Travels Continued 16

 

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2022    

Grand Canyon Part I: The Rim

Carl and I have had a rafting trip on the Colorado River of the Grand Canyon booked for 4 years now (more on the rafting trip in my next post).  Because you would completely miss your entire very expensive rafting trip if you arrived late, Carl and I planned to arrive in Flagstaff a few days before the trip.  This proved to be even wiser with the current airline chaos of canceled flights and lost baggage, and this buffer ended up being the perfect opportunity to hang with my dear, dear friend Mia and her family on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.

Carl and I were supposed to leave Sweden and arrive on Flagstaff all in one very long day, but several of our flights were cancelled well in advance.  Because there was no longer any way to get to Flagstaff in one day, we left a day earlier and spent the night in Washington, DC at the airline’s expense.  Spending the night along the way allowed us to start getting over jetlag before the more exciting part of our trip.
   
Finally in Flagstaff, Carl and I had a few hours before Mia and her family would arrive after their drive from San Diego.  We picked up our rental car, changed into shorts in the overwhelmingly hot rental car parking lot, and drove to Walnut Canyon National Monument which protects a series of cliff dwellings from the 1100-1200’s.  

We hiked down into the beautiful, dramatic, green canyon and looked at the cliff dwellings; several were close to the trail but we had binoculars with us which enabled us to see the dwellings that were on the far side of the canyon, too.  The archeological site and the scenery were just astonishing but proved to be only a first glimpse of the amazingness of everything we’d experience later in the trip.

After picking up a ton of groceries, Carl and I headed out to the AirBnB outside of Grand Canyon Junction where we pulled up just behind Mia and Co.  It was so, so good to finally get to hug Mia after so many years!

Our AirBnB was out in the scrub a couple of miles off the main road.  

The house was spacious and clean and a perfect find for our group, even if it was no architectural marvel.  

We were visited by lots of bats and by an owl (as well as an unbelievable number of moths).  We walked the property and saw a horned lizard (threatened species).  

We grilled out, sipped drinks on the porch, and watched sunrises and sunsets, all without seeing any other buildings.  

We did see and experience a lot at the Rim, but the pace of the long weekend still felt relatively relaxed.  We had lots of time (although never ever enough) to catch up on the last few years while sipping exceptional wines and fancy tequila on the porch.  Seeing the Grand Canyon was of course amazing, but chatting on the porch with Mia and Co. was a major highlight.

On our first full day, we drove into the National Park and straight to the Rim.  Of course, the view was astonishing.  Carl and I had been to and backpacked one of the trails in the Grand Canyon just a few months before we moved to Sweden, but that was eleven years ago and somehow the view in my memory had faded.  Also, the air was considerably clearer on this visit, giving us extremely detailed views up and down the canyon and to the North Rim.  

We spent the day stopping at viewpoint after viewpoint, taking in the canyon from different angles along the park’s extents.  I don’t think I’ll ever be satiated with Grand Canyon views!  

From the Rim we caught glimpses of the Colorado river a mile below.  In just a few days we'd be rafting on that river!

My first Grand Canyon visit was a bit shocking because of how abused Mary Colter’s picturesque buildings (Hopi House, Hermit’s Rest, Desert View) were—instead of encouraging the contemplation of  nature, these buildings now encourage the conspicuous consumption of souvenirs.  But I was more prepared this trip and enjoyed the buildings and their settings despite their incongruous commercialism.

Mary Colter's Desert View tower and the interior of her Hermit's Rest.

On our second day, we abandoned our cars and took to our bikes instead.  Mia and Co. brought their bikes from San Diego and Carl and I rented bikes in the park.  We biked out to Hermit’s Rest, a round trip of about 20 miles.  Considering the elevation of about 7000 feet (2130 meters), the steep hills, and that none of us were in the best biking shape, I was so impressed with our whole group. 

Biking along the Rim was exhilarating and such an amazing way to see the Canyon.  I am so glad that Mia suggested the bike adventure!

AND THEN ... as if we hadn’t been spoiled enough during our time at the Rim, Mia and family treated Carl and I to a HELICOPTER ride over the Canyon!  Carl and I never would have splurged on something like this, and it was so incredibly marvelous.  None of us had ever been in a helicopter before, much less a helicopter over the GRAND CANYON, and it was a lot of fun to share this first with our friends.

We were all weighed when we checked in at the airport, and when we got out to the helicopter, the pilot had very specific instructions about where each of us was to sit.  Carl, Mia and I were given front row seats while Mia’s husband and his two kids had to sit in the back.  The youngest and smallest of the kids even had to sit separated from everyone else, which seemed a little sad and weird, but he was a total champ and didn’t complain at all about the situation.  Maybe he thought it was a plus to have his own window!  I felt very, very spoiled sitting in the front of the helicopter, and it was extra cool to have a clear view of the instrument panel and to see how the pilot controlled the aircraft.  

The helicopter started out by flying over the ponderosa pines of Kaibab National Forest which was cool in of itself.  

But then we turned toward the Canyon

and then the ground just suddenly disappeared!

It was very disorienting and a bit vertiginous, but also breathtakingly beautiful.  

From the helicopter, the abrupt transition from relatively flat forest to deep, gouged canyon is even more dramatic than from the Rim.  

Our first two Rim days were cloudless with intense sun, but there were billowing clouds during our helicopter ride.  Their play of shadows in the canyon made the scenery even more breathtaking (if that’s even possible!).

After flying in the canyon a bit, we followed a side canyon up and out to the North Rim where the aspens were vibrantly golden.  

We swung back down another side canyon after another vertiginous drop and then into the main canyon before heading back to the airport on the South Rim.  

The helicopters have a set route that they are allowed to fly and they are not allowed to fly below a certain altitude.  This minimizes their impact on the wilderness experience of rafting the river or hiking in the canyon, and we only heard a helicopter once during our entire 16-day river trip.  These limitations didn’t affect our helicopter experience negatively and I felt like we had incredibly good views into the canyon from the helicopter.  I can’t describe how crazy amazing the experience was!

After three days of Rim fun, Mia and Co. had to head back to their life in San Diego and Carl and I needed to get back to Flagstaff for the beginning of our river trip.  We picked up another dear dear friend, Chad, at his lodging in Flagstaff and after a Target run we drove to another archeological site outside of town.  Wupatki National Monument is a vast area containing scenic landscapes and a large number of pueblo ruins from the 1100’s.  We only had time to visit two of the pueblos, Wupatki and Wukoki, both of which were incredibly scenic.  

I was most taken by how both of the buildings incorporated the bedrock into their designs.  Not only are the buildings made up of local materials, but their integration with the bedrock causes them merge into the landscape even more.

 

I felt like I caught the faintest whiff of life at both Walnut Canyon and at Wupatki.  I am extremely intrigued and want to learn more about the cultures that created these sites.  Not to mention finally doing the long, extended Four Corners road trip that Carl and I have talked about for years now... some day!

After our too brief visit at Wupatki, we drove back to Flagstaff, returned our rental car, and got ready for our rafting trip orientation.  I’ll be posting about our fabulous rafting trip sometime soon...

Thank you to Mia and Co. for a tremendously extraordinary time together on the South Rim.  The long weekend with you guys was marvelous, and the helicopter ride was quite the cherry on top!  Thank you from the bottom of my heart.  I hope we get to see you guys soon again!  

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2022    

Torpa Stenhus (Torpa Stone House)

Carl and I celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary by renting a super cozy cabin and visiting Torpa Stenhus.  Torpa Stenhus has been on our Sweden-to-see list for a while now, but because the cozy cabin is always booked when we’ve inquired, we’ve never made it there until now.  This year, when the original two dates we asked for weren’t available, they responded with which weekend was available.  The available weekend was near our anniversary, so it seemed perfect.

