarms. It felt so luxurious to still be able to hang out on the rocks despite the lack of wind!
We spent the evening eating, sipping wine, chatting, reading, and gazing at the horizon. We kept looking for seals in the binoculars, but no luck. Being midsummer, we eventually had to just force ourselves into bed, despite it still being light outside.
The next morning, we decided to make things a bit easier and more relaxed than usual, and to just leave our tent where it was for the day. On most trips we’re eager to explore as much territory as possible, but this time, probably due to the crazy work schedules that both Carl and I had been keeping, we just weren’t filled with energy.
While we were packing up the kayak with provisions for a little day jaunt, it started to rain. Not having much of an agenda and no need to cover a lot of distance, we decided to wait out the rain in the tent. We read, and just as I was starting to snooze, the rain stopped. We got into the kayak and paddled a short distance to the next island and had lunch.
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| I'm a sucker for inner lagoons! |
We stopped on another island for a long fika break, and Carl painted while I read and snoozed in the sun. So, so relaxing with the bees buzzing in the flowers beside me. The Midsummer flowers were in full effect, and it seemed like each island had its one or two prevalent species. I’m always fascinated by how many flowers can bloom out of one tight crack in the rock. They form colorful bouquets in an otherwise relatively stark landscape.
Back at our tentsite, we enjoyed another slow, relaxing evening on our rock, gazing out at the sea.
We awoke on Saturday to a beautiful, sunny, hot day. We wound through a couple of nature reserves before stopping on one of the Björkskärskobbarna for lunch. There was thunder rumbling and a big thunderhead in the distance but headed our way, so we ended up moving to the next island over where there was more forest cover and where we wouldn’t be quite so exposed. But as we sat on a rock shelf overlooking the water and the storm and eating our lunch, the storm more or less melted away. By the time we were done with our lunch, the clouds had dissipated and the sun was shining hotly.
Once
again, we decided to take it easy. We set up our tent on our lunch
island and spent a long, luxurious afternoon swimming, lazing in the
sun, snoozing, reading, and painting.
The
afternoon wore into the evening and we continued our leisurely
activities, but with the addition of wine. It was the most relaxed I’ve
been for a long, long time, and I could have stayed there and continued
being lazy for at least a week! After a long and late and orange
sunset,
On Sunday, we awoke to more sun. We weren’t in a huge hurry, but it didn’t take us too long to eat breakfast, take down the tent, and pack our belongings into the kayak. We continued winding our way back toward Dalarö.
It didn’t end up raining that much really, and once the thunder seemed to dissipate, we got back into the kayak and made our way to the point. We lazed in the hammock for an hour, but it wasn’t the relaxed afternoon we had been imagining, partly because thunderstorms kept rolling through and we were nervous about getting a break in the storms in order to paddle across the open water back to Dalarö, and partly because we didn’t have more than an hour to laze about by that time. Luckily, the storms stopped just before our deadline to paddle back to town, and it was even sunny by the time we got back to the kayak rental.
After turning in our kayak, we treated ourselves to a harbor-side ice cream before catching the extremely hot bus back to the city.
It has been a gorgeous June here—sunny and warm, truly summer. However, with my work stress and schedule, I hadn’t really been able to pause and enjoy it. Even on this long weekend paddle trip, I wasn’t able to completely let go of work—I would have needed more time off for that. But even so, it was an excellent and much needed break from sitting in front of the computer and actively stressing about my project. And, it was wonderful to actually get to experience and enjoy a bit of summer before it’s too late!
SUNDAY, JULY 04, 2021
Christ's Heavenward Journey Day on Gotland
WHAT a month it has been! Too much work, not enough leisure time. Which partly explains the delay on this post.
The direct translation of the Swedish name for Ascension Day is “Christ’s Heavenward Journey Day.” We had a four day weekend for the holiday and spent it on Gotland with Carl’s parents. It was our first visit since last August and it was great to finally get to spend time with them and d spend time on their lovely island. By the time we booked the trip, the ferry, which is running on half capacity due to Corona, was fully booked. So instead, we flew over the Baltic. It was the first day that the local airline was back in business after the long Corona pause and in celebration, they were giving away two free plane tickets. One of the ticket vouchers was in the seat pocket in front of me—I won!
The direct translation of the Swedish name for Ascension Day is “Christ’s Heavenward Journey Day.” We had a four day weekend for the holiday and spent it on Gotland with Carl’s parents. It was our first visit since last August and it was great to finally get to spend time with them and d spend time on their lovely island. By the time we booked the trip, the ferry, which is running on half capacity due to Corona, was fully booked. So instead, we flew over the Baltic. It was the first day that the local airline was back in business after the long Corona pause and in celebration, they were giving away two free plane tickets. One of the ticket vouchers was in the seat pocket in front of me—I won!
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| Ascension
Day falls at the height of spring. Spring orchids covered the open
fields and wood anenomes covered the woodsy ground. |
As always, our itinerary was tempted by the variety of Gotland offerings—should we concentrate on nature reserves this time? Or historical sites? Or prehistoric sites? On medieval churches? Or the medieval city of Visby?—there’s always too many exciting options, and we never have time to see it all. But we did see quite a lot. Without really planning it, this trip ended up having a theme of medieval sites way out in the countryside.
Of course we stopped at a few medieval churches that have been on our list for a while: Bunge Kyrka with its ruin of a medieval rectory from the 1300’s and its bobble head Last Supper,
Sundre Kyrka with its medieval defensive tower from the 1100’s,
and Bro Kyrka with the ancient picture stone built into its nave
and its medieval gate that once led to the vicarage.
As always I am astounded at Gotland’s wealth of medieval churches, flung about the countryside like salt.
Outside of the town of Visby, most of Gotland’s remaining medieval building stock is churches, but there are a few other remnants out on the farms in the countryside. We stopped at Lauk’s farm to see its storage building from the 1300’s,
Outside of the town of Visby, most of Gotland’s remaining medieval building stock is churches, but there are a few other remnants out on the farms in the countryside. We stopped at Lauk’s farm to see its storage building from the 1300’s,
While not medieval, we did spend a day at the Bunge Museum which is a Gotland-based version of the open air museum Skansen. I of course was in hog-heaven examining the buildings from the 1600’s,
the 1700’s,
and the 1800’s.
My favorite was this poor-man’s farm from the 1700’s:
On
one of the days, Carl and I borrowed a car and took a little road trip
on our own. We drove down to the southernmost part of the island, a
journey of almost two hours each direction.
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| stone walls on the southern end of the island |
On the way back north we stopped at a site called Hundlausar. Here, a series of windmills took advantage of a very slight ridge through the landscape. It turns out that the ridge isn’t natural, but is actually a series of even older grave mounds. The landscape here is a bit forlorn and forsaken, and it’s not hard to imagine scenes from Outlander taking place here.