 

We took the train down to Göteborg on Friday afternoon and picked up a rental car in the garage across the street from the train station.  About an hour and a half later, we were pulling up to Torpa and our cute cabin which was once the gardener’s quarters.  

Torpa Stenhus is located along one of the many historic bloody borders between Sweden and Denmark.  For this reason, the grand house was built more as a defensive tower than as a palace. 

It was unclear until a recent archeological excavation if the house was ever actually used defensively, but the finds included pieces of armor as well as arrows and such from the 1560’s so it does seem that the house did see some action in the many skirmishes between Sweden and Denmark.

Left: Really thick walls to withstand attack.  Right: Random photo but really cool attic!

 

The house was built in three phases which are clearly visible from the exterior.  The northern half was built at the end of the 1400’s (small, high windows), the tower was built in the early 1500’s, and the southern half was built around 1600 (larger windows, even on the ground floor, after the danger had passed).  At the end of the 1600’s, the family decided that the stone house was too cold and too impractical, so they built a more comfortable manor in wood just to the side of the stone house.  

Not the most practical of staircases

The stone house continued to be used for its chapel and for entertaining important guests, but it was never lived in again.  For this reason, the interior has never been updated and most of the interiors are original (much of the furniture is not original but the wall and ceiling frescoes as well as the door surrounds are).

While the house and its interiors are fascinating, I was most impressed by the fact that the house has stayed in the same family (the Stenbocks) since it was built 14 generations ago.   600 years!  14 generations!  I can’t imagine the pressure to marry and produce an heir 14 generations later...  I am 99% sure that no other property in Sweden has been in one, continuous family for as long as Torpa Stenhus.  The Swedish Crown hasn’t even stayed in the same family for that long!  

(A side note about the family is that Gustav Vasa, the first king of the united Sweden, married a Torpa Stenhus daughter as his third and final wife.  She was 16 years old and he was about 56 years old when they married.  Katarina lived 61 years after Vasa’s death and never married again, probably to protect her property rights since her property would have become her husband’s if she had ever married.)

Other than seeing the house, we spent our time walking in a couple of nearby nature reserves.  One featured gorgeous oaks 

and the other was centered on a large bog.  

We found the season’s first mushrooms on the hikes and enjoyed the season’s first mushroom sandwiches in the evenings, yum.  

We also picked cranberries out on the bog and froze them to save for our Thanksgiving feast.  

Out on the colorful bog, fall was just starting to make itself known with all of its bright colors.

It was a lovely weekend but it was a bit overshadowed by our next BIG adventure...

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2022    

Svartlöga

It has become a standing tradition to join Carl’s aunt Eva at her cabin on the island of Svartlöga for an August weekend of relaxation and crawfish.  This year was as wonderful as usual!

We took the ferry out on a beautiful, sunny Friday afternoon and celebrated with a glass of bubbly out on the deck watching the scenery go by.  The Waxholm Fortress always impresses 

and as usual, there were plenty of jealousy-inducing houses to gaze longingly at.  

By the time we got to the outer archipelago, however, it got overcast, windy, and cold.  We spent the last hour of the ferry ride inside the boat.  

 

Carl and I have been to Svartlöga enough times now that we have explored just about every nook and cranny.  This trip, we were a bit tired and less ambitious and didn’t go on really long hikes.  It was also too dry for mushrooms.  Instead, we hiked a few kilometers through the island’s gorgeous forests, out on the boardwalks, 

and then sat by the water for a couple of hours before returning to Eva’s cozy cabin.  We repeated this formula on both Saturday and Sunday.

We started our traditional crawfish celebration with a game of boule on the lawn before moving inside to our crawfish feast.  I absolutely love the Swedish crawfish tradition—gathering, slowly picking apart and finding yummy crawfish morsels while conversing, singing songs, drinking snaps—the whole experience is a bit like American Thanksgiving, though of course with an entirely different menu, atmosphere and customs.  

 
Weekends on Svartlöga are both slow and fast.  Slow because the pace of life always slows down as soon as you step foot on the ferry.  But somehow, the weekend always disappears in the blink of an eye. This trip was no different and before we knew it, we were on the ferry and playing games of speed Scrabble and Rumikub for the ride into Stockholm.  Thank you Eva for yet another wonderful weekend!

 

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2022    

Summer Vacation 2022 Part II: Cabin Life in Funäsfjällen

Carl and my original idea for the summer was to go backpacking in the Norwegian mountains now that the Norwegian border is finally open again, but our supply of cat sitters has slowly dwindled down and we didn’t have anyone to take care of our beloved Gordon.  Instead of leaving the cat behind, we decided to redesign our summer vacation so that the cat could join us, which meant that it was out with the backpack and tent and in with a rental car and cabin.  Carl and I have been having discussions about maybe retiring to a cabin up in the mountains one day, so we decided to use the opportunity to check out one of the areas that we are interested in: Funäsfjällen.  We’ve spent two winter weeks there before (see “Snowy Holidays”), so we already had a good idea of how awesome the area is for winter fun, but how is it in the summer?  Is there good hiking?  Are the mosquitoes unmanageable?  Is there any life when the ski resorts are empty?

 
Our spring was really stressful at work so we didn’t spend a lot of time looking at hundreds of cabins and finding the perfect one.  Instead, we more-or-less booked the first “ok” cabin that was relatively inexpensive and just went with it.  The cabin wasn’t perfect—it was a little close to the main road—but given the amount of effort we put into cabin research, the cabin turned out to be really great.  There was a sunny front porch where we grilled most dinners and hung out with cocktails while enjoying the view of the mountains and the ski resort across the valley.  There was even a wood-fired sauna and a fireplace in the living room, but the weather was too warm to take much advantage of either, unfortunately.

our cabin and front porch view

 
It took an extra 24 hours to fly back to Sweden from Rochester—it turns out that it wasn’t the airline cancelling my flights but was the understaffed airport control tower in Chicago that cancelled all flights from Rochester.  Instead of flying from Rochester to Chicago to Stockholm, I flew from Rochester to Charlotte to Newark to Stockholm, spending the night in New Jersey.  It took 17 hours to fly from Rochester to Newark, a route that takes about five hours to drive.  Next year, Carl and I are talking about maybe just flying into one of the NYC airports and renting a car from there, since we need a rental car in Rochester anyway...    

 

So anyway, I was a day late getting home.  Carl had already picked up and packed the rental car, and he picked me up at the airport on our way north toward the mountains.  I was pretty jetlagged so I only managed to drive for about 2 hours before Carl had to take over for the rest of the 7-8 hour trip while I snoozed.  There were no problems getting up to the mountains, even Gordon was less freaked out about being in the car than usual, and we made a quick stop at the grocery and liquor stores in Funäsdalen before continuing to our cabin in Tänndalen.

our rental car

Funäsfjällen is a marketing name for a fairly large area of the mountains in the province of Härjedalen including the ski resorts/villages of  Tänndalen, Funäsdalen, Bruksvallarna, Ramundberget, Ljusnedal, Messlingen, Tännäs, Kappruet, Tännäskröket, and Fjällnäs.  The area has been known as one of Sweden’s top downhill and cross-country ski areas for many years, and now they are successfully marketing themselves as a summer destination, too, through their “gold trails,” a varied network of hiking and mountain-biking trails that have been chosen for their views, their historical interest, because they feature a good swimming hole, etc.  