As usual, this visit also had a gourmet theme. Carl’s mom cooked an incredible meal every evening, especially for Carl’s dad’s 75th birthday when we enjoyed the last of the deer that they had bought last fall. It was wonderful to get to celebrate with him in person, and to visit his parents after such a long Corona gap. Thank you for a great long weekend!
WEDNESDAY, MAY 12, 2021
Weekend in Malmö
We
haven’t been travelling much for social occasions of course, but this
last weekend we visited our friends Susanna and Johannes and our
godchildren Agnes and Henning in Malmö in southern Sweden for the first
time in forever. It was a lovely weekend—it was so much fun to see our
friends and their new row house and we got to see a couple of
interesting sites, but it was also a relaxed weekend with plenty of time
spent hanging out in their sunny backyard. We got totally lucky with
relatively warm, sunny weather the entire weekend which made everything a
just a bit extra wonderful.
Saturday started with a bike ride through central Malmö on the city’s incredible network of bike paths which link up green space after green space after green space. It helps that the city is so flat, but planners have created an ideal city for biking. We picked up New York style bagels from an American baker (bagels are the only American food that I can’t get in Stockholm) and stopped to let the kiddos play at a very original playground before heading back to enjoy the fresh bagels. Yum, what a treat!
We then spent the afternoon at the ancient stone ship setting Ales Stenar which has been on Carl and my Sweden to-see map for ages. Sweden is covered in similar stone ships, but Ales Stenar is the largest remaining one and its dramatic and beautiful setting atop a cliff at the sea’s edge makes the site especially enticing. (Most archeological sites in Sweden don’t get enough visitors to warrant more than a widening in the road to serve as parking, but this site has a huge parking lot and a toilet and even a camping ground!) Sweden’s stone ships range from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age, but the age of Ales Stenar’s is unknown—a recent archeological dig turned up nothing datable, although archeologists think that it was probably erected around 600 A.D. However, the stones seem to be reused and were probably plundered from Stone Age dolmen tombs. It is no surprise that this dramatic clifftop has been a meaningful site for millennia.
Saturday started with a bike ride through central Malmö on the city’s incredible network of bike paths which link up green space after green space after green space. It helps that the city is so flat, but planners have created an ideal city for biking. We picked up New York style bagels from an American baker (bagels are the only American food that I can’t get in Stockholm) and stopped to let the kiddos play at a very original playground before heading back to enjoy the fresh bagels. Yum, what a treat!
We then spent the afternoon at the ancient stone ship setting Ales Stenar which has been on Carl and my Sweden to-see map for ages. Sweden is covered in similar stone ships, but Ales Stenar is the largest remaining one and its dramatic and beautiful setting atop a cliff at the sea’s edge makes the site especially enticing. (Most archeological sites in Sweden don’t get enough visitors to warrant more than a widening in the road to serve as parking, but this site has a huge parking lot and a toilet and even a camping ground!) Sweden’s stone ships range from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age, but the age of Ales Stenar’s is unknown—a recent archeological dig turned up nothing datable, although archeologists think that it was probably erected around 600 A.D. However, the stones seem to be reused and were probably plundered from Stone Age dolmen tombs. It is no surprise that this dramatic clifftop has been a meaningful site for millennia.
The ship is 45 degrees off of a north-south east-west orientation, which means that the sunset and sunrise on the solstices and equinoxes light up and shade a certain number of stones. The stones were clearly some sort of solar calendar, but the meaning of the rotation is unknown. We spent an afternoon wandering among the stones, teaching six year old Agnes how to do cartwheels, and blowing and chasing bubbles. Magical!
Afterward, we stopped at a too-cute-to-be-true farm cafe for fika and sat in the lovely courtyard enjoying good conversation, extravagant cakes, and the sun. The Skåne region of Sweden is chock-full of different types of historical sites and small scale, gourmet restaurants. The region has been on our list ever since we moved to Sweden, and after the daytrip to Ales Stenar and the farm café, I’m re-inspired to explore the countryside of Skåne more thoroughly.
We spent Sunday morning on the west coast of Skåne just outside of the city at a nature reserve known for its birdlife. We didn’t get a particularly early start so I wasn’t expecting too much in the way of birds, so it was a pleasant surprise to see lots of birds and a large number of different species. I’m not a huge birder but I do enjoy looking at birds when we do go out with binoculars, whereas our friend Johannes is a keen birder. He saw a new-to-him species and got so excited. The whole experience was worth it just to share in his excitement.
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| View of the bridge to Denmark from the nature reserve |
Sunday afternoon was spent lazing in the garden in the sun. So relaxing, and so nice to just hang out and catch up with our friends! Such a luxury to be social these days! All too soon it was time to catch the train and head back home to Stockholm. We usually travel to and from Malmö on the high-speed train, but on the way home, we took Snälltåget or “The Nice Train.” It’s a bit but not too much slower, but it can be significantly cheaper and the biggest draw is that it has a real, old fashioned dining car where you make a reservation and sit down to a waiter-served hot meal with wine. The windows in the dining car are huge and you have a wide, clear view on both sides of the train. We were treated with a huge and very brightly colored double rainbow during dinner! Dinner in the dining car was a romantic, lovely end to a great weekend. Thank you Susanna and Johannes and kiddos for such a good weekend!
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| Malmö train station |
MONDAY, MAY 03, 2021
Ski Touring, with our tent, in the Ammarfjället and Vindelfjällen Mountains
We
survived an extreme uphill beginning (the trail literally went up the
side of a ski slope), tremendously heavy backpacks (25 kg or 55 lbs
each), wet boots and socks, days with screaming wind and days with heavy
snowfall, going 11 days without a shower, making our own tracks in the
deep snow for days on end, and two-inch wide blisters. The beginning of
the trip was pretty darn strenuous. But we survived, and we kept
going, and we felt pretty darn tough by the end of the trip. We didn’t
just have tough days. A few of the days were glorious with warm sun and
no wind and magical views and perfect, powdery snow on perfectly-sloped
mountainsides for practicing our telemark turns. One night we saw the
Aurora Borealis and the universe topped off the light show with a
shooting star. We spent one afternoon lounging in the sun reading, and
the same sunny afternoon resulted in joyously dry boots and socks. And
we were jubilant to have successfully completed a ten night trip in our
winter tent without having to resort to checking into a mountain cabin
to dry things out.
Our trip started with the night train and then three perfectly timed buses which got us to the village at Ammarnäs at lunch.
Our trip started with the night train and then three perfectly timed buses which got us to the village at Ammarnäs at lunch.