Interestingly, the area was part of Norway until the 1600’s, and under both Norway and Sweden, it was a fairly sleepy area.  There were some small-scale iron and copper mines as well as smelters and smithies, but otherwise the area was mostly inhabited by subsistence farmers.  The farms were down in the valleys where the weather was a bit warmer, the soil richer, and the land flatter.  In the summers, the livestock and their keepers moved up the mountainsides to fäbodar or shielings, small dwellings where the animals could graze freely without eating up the all-important hay growing in the valley fields.  The shielings occupied the zone right at treeline.  It was probably only the Sami that spent much time above treeline up in the mountains as they followed their herds of reindeer from the winter forest habitat to the summer mountain habitat.  All of this history is still visibly reflected in the region’s architecture—more on that later of course!
 

We started the vacation by exploring the local food offerings, buying local goat and cow cheese, smoked and frozen cuts of local reindeer and moose meat, and juice and jam made of local berries, all purchased in small farm stores.  We fell especially in love with the reindeer meat.  We buy reindeer in Stockholm, too, but this meat was far superior than that which is shipped to Stockholm’s large grocery chains.  

Our new favorite: reindeer chops

 
Our cabin was in the wooded valley, but we ventured above tree line almost every day.  I’ve written over and over again about how I am a wide open spaces girl and about my love for being above tree line.  I never feel quite as alive or energetic as when I am above tree line in the mountains.  I love other landscapes, too—I do love an ancient forest—but I am happiest and most at home above the trees, not among them.  For this reason alone—getting to hike above tree line almost every day—the trip was a resounding success.

 
One of our day-hiking themes ended up being, not surprisingly for Carl and I, visiting various prehistoric sites.  We hiked to a few iron age grave mounds which are abundant in the southern third of Sweden but uncommon in northwestern Sweden.  Farther south, grave mounds are almost always within sight of the accompanying farm and fields.  But up in Härjedalen, the grave mounds were higher up the mountainsides in the zone where the later shielings were built.  Did the iron agers somehow manage to have farms up on the mountainside?  Or were the grave mounds placed up where the views were wide, marking that everything within eyesight belonged to the family?  Interestingly, the grave mounds were more similar in design to grave mounds found in Norway than those found farther south in Sweden.  The region’s historic ties westward to Norway instead of eastward to Sweden were clearly ancient.   

 

Another fascinating focus of our prehistoric hikes were long systems of fångstgropar or literal pitfalls (trapping pits) used to capture moose and wild reindeer.  In one case, about a hundred pits were dug in a straight line from one mountaintop, all the way across a wide river valley, and up to the next mountain top.  In another case, the pits crossed a huge, high plateau for more than four kilometers.  High fences were constructed between the pits, forcing any large animal trying to cross the valley or the plateau into one covered, hidden pit or another.  The pits were too deep and steep for the moose and reindeer to climb out of, and wooden spears at the bottom of the pits would have somewhat hastened a long, slow death.  With or without the spears, it does seem like an awfully slow death for the animals; this method of hunting was finally banned in Sweden in the mid 1800’s.      

       
The prehistoric highlight of the trip was seeing the 3000-6000 year-old pictographs at Flatruet.  There are a number of petroglyphs throughout Sweden, but pictographs are quite rare.  There must have been more, but the wet climate is not exactly forgiving for ancient pigments.  The pictographs at Flatruet are preserved because the rock here has excreted a varnish-like substance, preserving the pictographs against all odds.  

Pictographs at Flatruet

 

Sweden's other preserved pictographs are near water, but the ones at Flatruet are on a dry mountainside.  However, it is not just any mountainside but is a very unusual geological feature (at least for Sweden) where horizontal bands of rock have weathered away leaving flat, open shelves with a miles-wide, open view of the valleys below and the mountains beyond.  The area is so special that Carl and I spent several hours lounging on a sunny shelf enjoying the view, eating a chocolate bar, and painting and reading.  I agree with the ancients—this site is glorious and worthy of celebrating.  

   
Of course we don’t know why the pictographs were painted, but the unusual geology and glorious view must have been contributing factors—if nothing else, the geology is a visible landmark to mark the spot.  The pictographs at Flatruet feature reindeer, moose, a bear, possibly a wild boar or maybe a beaver, and humans.  Because a number of broken arrowheads have been found at the base of the pictograph wall and because of the pictographs’ content, one theory is that the site was used for ceremonies surrounding hunting, either for luck before the hunt or for thanksgiving afterward.  The way that the arrowheads were broken have led archeologists to believe that the ancients shot arrows at the animals painted on the rock wall.

Pictographs at Flatruet.  Left: reindeer or moose.  Right: a human.

 
One fascinating aspect of pre-historic Härjedalen is that this area was/is the boundary between southern “Swedish/Viking” Sweden and northern “Sami” Sweden.  Two cultures that have occupied this peninsula for millennia, but they have entirely different biological and cultural and lingual origins.  The predominate cannon has been that the two cultures existed side-by-side without ever really mixing, but of course the reality was more complicated than that.  A recent archeological dig found “Sami” and “Viking” remains and artifacts side-by-side in a series of “Viking”-style graves.  In Härjedalen, the two cultures weren’t just co-existing, they were clearly intermingling.     

  
On another hike we were “off-roading” and hiking above treeline up to the top of the mountain Skenören when we came to a series of standing stones.  These standing stones are likely marking prehistoric graves, but this is just an educated guess.  We’ve seen similar Iron Age graves farther south in Sweden, but there the population was “Viking” or “Swedish.”  However, these standing stones were so far above treeline that they almost certainly belong to “Sami” ancestors.  Or who knows, they could be a more modern property boundary, though the standing stones weren’t in a straight line and there were more of them than would have been necessary to mark a property line.  Whatever they may be, these standing stones are not marked on Sweden's government map of prehistoric sites.  This could mean that the standing stones are too young to be noteworthy, or it could mean that the site is undiscovered by officialdom.

 

One day we drove to Överhögdal, the village where the oldest surviving Swedish tapestries were found.  

The Överhögdal tapestries

The tapestries are carbon-dated to between 1040 and 1170, the very end of the Viking area when Christianity was taking a firm hold on Sweden.  There are some Christian crosses to be found on the tapestries, 

The Överhögdal tapestries: Are those churches marked with crosses?

but they are mostly covered in pre-Christian symbols such as Yggdrasil or the “world’s tree”, Viking ships, goats, reindeer, etc.  

The Överhögdal tapestries.  Left: Yggdrasil, the "world's tree."  Right: Viking ship.

A number of scholarly interpretations of the stories that the tapestries are telling seem believable, but we’ll probably never really know what the artists actually were trying to say with the symbols.  One of the tapestries is more geometric than pictorial, and the geometric symbols remind me both of ancient Celtic and Viking designs as well as traditional Sami designs.  

The Överhögdal tapestries: Geometric patterns and another Viking ship

(The tapestries on display in Överhögdal are faithful reproductions, the originals are now in a larger museum in Östersund). 

 

It’s not prehistory, but another of our dayhikes featured a landscape of iron and copper mines from the 1600’s and 1700’s.  

signs of coppar in the rock

The mines were up on a high plateau, and given how cold and windy it was in the middle of July (it was so windy that we ate lunch huddled in one of the mine openings), it’s hard to imagine what living and working up there year-round would have been like.  

Almost 300 years after these mines closed, the landscape is still scarred.