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| Left:
The Stockholm train station features National Romantic paintings of
some of the train destinations. This idealized Lappland landscape was
actually not so far from what we experiencesd on the better days of our
trip. Right: Approaching our stop in Umeå - snow!! |
This
was the same starting point for our hike last fall, but instead of
directly heading south, this time, we started by heading north on the
Kungsleden (King’s Trail). (To read about our fall hike, read
"Backpacking Kungsleden's Southernmost Stage from Ammarnäs to Hemavan in
the Vindelfjällen Mountains" below)
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| Walking up the side of Ammarnäs's ski hill and the view from the top down to the lake Gautsträsk. |
Yes, so the trip started out tough, as the Kungsleden literally started by going up the side of a red downhill ski slope. Parts were so steep that we had to zig-zag across the slope, doing kick-turns to change direction. There was still a good bit of uphill from there, but the slopes were a bit more manageable. We only managed about 7 kilometers that first day and camped right before the trail went above treeline.
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| Putting on skins at thte bottom of the ski hill, scenery once we finally made it to the top of the lift |
Day 2 was incredibly windy and very cold. It was partly sunny, though, so there were good views across to the Ammarfjäll massif. The day started by climbing above treeline and then the trail proceeded to roller-coaster up and down, meaning that we had to stop to put our skins on and off multiple times. Stopping for skins once or twice isn’t that big of a deal, but it’s pretty time consuming when you have to do it repeatedly. The steady squall of wind was directly in our faces and made the going tough. Even downhills felt like uphills because the wind was pushing back on us. On a calm day, the trail would have been fairly easy, but the constant wind made the day both mentally and physically tough.
We ate lunch in a well-placed wind shelter before heading back into the squall. Our original plan had been to cross the Ammarfjäll massif off-trail, and we spent most of the afternoon hemming and hawing as we skied toward the final decision point. The forecast hadn’t been very promising and it looked like it was going to continue being windy over the next couple of days, and it was supposed to get cloudier and snow. Due to the wind and the forecasted lack of visibility, we finally made the hard decision to stay on trail and to go around the massif instead of crossing it.
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| Left: The mountains we didn't cross. Right: Heading down instead, following the trail. |
It was a little bit heartbreaking to have to change our plans and to take the more “boring” route down in the valley, but I do think it was the right decision as the next couple of days did prove to be quite stormy. From the decision point ridge, the trail descended quite a long ways into the forest and down to the Vindelälven river valley. We camped in the trees not long after the bridge across the river.
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| Thankful for a bridge to get over the partially open rapids on the Vindelälven river. |
Day 3 started out relatively ok and we followed the snow scooter tracks out onto the frozen river. After a slow start, it felt great to get some relatively easy mileage under our belt. But the weather worsened throughout the day and by our mid-morning snack, it was too windy to be out on the ice and we had to seek the shelter of the forest. We could hear the wind howling in the peaks above us, and we were so, so thankful that we weren’t up there skiing through and battling the storm. In the forest, no scooters or previous skiers had packed the snow for us, and we had to make our own tracks through the powder. By day 3, both of the balls of my feet were covered in one giant blister (due to my boots being too big), and every step was agony.
The
temperatures were also hovering around freezing making the snow stick
to the underside of our skis. We had to stop repeatedly to remove
clumps of snow and ice from our skis. It was tough going.
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| Left: on the ice on the Vindelälven river. Right: following the trail on land, heading up into the foothills above the river. |
Again, we found a relatively sheltered spot in the birch forest to camp and Carl dug us quite the cooking pit so that we could be out of the wind while cooking. Melting and boiling water is a very time-consuming activity, especially when you’re exhausted and just want to get off your blistered feet, out of the wind, and into a warm sleeping bag. We spent 1-2 hours every evening and an hour every morning just melting and boiling water for our drinking and cooking needs.
 |
| Boiling
water (rubber dishwashing gloves were an excellent addition to our
winter packing list to keep our gloves dry while digging in the snow and
while pouring water into thermoses) and our wind-protected cooking pit. |
Setting up the tent in the winter is also a much more time consuming activity than in the summer when you just find a spot and pitch the tent. It’s actually easier to find a tent site in the winter, because you don’t have to find a perfectly flat spot—as long as it’s not tooo slopey, you can dig out the snow to make a flat platform. The first step to pitching a tent in the snow is to dig out a flat platform. Digging the tent down provides a lot of wind protection and it also gets the tent down onto a more packed snow layer. Even so, you usually have to pack the platform down by stomping around on your skis a few times. The actual pitching of the tent goes relatively quickly (though it can be tricky when it’s really windy) and the next step is to dig out the vestibule to make it easier to get in and out of the tent. The vestibule provides a handy place to dangle your feet down when taking your shoes on and off, and it provides more room under the cover for boots, stove and pot, backpacks, sopping socks, etc.
Building a wall around the tent for extra wind protection is the next step, although we did skip that step on the calmer days. Digging a cooking pit and surrounding it with an ice-block wall is the last bit of site construction before trampling a path through the snow away from the tent and toward a designated “bathroom” area—you definitely don’t want to be post-holing through the snow if you have to get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night! Finally, you bury your skis and your poles in the snow to ensure that they don’t blow away (an alternative is to use the skis and poles in lieu of stakes, but we’ve moved away from that system after one night when our skis and poles got totally iced into the snowpack—it took forever to chip them out and we risked damaging the skis with the shovel). Setting up the tent in the winter is at least an hour-long process.
Day 4 was also windy and snowy. But even so, we did have moments where the clouds lifted enough that we could see the mountains and cliffs edging the river valley. Even though we weren’t up in the mountains, we could still see and feel them around us. In the morning, the wind was less of a gale and we were able to “cheat” the trail by crossing a giant, wide-open, flat bog instead of following the trail which gently traversed over every lite foothill at the base of the mountains.
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| Crossing the wonderfully flat bog |
After lunch, we left the Vindelälven river valley and crossed a couple of low passes, unfortunately with more snow clumping under our skis making the going much tougher than it otherwise should have been. We were still cutting our own trail through the powder. The wind and snowfall picked up and we couldn’t find a sheltered spot for our tent. We ended up pitching it behind a couple of birch trees which provided a modicum of a wind break, but mostly we were out in the storm. But our winter tent was so sturdy that inside the tent, we hardly noticed the gale outside.
Day 5 was gorgeous and was one of the highlights of our trip. The sun started to peak out, giving us some views to the mountains ahead of us. All of the snow from the day before formed a foot-deep layer of powder, and the trail traversed gentle slopes that were just perfect for practicing our telemark turns. Instead of prioritizing mileage, we decided to prioritize telemark skiing that day, and we spent almost the entire morning walking up and sking down. We’ve taken one telemark course before, but it was 10 years ago and I have not telemarked since then. But with my new telemark ski-touring skis, I was actually able to do telemark turns! My form was probably not perfect but I am pretty proud of my turns.
From the perfect telemark slope, the trail continued to bob up and down, up and down through a birch forest with so perfectly spaced trees that both Carl and I came to independent conclusions that it felt like we were skiing through a birch orchard. The trail flattened out for a bit and crossed an open bog before continuing in its roller-coaster yo-yo.
After a sunny lunch, we stopped two more times to telemark down perfectly sloped hillsides. Walk up, ski down. Walk up, ski down. Repeat. Again. And again. And again. For hours. We had SO much fun. When it looked like a storm of snow was about to blow through in the late afternoon, we stopped and set up our tent at the edge of one of our telemark slopes.
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| Telemark tracks! Morning and afternoon sessions |
Day
6 was also very windy, but finally, we had made it around the mountain
massif so that the wind was at our backs! The morning’s skiing was
still tough with a continual roller-coaster up and down every little
bump in the valley, and the snow was deep and slow-going. Also, my
blisters were still so painful, but suddenly, with the wind behind us,
the skiing became so much easier. After skiing for 5 days with the wind
in our faces, I can’t describe the relief at having the wind helping us
along instead of hindering us.
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| Right: The trail went over every little bump. Left: heading out onto the lake. |
And
help us, it did. Toward the end of the day, we refilled our packs with
food at a mountain cabin. From there, we had only planned on skiing
about five more kilometers. But the trail was on the ice traversing a
long lake, and with the wind pushing us along, we were able to ski
another 10 kilometers without hardly noticing the effort. The wind was
strong, though: at one point it literally blew Carl over sideways! Once
back on land, we wandered a bit trying to find a bit of cover from the
wind and eventually found a little tree-covered ridge to set up our tent
behind.
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| The trail on the lake (flat!) and our somewhat wind-shaded tent |
Day 7 dawned beautifully sunny, but still quite windy. We had a short day ahead of us since we had skied so far the afternoon before and skied just 5 kilometers from the lake and valley up into the next mountain massif to the edge of treeline. We found another ridge which provided nearly complete wind-shade for our tent and for the sun bench that Carl built us in the snow. Despite the sun, the harsh wind made any attempt at telemarking downhill uninviting, so we spent a quiet, relaxing afternoon lounging in the sun, reading and enjoying the fantastic clear views out over the valley we had just crossed and to range upon range of mountains beyond, as well as up to the mountains we’d soon be traversing.
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| View from our sun bench, and tent with Day 9's pass in the background |
In the middle of the night, Carl went out to go to the bathroom and saw the Aurora Borealis. We both bundled up to watch the light show for a while. It wasn’t as vividly colorful as when we had seen the Northern Lights a few years back on a different ski-touring trip, but it was still distinctly Aurora Borealis amazingness. The Northern Lights had begun to fade a bit when a shooting star crossed the sky to be extinguished right at the edge of the light show. It was a truly magical moment.
Day
8 was also sunny with magical views, and while the wind hadn’t died
down entirely, it was calm enough to skin up the mountainside to try to
find some telemark skiing. It was soon evident, however, that the wind
had scoured the mountainside’s snow to hard ice—given our beginner
level, we wouldn’t be telemarking down much. So instead, we
concentrated on taking breaks.
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First, we skinned high up on the mountian’s shoulder for a fika break with incredible views into the next few glacial bowls.
Then
we skinned over to a lower peak jutting over the lake valley for
lunch. This particular peak was marked on the map as a prehistoric site
of significance, and we’re guessing that it was a sacrificial site.
The view out over the lake and it’s archipelago was magnificent, and we
saw that thin ribbons of the lake had started to open up from the ice.
 |
After skinning down from the peak, the slope leveled off enough that we could attempt some telemark turns. It was still too steep and icy for us, however; while we didn’t manage any beautiful telemark turns, we did perfect our snowplowing technique! Not as graceful as telemark but a good skill to have none-the-less. Once back at the tent, we spent the rest of the afternoon reading in the sun on our snow bench again.
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| Carl manages a telemark turn despite the ice and I perfect my snowplow technique |
Unfortunately, all views were obliterated by clouds on Day 9. We climbed up and over two passes and into the magical mountain-lined valley Syterskalet without seeing much of anything. We could see a number of trail crosses ahead, but it was impossible to discern the difference between sky and ground—everything was the exact same white.
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| Left: White white white. Rihgt: almost buried trail cross. |
The entire route was blessed with abundant snow, and never did we feel uncertain about crossing lakes or rivers on iffy ice. Many river crossings we never even noticed because they were so covered over in meters of snow, and any open rivers were crossed by bridges. Up in the Syterskalet valley, the abundance of snow was also apparent in that a number of the trail-marking crosses were completely or nearly completely buried. The county trail maintenance crew had added temporary markers on top of many but not all of the buried crosses.
We ate lunch in a wind shelter and then continued on into the valley where one section of trail crossed an avalanche-prone area. Most of Sweden’s winter trails completely avoid areas of avalanche risk, but this trail was apparently an exception. We were glad to get past the final warning sign marking the end of the risky area.
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| Left: the wind shelter where we stopped for lunch. Right: sign warning about the avalanche area that the trail crossed through. |
We set up camp about a kilometer before the trail’s last cabin before civilization and then skied over to the cabin to buy some food supplies before turning in for the night.
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| Tentsite for Day 9 and 10 |
We were so, so lucky that Day 10 dawned relatively sunny and not toooo windy. It was actually pretty windy, but not windy enough to keep us from spending the day practicing our telemark turns amidst the incredible scenery of the Syterskalet valley. Between our hike last fall and this ski-touring adventure, we have spent six days in the valley, and this was the only day with somewhat clear views of the surrounding majestic mountains. We spent almost as much time oohing and awing over the view as we did skiing.
We
filled a day pack with warm clothes and lunch and skinned up a ways
from the tent, dropped the pack, and then telemarked down. All of the
snowfall the day before left another foot of perfect, powdery snow to
ski through. Once again, we walked up, skied down, and repeated a
number of times before continuing farther into the side glacier valley.
We skinned up to a ridge and hoped for an epic telemark ski down, but
the slope turned out to be just a little too flat for all that powder
and we didn’t get a lot of turns out of it.
We walked over a bit to another slope that seemed a little bit steeper and had a scenic-view lunch in the sun (unfortunately also in the wind) before continuing up for what would turn out to be an epic telemark run back down to the river in the valley. This downhill run lived up to expectations and we repeated several times. It was a long run though, about a kilometer of walking up before a kilometer of skiing down, so we had to stop to head back to the tent after our third run. Being the end of our trip, we were extra sad to stop, but it was so lovely to end on a good note with an epic run and successful telemark turns.
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| For a little bit of scale, the arrow is pointing at our tent. The photo was taken from atop a relatively small hill. |
Day
11 was stormy again, so windy that lying in the tent that morning, we
weren’t even sure we’d be able to ski out to catch our bus. But after a
bathroom visit outside, we determined that the trek toward civilization
was going to be possible, if not fun. The wind was again blowing snow
directly into our faces, and our premonition that the journey wouldn’t
be all that fun turned out to be correct. But we still made good
progress, and eventually, we found ourselves at the edge of the Hemavan
ski resort.