The ore was transported with horse and sleigh during the winter down to the Ljusnedal ironworks on the river, a two day trip, but it wasn’t until the spring flood that the ironworks had enough power to smelt the ore.  From Ljusnedal it was a long trip to the Baltic Sea and markets beyond.  When the mines proved unprofitable in the 1700’s, the ironworks at Ljusnedal was converted into a sawmill instead.    

Left: Ljusnedal Bruk.  Right: The front of an iron wood stove made at Ljusnedal Bruk.  I love the motif of a reindeer pulling a sleigh!

       
Another historic feature of several of our hikes was fäbodar or shielings.  Carl and I have visited a number of fäbodar in other parts of Sweden before, and we’ve always been charmed.  This time, however, we decided that we wanted to buy a fäbod and retire in it!  One of our favorite day hikes of the trip was a loop passing by a number of über charming fäbodar.  We picnicked and read and painted while gazing over one fäbod with the Mittåkläppen mountain rearing in the background.  

Shielings in Härjedalen in Funäsfjällen

On the same hike, we sat on a gravel ridge high above a meandering stream and bog-land below us enjoying a lazy, late afternoon fika from our thermoses.  The view was wide, the sun was warm, and the bog grasses were dancing in the light breeze.  It was a truly magical moment that I have returned to many times when I need to think calming, soothing thoughts in order to get through my day or fall asleep.  

 

Sweden’s shielings vary of course regionally, and Härjedalen’s shielings have peat roofs while most other regions have other roofing materials.  In fact, just a few miles away in the province of Jämtland, the shielings have wood plank or wood shingle roofs and an entirely different character.  We spent a day driving Jämtland’s fäbodvägen or “shieling road,” stopping at many different fäbodar, many of them still used for their original purpose of grazing livestock high above the valley farms.  

Shielings in Jämtland

 
Waffles became another theme of our hikes, a theme that was intertwined with fäbodar.  I’ve always noticed that Swedes have a thing for waffles (always served with whipped cream and jam, never maple syrup) on outings, be it an outing to a historic castle, on a ski slope, or a frontcountry hike.  While waffles have been around in Sweden since the Middle Ages, the tradition of eating waffles on an outing goes back to the 1800’s when the habit of taking long walks in the countryside after church took root.  Those walks were often accompanied by waffles served in whatever cabin or farmhouse was nearby.  We stopped for waffles on three different hikes, at the shieling at Djupdalsvallen, 

at another shieling at Andersborg, (we have snowshoed to Andersborg for waffles when we were here in the winter) 

 and at Kariknallen, a more modern affair set high above treeline with a miles-wide view.   

 
Another culinary aspect of our day hikes was of course mushroom picking.  We found tons of björksopp or Birch Bolete as well as a number of different edible species of kremlor or Russula.  We fried the mushrooms in butter as an appetizer some evenings, and other mushrooms found their way into our meals.  They are the perfect accompaniment to reindeer, for example.  Soooo tasty!  

Björksopp or Birch Bolete

 

We found the greatest concentration of mushrooms on the mountain just behind our cabin.  In fact, three of our day hikes were on trails directly behind our cabin on “our” mountain, Hamra.  

Hamra is known  for its number and diversity of flowers which is due to a more limey soil.  We didn’t take time to seek out specific species, but we did manage to pick out several different orchids in addition to the other abundant flowers.  And we really did notice a difference in the abundance of flowers on “our” mountain compared to other mountains.  For example, when we climbed up Annfjället, there was a noticeable dearth of flowers compared to “our” Hamra.  

Orchid on Hamra

Annfjället wasn’t specifically on our list before we got to Funäsfjällen, but once we saw its series of peaks with its distinctive wave-like formation, we couldn’t resist climbing up to a number of the wave crests.  

The mountain is devious—you think you’ve reached the base of “the” peak and start climbing up, but at the top, you realize that the peak you’re on is just a baby compared to the next peak over.  So you climb up the next peak only to realize that that peak isn’t “the” peak, either.  We climbed five peaks over the course of the day, loving every minute of the adventure and especially loving all of the wide open views.

Another distinctive mountaintop in Funäsfjällen is Mittåkläppen, its abrupt prow beckoning a climb.  

The climb up is surprisingly quick and easy and the view extremely rewarding.  From the top, we could see into several nearby mountain ranges where we have previously tour skied including Helags, Gåsen, and Sylarna.  

On another day hike, it wasn’t a distinctive mountaintop that beckoned; instead we went to see a distinctive geological formation known globally as Rogen moraine.  This geological feature was first noticed and described in the Rogen area of Härjedalen, hence its name.  Rogen moraine consists of long, parallel ridges of glacially-deposited boulders.  Water settled between these strips, creating a distinctive network of lakes separated by the ridges.  

Rogen Nature Reserve is known as a paddling paradise, and some day we will explore it by boat.  On this trip, however, we hiked to a mountaintop to be able to see the distinctive pattern from above.  

        

We saw a number of reindeer up in the mountains on our hikes, 

but we also saw quite a lot of them down in the valleys on the roads.  By the end of the trip, we had gotten so used to reindeer blocking traffic that we stopped taking pictures of them.  We didn’t love that our cabin was so close to the main road, but the front porch did provide a front-row seat for watching the almost-daily show of reindeer trotting up and down the road as we sipped our mint juleps.

 
In addition to the road-trotting reindeer, another motoring highlight of the trip was driving over Flatruet, Sweden’s highest public road.  The road is gravel and is well above treeline.  Besides hiking, skiing and snow scooter trails, the Flatruet road is the only connection between the western halves of the provinces of Härjedalen and Jämtland—if it weren’t for this road, driving from one province to the other would involve a very long route around the mountains.  Incredibly, the road is even maintained during the winter (although it is closed at night and during storms) and I look forward to driving through the resulting canyon of snow some day.  At the top of Flatruet, a high, relatively flat plateau, we could see into the next range of mountains including Lunndörren where we have snowshoe-hiked a loop through the glacier-carved valleys and over several passes (see "Snowshoeing (aka Social Distancing)")

Flatruet, Sweden’s highest public road

 
We hiked almost every day, but one day we canoed a gentle, meandering section of the Ljusnan River instead.  This section of the river does oxbow turn after oxbow turn, and over the ages some of the oxbows have been cut off, creating dead-end channels.  We explored every side channel we came upon, paddling until there was no more water in front of us, then turning around and paddling back out to the main river.  We spent a lot of time not paddling, just letting the gentle, slow current carry us downstream, enjoying the quiet and gazing into the perfectly clear water.  As the river twisted and turned, it framed views first of one mountain and then another.  We stopped for a lazy picnic in a field and stopped on a couple of sandbars for swims.  It was almost warm enough to enjoy the cold water, but not quite.  

    
We spent most evenings enjoying the late evening sun on our porch, but one evening we went to a concert above treeline at the top of one of Tänndalen’s ski lifts.  The audience either walked up or took the lift, but the band was flown up in a helicopter—talk about a grand (if environmentally unnecessary) entrance!  We saw Melissa Horn whose music is both catchy and haunting.  Coupled with the wide mountain view, the experience was very memorable.  It was also a cold, windy experience, and I am impressed with the musicians who managed to play their guitars, basses, and electric keyboards without their fingers completely freezing.    

 
Today, the majority of Sweden’s farmhouses are painted Faluröd, a red copper-derived pigment from the gigantic mine at Falun (see “Falun: Summer Vacation 2020 Part III”) that gained popularity in the 1800’s.  Before industrialization, farmers couldn’t afford to paint their buildings and the wood remained untreated.  However, once the Falu paint was cheap enough, even farmers could protect and extend the life of their wood buildings with the paint.  However, Norway’s farmhouses remain unpainted to this day, as do most of the older farmhouses in Härjedalen.  This is yet another small but visible cultural leftover from Härjedalen’s history as a Norwegian province.  