We could have taken the gondola down, but we had plenty of time so we decided to follow the Kungsleden all the way down to the bottom. I had thought we’d need to skin down the ski slope in much the way that our trip had started by skinning up the ski slope, but the Kungsleden was actually pisted into a gentle cross-country track. The slope was just gentle enough that we were able to snowplow down it for several kilometers straight. It was a lot of snowplowing and those muscles were burning by the time we got down to the valley road, but we felt pretty tough when we found ourselves and our huge backpacks down at the bottom of the lift amongst all of the downhill skiers on their downhill skis.
We had time for a hamburger at the local diner before catching the bus. By the time we were on the bus, the clouds had broken up and the sun was bathing the winter landscape in diamond glitter. It was a gorgeous ride down toward the sea, and on the journey along the mountain-rimmed Umeälven river, the idea for another adventure began to hatch: would it be possible to kayak down the river and lake system and camp under those incredibly sheer cliffs?
All too soon we were on the night train heading back to Stockholm. While I’m now feeling pretty ready for warmer temperatures and summer skies, I am definitely longing for next year’s ski-touring adventure despite all of the hardships we experienced this year. Between the long duration of our trip, the windy conditions, the blisters, and the heavy backpacks, we feel like we can manage just about any situation on our touring skis and in our winter tent. Maybe next year we’ll have good enough weather to ski off-trail for a few days? That’s definitely the next step of our ski-touring progression.
We could have taken the gondola down, but we had plenty of time so we decided to follow the Kungsleden all the way down to the bottom. I had thought we’d need to skin down the ski slope in much the way that our trip had started by skinning up the ski slope, but the Kungsleden was actually pisted into a gentle cross-country track. The slope was just gentle enough that we were able to snowplow down it for several kilometers straight. It was a lot of snowplowing and those muscles were burning by the time we got down to the valley road, but we felt pretty tough when we found ourselves and our huge backpacks down at the bottom of the lift amongst all of the downhill skiers on their downhill skis.
We had time for a hamburger at the local diner before catching the bus. By the time we were on the bus, the clouds had broken up and the sun was bathing the winter landscape in diamond glitter. It was a gorgeous ride down toward the sea, and on the journey along the mountain-rimmed Umeälven river, the idea for another adventure began to hatch: would it be possible to kayak down the river and lake system and camp under those incredibly sheer cliffs?
All too soon we were on the night train heading back to Stockholm. While I’m now feeling pretty ready for warmer temperatures and summer skies, I am definitely longing for next year’s ski-touring adventure despite all of the hardships we experienced this year. Between the long duration of our trip, the windy conditions, the blisters, and the heavy backpacks, we feel like we can manage just about any situation on our touring skis and in our winter tent. Maybe next year we’ll have good enough weather to ski off-trail for a few days? That’s definitely the next step of our ski-touring progression.
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| My new touring skis are on the left and I love them! |
SATURDAY, APRIL 24, 2021
Uphill and Downhill Skiing 
Corona
being what it is, we didn’t book a ski trip to the French Alps this
year. It was the first time in eight years that we didn’t ski with UCPA
in those jaggedy mountains, but we managed to find a different
adventure instead, this time with friends that we met while skiing in
France with UCPA a few years back. Another friend, while skiing with us
all in France last year, had mentioned that the Swedish outdoors
organization STF has good courses for learning the basics of top-tour
skiing in the Swedish mountains. We’ve learned a lot of fundamental
information from UCPA in France, but the Swedish STF course would be a
bridge between that information and conditions in the Swedish mountains,
which, while not as high as the Alps, demand just as much respect and
carefulness due to the Arctic location and extremely windy weather. So
Ulrika, Patrik, Carl and I booked ourselves into a three-day course
based at the Storulvån Mountain Station in Jämtland, about halfway to
the northern tip of Sweden.
Getting to Storulvån turned out to be an adventure in itself. Patrik and Ulrika drove and the first six hours of the trip was super easy with temperatures decidedly above freezing, no precipitation, and very little traffic on the two-lane roads. We even stopped at a beautiful frozen waterfall along the Indalsälven River. It was getting back into the car at the falls that we saw that the Fjällstation or Mountain Station had tried to call several times—the road up was closed due to severe winds and snowfall. Luckily, we were able to make last-minute reservations at a very cute and inexpensive pension at the base of the road up to the Mountain Station as well as at the last restaurant before the “wilderness”. We had a relaxed dinner, enjoying meaty dishes and wine (well, no wine for Patrik who was driving the last stretch), before getting back into the car to drive the remaining 35 kilometers (22 miles) to our beds in Enafors.
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| Ristafallet and just downstream from the icy fall |
We probably wouldn’t have enjoyed such a relaxed dinner in Duved if we had known what the road would be like to Enafors. This was the main road between Sweden and Norway, the E14, but suddenly, we felt very, very exposed. It was so windy that the car was shuddering in the gusts. It was snowing so hard and the wind was blowing so much snow around that we couldn’t see more than a few feet ahead. There was so much snow on the road that we couldn’t see the road’s edges. We crept forward at about 20 kph or 15 mph, using the orange snow poles at the side of the road to navigate by. We could only see one snow pole at a time, and it was always a relief to finally see the next pole. Where the road crossed more open areas near a lake or bog, large drifts had taken over the road and we were all thankful for the Volvo’s all-wheel drive to get through the piles of snow. At one point, two reindeer leapt in front of the car. Patrik managed to skid to a stop just in time; the reindeer were frozen in place just a few inches from our front bumper. After the reindeer moved on, we crept forward until we finally reached the farm at Enafors where we’d stay the night.
 |
| Our little cabin in Enafors |
Given the conditions on the main highway, it was no wonder that the higher, more exposed mountain road up to the Mountain Station was closed to traffic. According to the weather service, the wind in the valley had reached hurricane strength over the night—it’s hard to imagine what the wind must have been like over treeline! But in the morning, we were greeted by sunshine, relatively calm winds, and an open, plowed road up to the mountain station. The drive up was just gorgeous, and we got quite the preview of the mountains that we’d spend the next three days skiing in.
It’s lucky that we had given ourselves so much extra time to get up to the Mountain Station—we left Stockholm on Saturday even though our course didn’t start till Monday. We arrived around lunch on Sunday and had the whole afternoon to hang out and chat and read and drink beer. A relaxing start to a strenuous adventure!
 |
| Storulvån Fjällstation or Mountain Station |
The weather on the first day of our course was relatively good—fairly windy but not gale force, some visibility and views. After an introduction, we put on our skins and started walking uphill. While I’ve skinned uphill on backcountry touring skis, it was the first time I’ve used randonée skis and boots. Unfortunately my boots were pretty uncomfortable and I quickly began to miss my own comfy alpine ski boots, but I did really appreciate the binding’s walking ability.
 |
| walking up |
We stopped here and there for short lessons on a range of different topics, then continued walking up a mountain called Getryggen or “The Goat’s Back”. When the slope’s snow began to get pretty icy and when the wind had picked up to an uncomfortable level, it was time to ski back down to the Mountain Station. By this point, the light was completely flat and the visibility was poor. I got a little dizzy and disoriented toward the beginning of the run, and from that point, I got really scared and stiff and completely lost all my technique and good form. Despite the relatively gentle slope and relatively easy skiing, my legs were soon burning due to my bad form. I tried to make myself lean forward and recapture my technique, but it just got worse and worse. I was near tears by the time I finally got to the bottom, mostly because I was so mad at myself for wasting such a good ski opportunity.
 |
| Stopping to enjoy the views and for short lessons along the way up |
We ate dinner in the Mountain Station’s restaurant every evening. Sweden’s Mountain Stations are known for their gourmet meals based on seasonal, local products. There’s a different set menu with paired wines every day, and the only choice is meat or vegetarian. Storulvån was no exception and the yummy dishes were fish from local lakes, reindeer from the local mountains, and moose from the local forests.
The second day of our course was magical. The day didn’t dawn with clear skies, but it was bright, dry, and practically wind still. This time, we actually got to complete a top tour. In most of the world, randonée skiers rarely get up to the mountain peaks. For that, you’d need crampons and ropes harnesses and ice axes and all kinds of mountaineering skills. But in Sweden and Norway, most of the mountains have at least one approach that is rounded enough that it’s possible to ski to the top (and back down again) without a lot of specialized equipment or knowledge. In recent years, top-tour skiing has become all the rage in Scandinavia, and now it was our turn to give it a try.
 |
| Left: walking across the broad valley with a glimpse of the peak we were heading toward. Right: lunchbreak. |
It was a long walk up. We walked up and up, then over a shoulder, then down a bit, then across a broad, white valley, then up and up and up. And up. We were walking fairly slowly so as to not get too sweaty or too tired. I would certainly have started out faster, but then I would have gotten pretty worn out, so it was good that our guide kept such a mild pace. Even so, I was feeling pretty tired by the time we got up to the top of the western peak of the very unromantically named Tväråklumparna, or “The Cross Creek Lumps.” We stopped on the peak for quite a while enjoying the view and gulping down a snack. On the way up, we had walked above the clouds, and the next peak over was sticking out over the clouds. And then, there was a rainbow framing the peak! Absolutely magical to be up above the clouds, in the afternoon sunshine, under a rainbow.
 |
| Left: almost at the top. Right: the next peak over poking above the clouds. |
And then it was time to ski down. While I was still nervous and not in perfect form, I had a much, much better ski day. I was able to loosen up enough to enjoy the powdery snow and to enjoy my turns. Powder in Sweden is not a frequent phenomenon as it quickly gets blown and packed and iced over. It took a couple of hours to walk up the peak, but maybe only 20 minutes to ski down. From there, we still had to ski across the valley, up the other side, over the ridge, and then down to the Mountain Station, but that part of the day seemed to pass by quickly and relatively uneventfully. By that time, the sun was getting lower in the sky, the wind was picking up, the light was fading, and we were getting pretty darn cold. I did enjoy our last downhill run, but I was glad to get back to the Mountain Station for dinner.
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| Skirting a shoulder before our last descent for the day |
Carl and I tented instead of staying at the mountain station, partly to save money (rooms are fairly pricey) and also to experiment with our winter tent’s ventilation. Our camping trip over Christmas (see “Winter Camping over New Year's at Koppången” just below) had resulted in a very wet tent due to condensation from our breathing and quite damp sleeping bags, so Carl had called the manufacturer to get some tips. We wanted to try things out and figure out a good routine for keeping the inside of tent dry before our big wilderness winter tenting adventure later on in the spring.
The weather worsened overnight and on the last day of our course, it was back to hurricane-strength winds on the peaks and heavy snowfall. The road was closed again. With those conditions we couldn’t walk up above the treeline, but our guide was well versed in fun runs through the trees. The powder was incredible, and we really enjoyed the short but intense runs. While Day 1 and 2 had basically consisted of a long walk up and a long ski run down, Day 3 was more of a yo-yo up-down-up-down. It was a lot of taking the skins on and off! On one walk up we saw a very bushy red fox darting up the hillside in front of us, hopping through the snow.
When we got back to the Mountain Station, reception had gotten the news that the road wouldn’t be opening the next day, either, as the wind and snowfall were projected to continue. Not only did we get snowed out of the Mountain Station on our way up to the mountains, but we also got snowed in and were unable to leave according to schedule. This was not the first time that we had been snowed-in in Storulvån—we had also been captives at the end of a ski-touring adventure a few years back (see “Ski Touring in Jämtland”).
We learned enough from the top-tour course to feel comfortable planning and executing our own top-tour adventures. Our main conclusion was that we may as well stay on avalanche-safe slopes that are 25 degrees or less (black runs start at about 40 degrees). While steeper slopes might be exciting, we found that 25 degree slopes were challenging and fun, and when you look at a gradient map of the Swedish mountains, there’s quite a lot of terrain in this fun, safe range. Our other takeaway from the top-tour course was that top-touring is probably not our next big thing. If we lived in the mountains and could easily go top-touring over the weekend, it would definitely be one of our favorite winter activities. But the combination of Stockholm’s distance to the mountains and the Arctic’s windy weather means that the chance of being up in the mountains when the weather’s actually good enough to go top-tour skiing is relatively slim—many people spend their entire weeks’ vacation hanging out in mountain cabins waiting for the weather to clear up without ever getting in a good ski run.
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| our guide/instructor |
The next day, we didn’t have a lot to do as the weather was uninviting for most outdoor activity. We read and lounged most of the day, then ventured out into the wind and took a short walk to see the snow drifts blocking the road. With nothing else scheduled, Carl and I decided to dig a snow cave to sleep in. Patrik and Ulrika helped us and we found a perfect, huge pile of snow just a bit behind the Mountain Station. Carl did most of the digging while the rest of us helped to remove the snow out of the way. The digging went impressively quickly—it only took about an hour and a half until we had a cave large enough to sleep in. If we had been farther from civilization and from drying possibilities, we would have had to dig a bigger cave and be more careful of the design to avoid getting things wet at all costs. But being just behind a mountain station, we could cut some corners in favor of having time for hot chocolate with Bailey’s inside before our last, unplanned Mountain Station supper.
 |
| road closed |
While I did have some nervous thoughts about “what if the snow cave caves in” I actually slept pretty well in the cave. It was fun to have tried, although Carl and I have decided that a snow cave probably works best as an emergency measure if god forbid our tent blows apart in a storm or at the end of an adventure since it’s so hard to get things dry in the backcountry.