 
It wouldn’t be a trip with an architect without checking out a historic church or two, and on this trip we visited the Hede and Vemdalen churches.  These particular churches were on the list because much of their interior inventory was created by the famous Baroque furniture maker Ljungberg who was from Ljungdalen, one of the villages in Funäsfjällen.  The baroque altars and pulpits were intricate and interesting, 

A Ljungberg bureau and a Ljungberg pulpit

but I honestly fell more for the churches’ exteriors—the belltower at Hede and the double-roofed, hexagonal church at Vemdalen. 

Left: Belltower at Hede.  Right: Vemdalen church.

 

This summer vacation was a very successful experiment, and it completely exceeded my expectations.  It's not that I had low expectations, but everything about the vacation was even better than I had imagined.  First of all, Funäsfjällen in the summer provides an almost unending variety of hiking to choose from, from canyons 

to the very local Rogen moraine to pictographs to jutting mountaintops to burbling swimming holes to gushing waterfalls.  

There’s typically a good variety in terrain on a week’s backpacking trip, too, but the change happens more slowly and organically than when zooming from one area to another in a car.  Also, the region’s emphasis on local food and products keeps just enough farms and local businesses open that the valleys feel like genuine communities and not just tourist resorts.  There were enough cultural activities that we didn’t have time to go to them all, though these are probably concentrated during the few months that the summer and winter tourists are in town.

Another incredible aspect of Funäsfjällen was the lack of clear-cut mountainsides.  I’ve written time and again about how industrialized the forest is in Sweden and about how it’s hard to feel like you’re in the wild when most hikes pass through a clear cut at some point.  Driving through the surrounding areas is sometimes like driving through war zone with clear cut after clear cut after clear cut.  But Funäsfjällen seemed to be completely lacking in clear cuts.  Most of the land isn’t officially protected, so I’m not sure why forestry seems to be absent from this little area, but I suspect that tourism has a lot to do with it—perhaps the forest is more valuable intact to attract the all-important tourist than it is as a crop.  Or maybe Funäsfjällen is just high enough in elevation that forestry isn’t a viable option.  Or maybe it was just a matter of timing and the forests in Funäsfjällen aren’t ripe for cutting quite yet.  Whatever the case, it is a welcome and lovely exception to my observation of Swedish forests and I do hope that Funäsfjällen’s forests remain intact in the future. 

     

And staying in a cabin instead of a tent was also a revelation.  I did miss the complete break from technology and from society, but it was lovely to have a comfy bed to sleep in every night and to be able to shower after our hike every day.  Also, it was very freeing not to have to worry about getting wet.  Nothing dries in a tent, so once your boots get wet, they tend to stay wet.  But with a cabin, we had no worries about finishing up a day hike in the rain—we knew that we’d be able to dry our boots overnight and that they would be cozy and warm the next day.  Not to mention that snuggling with our cat and not having to leave him behind was a lovely contrast to tent life, too.

Rain

 

Gordon thought that it was the best summer vacation ever.  Not only did he get to spend it with his family for once, but he also got to explore the great outdoors.  As far as we know (we adopted him when he was about 3 years old) he had never been outside except for on our balcony.  This trip we took a leash and harness and let him explore the cabin’s yard.  He was extremely nervous and scared to start with, but by the end of the trip he liked exploring the yard so much that he sat meowing by the front door.   

Gordon the mighty tiger explores the jungle

 

While we hiked 10-15-20+ kilometers every day, we spent a lot of time just sitting and enjoying.  Every single one of our hikes involved stopping for at least lunch and one or two fika breaks, and most of our hikes also involved longer stops of a couple of hours for reading, painting, gazing, and appreciating the view.  We drove a lot, we hiked a lot, and we spent a good amount of time sitting on our porch, too, but not having heavy backpacks to slow us down and not having to break down and set up camp every day left us with a lot of time to just...enjoy.  And to stop and do cartwheels in the middle of the empty road.

I don’t think we’re totally converted.  We’re going to continue going on tenting adventures, both in the winter and in the summer.  But I do have to say that the cabin + car was pretty luxurious, and I wouldn’t remind repeating that formula again or going back to Funäsfjällen for continued adventures--the area has so many more mountains to climb! 

More mountains to climb in the future

 

SATURDAY, JULY 23, 2022    

Summer Vacation 2022 Part I: Visiting Mom in Rochester

I spent the first week of summer vacation in Rochester, NY visiting my mom who moved there from Fresno last winter.  (Carl stayed at home and worked.)  Getting to Rochester was a bit of an adventure since the SAS pilots were on strike for two weeks.  SAS booked me on another flight, but instead of one layover and 16 hours of travel, I had three layovers and 30 hours of travel.  I was pretty exhausted and jet lagged by the time I got into Rochester but was thankful to have gotten there at all.  Stressful.

Mom is living with her college friend Carol (Rochester is near Brockport where they went to college).  Carol and Mom picked me up at the airport a little past midnight and dropped me at my Airbnb, the ground floor of a cute house in a cute, quintessentially American neighborhood near downtown Rochester.  As my friend Mia said, all that’s missing from the neighborhood are two kids with baseball gloves on bikes pedaling down the street. 

I really enjoyed my morning runs to various destinations in the neighborhood and then stretching and eating breakfast on the front porch.  

Downtown views from my runs along the Genesee River

 
Two more of my Mom’s college friends came into town, too.  I hadn’t seen Stephanie since my wedding in 2009 and I don’t think I had seen Michele since sometime in the ‘90’s.  It was so fun to see everyone, and to meet Carol’s sisters, too.  The week was busy and as usual it passed very quickly in a whirlwind of meals and some sightseeing.  One afternoon we went downtown to see the two waterfalls on the Genesee River.  The falls used to power flour mills and electric plants; today the river is a bit of a surprising green oasis in the middle of downtown.  We even saw a deer!

Falls in downtown Rochester

 
Another day my mom and I went for a walk in nearby Tinker nature park where we saw more deer in the form of two fawns and a mother.  We loved the varied landscape of rolling farm fields, forest, and bog.  

There was even a gorgeous farmhouse from 1830.  It was Federal in style and like many of its contemporary neighbors covered in cobblestones.  These stones were rounded from glacial action and farmers pulled them out of their fields--instead of piling them at the side of the field like usual, the farmers of western NY used them to decorate their houses.  I had forgotten about the cobblestone house phenomenon (I spent a good bit of time in the area during my teenage years) and fell in love again with the style.  

 
One day I met up with Elissa, an old, old friend.  She’s the friend that I’ve known the longest, but I haven’t seen her since 2010 or something like that.  We met up in Brockport on the Erie Canal for a long lunch by the water and a long walk on the canal tow path.  It was so good to catch up!  And it’s kinda funny: I have spent a good bit of time along the Erie Canal while growing up, and somehow I remembered it being much narrower than it actually is.  Usually things seem smaller as you get older but in this case the canal grew!  Maybe I’ve gotten used to the Swedish Göta Canal which I think is considerably narrower than the Erie?   

Downtown Brockport and the Erie Canal

Yet another day we drove out to Mt. Albion cemetery in the Village of Albion to visit my grandparents and great-grandparents.  It took a while to find their graves but after getting some help from a groundskeeper, we eventually found them.  I didn’t take many photos from Mt. Albion but I did run through its Rochester contemporary, Mt. Hope cemetery.  Both feature quite a lot of big, gnarled trees; dramatic, artificial topography; and historic, atmospheric grave monuments and mausoleums.  I stopped by Frederik Douglass and Susan B. Anthony’s graves—in addition to Xerox and Kodak, Rochester was the home of a number of important figures throughout American history.  