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| digging out and sleeping in the snow cave |
The road did open the next day, and Ulrika and Patrik dropped us off in Åre where we spent the next few days downhill skiing at the ski resort. Now we were able be lazy and take the lift up instead of walking on skinned skies! Åre is Sweden’s biggest and fanciest and most historic ski resort, and Carl and I have skiied in Åre once before (see ”Skiing Sweden's ‘Vail’"), but the top of the mountain had been closed due to wind the entire long weekend. We managed to have a super fun time anyway, but this trip, the wind had died down enough that the top was open all three days we were there. It turns out that the rest of Åre is great skiing, but the runs down from the top are phenomenal and recall the Alps in scale and scenery and openness. Being able to ski the top of the mountain made me understand why Åre is the premiere resort in Sweden.
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| Views from the top of Åre |
Unfortunately, being Sweden’s premiere resort and the last week of the spring break season, lift lines for the most popular lifts (those up to the top of the mountain) were very, very long. This was not helped by Corona, which meant that only one party could go up at a time—the lifts which usually ferry eight people at a time were running at 25% capacity as most of the chairs and gondolas were only carrying two people. The large cable car was also not running due to Corona. And, to make matters even worse, we managed to time our visit with a World Cup race, which meant that while only one run was closed, one of the key chair lifts was even more backed up because all of the World Cup skiers and entourage were able to skip the line and go directly up on the lift. Needless to say, we spent more time in lift lines than we would have wanted, but on the positive side of things, it was only the lifts up to the top that were so crowded. None of the other lifts had lines at all, so we were still able to get quite a lot of skiing in.
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| more Corona-lafe than sharing a chair lift? |
Aside from the phenomenal skiing, another reason that the top of the mountain was so popular is that it was sunny up there. While the village was socked in with clouds our entire stay, the top of the mountain was above the clouds.
 |
| Left:
a view from under the clouds to the village and the lake. Right:
Descending from blue skies through the clouds toward the lake. |
The
views were clear and wide, and we could even see the mountains that we
had been top-tour skiing on, as well as many of the mountains that we
have tour-skied through on past trips. It was also relatively warm and
relatively wind-still, and the top of the mountain was speckled with
groups sitting and enjoying the sun with picnics. Carl and I enjoyed
several fikas and meals in the sun up there, enjoying the vast view to
all of the surrounding mountains.
 |
| View of Snäshögarna, the mountain range that we had just been top-touring in, from the top of Åre |
We stayed in a simple apartment, but it was right in the middle of the village and super convenient to the lifts, restaurants, bars, the grocery store, and all kinds of cute boutiques. What with Corona and having eaten so much at Storulvån and focusing on skiing, we didn’t eat out or window shop and instead made simple meals in the apartment. But I can definitely see staying in the same building another time and enjoying aprés ski and dinners in the surrounding village.
 |
| random:
a new-to-us favorite, this narrow run is really just a link between two
parts of the ski resort. It is entirely on boardwalks built on a
mountain slope too steep to comfortably ski across. It seemed that very
few people took this shortcut. |
Late on Sunday afternoon, it was time for us to turn our rental skis in and to catch the train home. The journey was luckily uneventful and we arrived in Stockholm relatively on time.
Both the uphill and the downhill segments of our vacation were wonderful. We learned a lot in the top-tour course and it was super cool to reach and ski down our first peak, and we had so much fun hanging out with our friends in the Mountain Station. We also had great fun in Åre, zooming up and down the mountains over and over and over again, fikaing in the sun and enjoying the vast mountain views, and discovering the incredible slopes on the top half of the mountain. It was a bit sad to come home again, it felt like we could have kept skiing forever. But sometimes one does have to work to pay for all that skiing...
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| me skiing |
Thank you Patrik and Ulrika for a fantastic adventure at Storulvån! And for the rides. And for drying all of our stuff when you got back to town!
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| Åre's white, crystal-covered trees were just beautiful |
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| I'm
far from the first person to discover it, but now that my eyes have
been opened to top-tour skiing, this bowl behind the edge of Åre's
lift-served area looks awfully inviting... |
SUNDAY, JANUARY 31, 2021
Winter Camping over New Year's at Koppången 
Our
original plan for the first two weeks of January was to visit my mom
and Carl’s sister and her family in Fresno, CA. When the closing for
our new apartment got moved from mid-February to mid-January, we were
forced to cancel those plans and stay in Sweden instead. This is yet
another instance where the horror of Corona has a silver lining because
we were able to get full refunds for our budget plane tickets—not the
norm to say the least!
 |
| Most of the nature reserve's trees are spruces but there was a good share of ancient, gnarled pines, too. |
We did a good bit of packing before Christmas, and when we got back from celebrating Christmas in Lofsdalen with Carl’s aunt, we were feeling pretty calm about our move. So we decided to rent a car and drive 4.5 hours northwest of Stockholm to Koppången Nature Reserve in Dalarna and go winter camping and snowshoeing.
Like the rest of Sweden, Koppången’s winter season started out slowly this year but by New Year’s week, the relatively high plateau was covered in deep, fluffy snow. It continued to snow relentlessly our entire four day stay in the nature reserve. It was almost completely wind still for those four days, too, so the trees were absolutely smothered in fluffy snow.
This trip was more about enjoying winter and playing in the snow and continuing to acclimatize to our “winter cabin”(aka winter tent) than about covering distance. The nature reserve isn’t particularly large, and while the forest and bog landscape is pretty, it is fairly redundant and one bog in the snow looks a whole lot like the next snow-covered bog. There were no towering peaks to act as landmarks or dramatic valleys to explore. We were never very far from the road, and while there were no other visitors in the area where we camped, there were plenty of other snow lovers exploring the reserve’s winter trails. This was, in other words, not a wilderness adventure. It was more like an extended forest jaunt.
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| Snow covered bog |
We left Stockholm early on Tuesday morning. By the time we arrived in Koppången, dusk was only about an hour away so we tried to be efficient about gathering our packs and strapping on our snowshoes. We purposefully headed away from the trails into an untouched winter landscape of snow, forest, and bog. Because we were going through un-trampled terrain and because the snow was so fluffy, we sank almost up to our knees with every step despite our snow shoes. The going was slow and tough, but that was ok—distance wasn’t our goal on this trip.
We set up our tent less than an exhausting mile from the car. Far enough to see and feel only nature despite the nearness of our rental car. We decided to camp on the brink between bog and forest with open bog views in front of our tent and the wind shade of the forest at our back.
On our first full day in Koppången, we stayed off the beaten path and tromped through the deep snow. Given the short day and the slow pace of post-holing through the snow, we didn’t get sooo far before we had to stop for lunch and turn back.
 |
| Snowshoeing in deep snow |
For the second full day, we decided to venture into the more populated areas of the nature reserve where winter trails are compacted by snow scooters. The work is done by a non-profit dogsledding organization, and we had the luck to be passed by several dog sled teams. What an incredible way to enjoy the winter landscape! I’ve never tried dogsledding but my curiosity is now piqued.
 |
| Snowshoeing on compacted trails |
We hiked, with our snowshoes on the compacted trails, a pretty 12 kilometer loop. More forest, more bog. The trail passed by a ridiculously cute shieling with the beautiful name of Blomtäkt which roughly translates to something like “Flower-Picking Place.” In order to make it back to our tent before dark, we skipped lunch and only ate once we were back at the tent at dusk, at around 3:30.
 |
| Shieling |
Temperatures were not overly cold and ranged from just below freezing to about -5 degrees C (about 23 degrees F). Even so, it did take me a while to warm up once we got into the tent in the evenings. But once I warmed up, I was toasty and comfy in my winter sleeping bag. Carl got to test out his new winter sleeping bag and he was so warm that he didn’t even zip it up all the way! We have yet to test winter camping in cold temperatures, so far it’s always been a few degrees above or below freezing.
While we didn’t really have problems with the cold, we did have a lot of condensation in our tent. It didn’t help that the weather was so devoid of wind and that we were practically tenting in a cloud all three nights. We removed so much water from the tent’s ceiling, over and over, squeezing out the towel onto the snow again and again. Luckily, however, the condensation didn’t drop onto our sleeping bags very much and we remained pretty dry.
We spent three nights at the same tent site and after each night, our tent had sunk further and further into the snow. It wasn’t just that the snow was piling up around the tent, but also that our body heat was slowly melting the snow under us. By the third night, we were both rolling into the middle and had trouble sleeping on our backs because the tent floor was so slanted in toward the middle.
There’s not a lot of daylight in Sweden at this time of year, so we spent quite a lot of time in our tent, in our sleeping bags, snoozing and reading. It was an incredibly relaxing way to spend the evenings!
On our drive back to Stockholm, we decided to make a detour and stop at Norrboda gammelstad where two neighboring farms still retain their original buildings from the 1600’s as well as their original layout.
I
know that farming life in these parts was pretty darn tough, but the
farms themselves with all of their various buildings and ad-hoc
solutions are just so charming.
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 06, 2021
Christmas in Lofsdalen 
We
spent our first two Christmases in Sweden with Carl’s Aunt Eva in
Lofsdalen which is about 6 or 7 hours northwest of Stockholm. Eva
invited us again this year for another snowy, cozy week. This time Eva
rented a different cabin, and it really was the perfect cabin with a
fireplace, a sauna, and a gorgeous view out over the valley and the
Lofssjön Lake.
Carl’s aunt tends to both cross-country ski AND downhill ski in the same day, but Carl and I prefer to concentrate on one activity per day. So we mostly had our own separate adventures during the day, but we spent the long evenings together taking turns cooking feasts; drinking warm spiced wine glögg; lingering at the dinner table over delicious food, good wine, and lovely conversation; gazing into the fire; and playing games. Carl gave me a new, very complex game for Christmas and we had a blast figuring out how to play it. We played for 4 evenings and still didn’t finish our first game!
Temperatures are again unseasonably warm this year (although I suppose it’s the new norm that Sweden doesn’t have snow at Christmas) and despite being relatively far north and relatively far west, Lofsdalen only had a couple inches of snow. The upside was that the drive up to the mountains was easy without any snow or ice, but the downside was that while the resort had tried to cobble together a few of the cross country trails, they were pure ice and in terrible condition our first day out. After only a couple of kilometers, we gave up on trying to ski on the ice and made our own slow tracks out in the snow. We had way more fun tromping through the snow than trying to ski on the ice.
The next day, we decided not to try skiing again since the trails were unlikely to be better and instead went on a hike over one pass and into the next valley north. The hike would have been tougher if other previous hikers hadn’t already trampled the snow down for us. After descending from the pass, the trail crosses over a vast bog. While we couldn’t see the bog bridging under the snow, we could definitely tell when we were and were not on the bridge since when we miss-stepped, we sank right through the snow into the bog. The hike was very beautiful, very stark, and very solitary—we only saw one other person all day. It started to snow early on during our hike and it continued to snow all day and throughout the evening.
Enough snow fell that by the next morning, we decided to give the cross-country ski trails another chance. This time, our skis and the tracks worked well together and we glided though the winter landscape without too much travail. The trail started out with a couple of steep downhills, which I hate on cross-country skis, and I of course fell twice. But after that, the trail rolled gently up and down and was absolutely perfect. We had clear views across the valley and to the downhill ski mountain in the distance, and we sat enjoying the views during a long fika break and during lunch.
On Christmas Eve and on Christmas Day, we ventured to the downhill ski mountain. The resort had only been able to cobble together enough snow for 4 runs, so the skiing was a bit limited and not super challenging, but we still had an absolute blast. I spent many of the runs practicing my short, quick turns.
For
our last Lofsdalen day, Carl and I went back to the cross-country ski
trails and explored a bit of new-to-us territory. The new trail meant
that we had to ski up quite a lot of mountainside, but the second half of the day was more rolling and enjoyable.
Eva generally drove us to and from the ski trails and the ski hill, but from the cross-country ski trails, it was an easy 1 or 2 kilometer walk down to the cabin. Carl tried out his new fancy randonnee backpack and carried both of our skis for us.
There’s really not a lot of daylight at Christmastime in middle Sweden. It doesn’t get light until around 9am, and it’s already dark by 3 pm. But despite the short days, we still had more than enough time to exhaust ourselves out on the ski trails! We were in relatively good shape this year but nonetheless, by our last day, we were moving pretty slowly and I had some very keen aches in my legs.
Stockholm has been unrelentingly grey and rainy since mid-November, so even though Lofsdalen didn’t have a ton of snow, it was still a much needed break from dreary Stockholm. Lofsdalen was mostly grey, too, but we did get to enjoy a few sunrays, not a common occurrence in Sweden in December! Feeling the sun on my face and playing in the snow were both such a great Christmas presents!
Lofsdalen does not have the dramatic scenery of the Alps, or even of Sarek in northern Sweden. However, it has the subtle beauty that pervades most of Sweden. It’s a beauty of stark landscapes. Of black and white winters with the occasional pop of color. It’s a quiet, encompassing beauty that grows on you the more you experience it.
The week in Lofsdalen flew by so quickly, and it felt like we were packing up to go home the day after we arrived. Thank you Eva for a wonderful week of playing in the snow during the days and enjoying the cozy cabin together in the evenings!
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| Our cabin and the view of the downhill ski mountain from the cabin. |
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