Mt. Hope Cemetery

After the cemetery, we stopped at another waterfall in the Village of Holley.  My memory of the region was that it was extremely flat, but clearly there is more topography in the area than I remembered! 

Mom and Carol at Holley Falls

As usual, the trip ended all too soon and I am now sitting in the airport.  American Airlines cancelled my flight to Chicago...I’m rebooked on another flight, I do hope that it actually goes...I’m already arriving back home in Stockholm almost an entire day later than planned...

It was so, so good to see my mom.  And Carol, Stephanie, Michele, and Elissa too!  Thank you everyone for everything!  Hugs!

 

SATURDAY, JULY 23, 2022  
Midsummer Paddling

The last long weekend of a spring filled with long weekends (the spring is always sooo busy here!) was Midsummer.  Carl and I borrowed our friends Patrik and Ulrika’s kayak and took it for a spin out in the Stockholm archipelago.  They store their kayak out at their summer cabin in Tyresö which is just an hour outside of the city on the mainland near the water.  

Carl and I usually head out into the outer archipelago on our kayaking adventures, but this time we used the opportunity to explore part of the inner archipelago.  I’m not really sure exactly what I was expecting, but I was pleasantly surprised!  In many ways, the inner parts of the archipelago aren’t as dramatic as the areas further out, but the topography of the inner islands is impressive.  There’s very little elevation in the outer archipelago but many of the inner islands feature high cliffs.  We took advantage of the cliffs and camped atop and enjoyed the wide evening views.

We spent the first evening on a tiny island about 5km from P & U’s summer cabin.  We were still in the long, finger-like bay leading from the open water to their cabin and were surrounded on three sides by the mainland and could see several houses along the shore.  But having our own little island that was not much bigger than our tent made it feel like we were much further out in the wilderness.  

 
The weather was gorgeous and warm and we started the evening with a refreshing swim before cooking up the first feast of the trip.  

In true Midsummer fashion, we started the evening with some snaps that Carl had flavored with wood sorrel.  Perhaps because the concoction had been stewing for over a year or perhaps wood sorrel doesn’t make for a good snaps flavor, but the blend was vile.  All well.  Luckily, our dinner of pork loin with a foraged mushroom sauce was a much more successful culinary adventure.

Wood sorrel snaps and a wild mushroom sauce

The next day also dawned clear and unusually warm and sunny and we made our meandering kayak way to the outer edge of the cluster of islands outside of P & U’s bay.  We paddled past Saltkråkan, the setting for one of Astrid Lindgren’s tales.  We were still far from the outer archipelago and some of the islands rose straight up out of the water with vertical, high cliffs.  We set our sights on one prominent clifftop and circled around to the back side of the island to find “kayak parking.”  

Carl's at the top of the cliff, "kayak parking" at the bottom

It was quite a climb to lug all of our stuff up to the clifftop tent site, but so worth it for the wide evening views. 

We spent the afternoon and evening lazing in our camping chairs enjoying the sun, the views, and the sparkling water while reading and drawing and expanding our camp-culinary horizons.  

Our relatively new camp stove has interchangeable fuel nozzles--we’ve always used liquid fuel in the past, but are now getting acquainted with the wonders of gas which allow you to do things like simmer a mushroom sauce or fry up a flatbread.  For dinner we had a to-die-for focaccia flatbread with bruschetta.  It tasted like pure summer.   

   
It was literally a record-breaking Midsummer for sunniness and warm temperatures and even the third day of our paddle adventure was sunny and warm.  We wove through the islands, following the chain of islands inland, almost until the island chain meets the mainland.  

Here, there were far more people in their motorboats and sailboats, and they had already claimed some of the best camping spots closer to the water.  But again, we were able to find a high perch to camp on—one advantage of a kayak over a bigger boat is that they are much more flexible and don’t require as protected of a spot to tie up since a kayak can usually be pulled up on land.

I don’t think I’ve ever swum so much as on this kayaking trip.  The weather was so warm that swims were way more enticing than usual.  At this camping spot, we found a shelf of rock that was a perfect diving platform about a meter above the water.  It’s been a long time since either Carl or I have done a back dive, but we both practiced from this shelf, diving in, climbing out, diving in, climbing out.  Refreshing!   

Lots of succulent flowers in the rocky cliff crevices

   
We spent another long, relaxed, sunny evening lounging on the cliffs, looking out over the water, sipping wine, drawing, reading, and chatting.  

It was a gorgeous evening and an absolutely lovely finish to our long paddle weekend.  It always feels like just when we really settle into the camping/kayaking routine, and when we finally really relax and leave daily life behind, the adventure is nearing its end.  

Breakfast flatbread

  

On our last day, we paddle-meandered back to the little secret bay where P & U have their summer cabin.  It was still blazingly sunny and warm.  We were paddling with the breeze which was a small help with the paddling, but it meant that we didn’t have a breeze to cool us off and it was crazy hot.  We stopped for a swim and lunch before heading into the final canal and our kayak takeout.  When we got to the cabin, P& U were unexpectedly there and not only did we get to borrow their kayak all weekend, but they even gave us a ride back to town!  Thank you so much for everything Patrik and Ulrika!

A cute boathouse and the canal-like passage into P & U's bay

    

 

TUESDAY, JULY 12, 2022  
Inland Paddling at Kloten

With one exception, all of our multi-day paddling adventures in Sweden have been in one archipelago or another in the Baltic Sea.  For the long weekend for the Swedish national day, we decided to try an inland “kayak trail” instead.  There are many kayak trails in Sweden, most of them on lake systems, some of them on creeks.  Most of them require portages, and since we haven’t portaged before, we picked a trail that involved relatively few and relatively short portages.  And that had a convenient kayak rental nearby.  And that wasn’t too far from Stockholm.  Those requirements pretty much narrowed the field to Kloten, a kayak trail and nature reserve in Västmanland to the west of Stockholm.

Carl and I shared the adventure with our frequent paddling and adventure companions, Patrik and Ulrica.  P & U have recently procured a beautiful kayak of their own, but Carl and I needed to rent.  We always rent doubles because it requires less effort to paddle one double than two single kayaks, but the rental agency didn’t have doubles with cargo space.  Not only that, but the singles weren’t even proper sea kayaks with rudders; the kayaks had to be steered by paddle strokes only.  It was a bit challenging to paddle in a straight line, but not really too bad once I got used to it.

Thank you for the photo Ulrika!

 

After picking up our kayaks, we started paddling at one end of the first lake, Långvattnet. We had a bit of dry weather before some rain moved in, though it never poured on us and we luckily didn’t really get all that wet.  

The Kloten nature reserve and the kayak trail are both dotted with wind shelters.  We don’t usually aim for wind shelters because we usually prefer an “untouched” natural spot and because wind shelters tend to attract other people—another crack in the facade of our wilderness experience.  But with the rain, hanging out and cooking and eating and drinking wine in a wind shelter together seemed much more fun than huddling in our individual tents.  We had picked out a shelter about 5 km from the start of the trail (5km generally tends to be a good evening-start distance for us), but that wind shelter was already occupied.  We turned around and headed back to another wind shelter that we had passed a while back and hoped that it wasn’t already taken.  It wasn’t, and a rainbow arched above it—clearly fate meant this shelter for us.  It was even oriented to the absolutely gorgeous sunset reflected off the mirror-smooth lake.  

 
The rain had stopped by the time we arrived at the wind shelter, and while it was a bit cloudy and cool at times, we generally had pretty good luck with the weather over the rest of the weekend.  We spent the evening sipping wine and then enjoying the deliciously marinated sous vide lamb and potato gratin that P & U whipped up for us.  It was a lovely, beautiful, tasty evening full of promise for the weekend ahead.

 

The next morning dawned sunny and a bit warmer and we made our way up the lake to our first portage.  We discovered that with the help of a kayak cart and a relatively even surface, portaging the kayaks was really not that big of a deal.  Before heading out on the next lake, we had a long, leisurely fika in the sun.

 

Different nature reserves in Sweden have different regulations, and Carl and I have been surprised in the past to encounter clear-cut areas in Swedish nature reserves.  Apparently logging is allowed in Kloten, too, because we passed a number of sad patches of former forest. The area’s overall impression 

still green, but the numerous clear-cut patches diminished our sense of being out in the wilderness.  

 

The second lake, Stora Korslångan, has a number of arms and islands. 

We paddled all the way to the tip of one arm and into a boggy area with a constantly diminishing, winding waterway.  When we could no longer paddle farther into the bog, we turned around and headed back out of the arm, stopping for a scenic lunch along the way.

 

We looked at a couple of wind shelters but dismissed them because they weren’t sited just so.  Instead, we camped on a scenic, tiny island.  

We could rock hop across to the next, slightly larger island.  We had apéritifs high on the neighboring island, looking out at the water and the sun.  Eventually we moved back to “our” island for an appetizer of freshly fried up flatbread with bruschetta and a dinner of pork tenderloin with a mushroom sauce while enjoying more sun and more water views.  

 
Even the next morning dawned sunny.  Because our campsite was so idyllic, we decided to leave our tents set up on the same island.  We paddled to another portage, but this time, because our kayaks were empty, we had left the bulky cart behind.  Carrying P & U’s heavy double kayak proved to be quite a workout—I don’t think we’ll be leaving the kayak cart behind again!  Nevertheless, we made it up to the next lake, Sörsjön.  We proceeded to paddle every little bay and inlet and cove of Sörsjön.  

A couple of arms featured boggy passages like the day before, but these passages “went” and we could paddle through the bogs without having to turn around.  I suspect that these bogs are floating bogs not anchored into the ground underneath.  Pretty fascinating!  

 

After exploring every nook and cranny of Sörsjön, we portaged back to Stora Korslångan and after stopping for lunch on a lovely granite slab sloping down to the water paddled to the northern end of the lake.  

Here there was another portage to another lake, but we didn’t feel inclined to go farther—a long evening of enjoying the views and wine and good food and good company awaited!  So we turned around and wove through several islands in the middle of the lake on the way back to “our” tiny Camp Island.  On the way back, Carl wanted to try dragging my kayak behind his kayak with a rope so that we’d know how to set it up if such an arrangement were ever needed in an emergency situation.  It worked well and I didn’t mind the free ride, of course!

Back on Camp Island, we repeated the procedure of drinks on the neighboring Cocktail Island followed by another gourmet feast (pasta with chilies and onions and sausage this time) on our tent island.  We spent another evening staring at the sunset, staring at the water, sipping wine, and enjoying a lively conversation.  Magical!

We had paddled against the wind almost the entire journey so far, and we had been looking forward to having the wind at our backs for the final leg.  But the wind shifted in the night and we had to paddle against the wind on the way back to the car, too!  Luckily, the wind wasn’t too, too extreme and we made it back without too much ado.  After packing up our kayaks, it didn’t take us too long to reach the portage back to the first lake.  From there, we explored another arm where we stopped for a long, leisurely lunch.  So leisurely that we ended up taking a peaceful nap in the sun before getting back in the kayaks!

 
We then paddled toward the head of the lake and the car, stopping on an island for a last fika break in Kloten before heading back into civilization.  As usual, the three-day adventure felt like it lasted about three hours, and it ended just as we were getting into the rhythm of paddling and camping.  

It was fun to explore a new place and to try a new form of kayaking, but we all agreed that we like paddling in the archipelago better.  Archipelago scenery is more varied and you experience the elements more directly (although they can be much more dangerous).  In the archipelago, we usually pick out a destination that is out in the outer islands, giving us a clear goal and a reason to paddle more than a couple of hours a day.  While we did want to explore and see as much of Kloten as possible, our Kloten wanderings felt a little aimless and lacking in drive.  We also agreed that we should try a creek-based inland paddle some time—we generally found the intimate scenery of Kloten’s arms and canals more enticing than the lake-at-large, so a creek would be a fun next adventure.

Even so, Kloten was a lovely little adventure.  I love paddling and camping and exploring new places, and hanging out with P & U is always a highlight.  Not to mention the meals which just keep getting more and more gourmet!  Thanks for a great adventure Patrik and Ulrika!

 

THURSDAY, JUNE 30, 2022  
UNESCO Karlskrona (and environs)

With all of spring’s long weekends, I’m having trouble keeping up with my travel posting.  Not unusual.

We had a long weekend in the middle of May for Ascension Day.  Being a bit too late for skiing and too early for hiking or kayaking, we usually take the opportunity to see one of Sweden’s cultural / historical highlights, and this year was no exception.  Being out of castles, we’ve seen just about all of them at this point, we decided to go to the Unesco World Heritage Site of Karlskrona which is a small Navy town that was established, planned, and partly built during the late 1600’s. 

 
Sweden’s navy and shipbuilding had always been based in Stockholm.  But as Sweden expanded throughout the 1600’s to include much of the southern Baltic in Germany, Poland, Estonia, Russia etc., as well as what is today southern Sweden, Stockholm was on the northern edge of the empire and very far from the action in the southern Baltic.  Stockholm’s harbor was also iced in for several months every year, a major disadvantage when the prime enemy Denmark’s navy was based in Copenhagen which was mostly free of ice.  Additionally, stationing the Navy in Stockholm made the capitol city even more of a target—an enemy could destroy both the capitol and the Navy in one fell swoop.  

For these reasons, King Karl XI charged his underlings in 1679 with finding the perfect protected spot in southern Sweden to relocate the Navy.  Trossö, a small island in the Blekinge archipelago, was chosen because it was simultaneously easily protected from both land and water attacks as well as being within easy reach of the open water.  

Before Trossö was developed.  Map by Carl Magnus Stuart, 1680.

Blekinge was also rich in oak trees, a relatively scarce but essential ingredient for ship building (Blekinge province’s symbol is an oak tree with Sweden’s three crowns around its trunk).  

The island did not, however have a reliable source of fresh water, but it was nothing that the crown’s engineers couldn’t solve.  Soon enough, an aqueduct transporting water from the mainland was soon in operation.

Directly translated, Karlskrona means “Karl’s Crown.”  Because the city was to be one of Sweden’s most important due to its military prowess, the king spared no expense.  He called in his most prized architects (Nicodemus Tessin the Elder and his son the Younger), engineers (Erik Dahlbergh), and military experts (Carl Magnus Stuart and Paul Ludvig Leijonsparre), and the city was quickly planned and construction underway. 

First tentative city plan by Carl Magnus Stuart in 1680.  Two elements would remain in later plans: the large central square and the north-south division of the island into civilian and military realms.

 

Nicodemus Tessin the Elder's reworked city plan from 1680 or 1681.  Tessin introduced the central axis and two diagonal streets to the plan.

 

Eric Dahlberg and Carl Magnus Stuart's reworked plan from 1683.  This plan was approved by the King.

Eric Dahlberg and Paul Ludvig Leijonsparre's reworked plan from 1694.  Here, the two churches and the courthouse enclosing the main square make an appearance.

 

The King transferred city privileges from the nearby medieval town of Ronneby to Karlskrona (officially grounding the city in 1680).  He also dismantled a nearby fort town left over from Danish rule, Kristianople, and forced the residents to relocate to Karlskrona (more on Kristianople below).  Swedish craftsmen were given tax breaks to relocate their businesses to Karlskrona, and almost the entire naval force—boats,  materiel, and men—was moved to the new base.  However, despite the King’s efforts and despite its status as an important military city, the elite was never enticed to move away from the capitol and Karlskrona never became an important center of trade, culture, or population.           

One of the reasons that Karlskrona is a Unesco World Heritage Site is that the original 17th century city plan is still easily readable in the landscape.  

Trossö Island was roughly divided in half with the landward side dedicated to civilians and the waterside dedicated to the Navy (this line is in orange on the map above).  Originally the two sides were separated by a thick stone fortification wall, but much of the wall is now demolished and replaced by chain-link fencing.

The wall surrounding the Naval Hospital still stands.  A piece of the old wall is in the background of the photo on the right.

The other quite visible element from the original 17th century plan is the city’s central axis (red line on the map above) leading to the enormous town square (Stortorget or “The Big Square”) in the middle of the city (marked in yellow on the map above).  Sitting atop the island’s hightest point, Stortorget really is huge.  On two sides the square is bounded by two 16th century baroque churches and a third side is bounded by the stately courthouse. 

Courthouse

However, the rest of the square feels porous and unbounded—while the state-sponsored buildings are large and impressive, the private development around the square could never keep up in scale or splendor.  The axis continues beyond the square into the military base and is anchored on its southern end with a clock tower (Amiralitetsklockstapeln).   

Nicodemus Tessin the Younger had the honor of designing both churches on the main square--not a bad commission!  Why the need for two huge Baroque churches?  One was built for the large German population (Tyska kyrkan, also known as Trefaldighetskyrkan) 

and the other was built for the Swedish population (Fredrikskyrkan), 

but I’m still not clear why two huge churches were needed.  Both populations were Lutheran, couldn’t they have shared a church?  Apparently not.  Not only that, but there’s a third church in downtown Karlskrona, this one on the naval base (Amiralitetskyrkan).  It was meant to be a temporary church and to be replaced with a church in stone, but the stone church never materialized. 

  
Several fires have swept through town and there are only a few buildings remaining from the city’s earliest building phase, but the most important landmarks like the central square’s churches and the governor’s palace remain.  

The Governor's Palace (Wachtmeisterska palatset, Grevegården)

Many small-scale wooden buildings from the 1700’s remain, but there are a number of larger scaled buildings from the turn of the century and from the middle of the 20th century sprinkled in.  More than any other Swedish city I’ve seen, Karlskrona’s building stock is a veritable blend with different eras jarringly sitting firewall to firewall.  

      
Additionally, 350 years later, Karlskrona is still the seat of Sweden’s navy today and the naval base features buildings spanning from the original wooden buildings from the 1600’s to fortifications from the 1700’s and from pretentious military buildings from the 1800’s to functional warehouse-like structures from the 1900’s.  So much of the naval base’s physical history remains because it has been in continuous use since its founding and has never been repurposed for civilian usage.    

Left: A glimpse of the naval base from the water with the famouse shipbuilding shed Wasaskjulet from 1763 in the background.  Right: We saw several naval ships out doing exercises.

Another reason that Karlskrona is on the World Heritage list is because the surrounding fortifications from the 1700’s that protected the route through the archipelago to the base as well as from the mainland to Trossö are still standing.  

Left: One of the forts protecting the city from the landward side.  Right: One of the forts (Godnatt) protecting the city from the water.  Both roofs are "peacetime" roofs and are meant to be removed in times of attack.

One of the 18th century fortifications, Kungsholm’s Fort, is even still in use today, but how it is used is classified information...!  

Paul Ludvig Leijonsparre's design for Kungshom's Fort from 1690 and part of the fort today (photo from Karlskrona's tourism website).

There are a number of fortification towers standing tall out in the water, and two very large forts protect the only deep channel toward Trossö.  To further control the channel, huge quantities of stone were dumped in the water between the forts, so that only those in the know could navigate toward the base.  During war, an underwater chain made the extra-narrow channel completely unpassable.  The channel was mined until the year 2000.  The mines are now apparently gone, but Kungsholm’s Fort clearly keeps a close eye on the channel even today.    

Because it is still an active military base, much of the Karlskrona World Heritage Site is actually off-limits to most visitors.  But, Swedish citizens are allowed on guided tours through limited parts of the historic base and Kungsholm’s Fort.  Unfortunately, the situation with Russia and the Ukraine means that even these limited citizen tours are cancelled—bad timing for us, but we’ll just have to go back some day.  

While we didn’t get to tour the active parts of the naval base, a small island off the “main” Trossö island called Stumholmen was decommissioned and declassified in the 1990’s.  This little island is covered in naval history and is now completely open to visitors; there’s even a fantastic naval history museum here now.  

Two historic buildings on Stumholmen.  Left: Slup- och barkasskjulet for storage of the fleet's smaller boats.  Right: The grain storage building was protected by its own high, thick stone wall and earthern fortification.

We stayed on this island in the decommissioned military prison.  Our cell wasn’t so roomy of course but it was definitely atmospheric!  

The prison's central corridor was well lit with natural light from above.  Right: our cell door.

Another decommissioned part of the World Heritage Site is the Drottningskär’s Castle, a beefy stone fortress with moats and outer walls toward land.  

We knew that the fortress was open to visitors, but not exactly what the opening hours are—no information was available on line at all.  We decided to chance it and took the ferry out to the island...and it was closed.  We could walk up to the fortress and even walk around to the water-side, but we fikaed...and read...and waited in the rain...but the fortress never succumbed to our siege. 

Drottningskär’s Castle

Eventually we gave up and took the ferry back to Karlskrona and explored a few cute “suburbs” of the town, each on their own little island.

Ekholmen on the left and Björkhomen on the right.

 
On another day, we took another ferry to the outermost island of the archipelago, Utlängan/Stenshamn.

We walked the island’s beautiful hiking trail and I fell particularly in love with all of the stone walls.

Even here, the military presence was keenly felt as we passed several gun nests as well as this military-tower-cum-barn.  We had an idyllic lunch sitting out on a big rock in the water, watching the Poland ferry trundle by.  

 

One day we rented a car and motored around the mainland, mostly looking at prehistoric sites and enjoying incredibly scenic stone-wall lined back roads.  

We stopped at a number of scenic grave fields,

stone circles, 

petroglyphs, 

and a very large rune stone called Rökstenen.  Most rune stones follow a fairly simple formula: XX raised this stone in honor of YY and ZZ carved this stone.  But this rune stone features a curse, and is the only such rune stone that I know of.  

While we were in the area, we also visited Blekinge’s best preserved and most impressive medieval church, Heliga Kors or Holy Cross Church.  

The interior murals from the 1400’s and 1500’s were just gorgeous.  

 
We also visited Kristianople which was a Danish fortress when Blekinge was still in Danish hands.  It was grounded in 1600 by King Kristian IV to protect what is now southern Sweden from the Swedes.  The fort housed not only about 1500 knights but also an entire small community supporting the military.  When Sweden finally won the region in 1677, the Swedish King ordered that the walls be destroyed so that Denmark would never again be able to use the fort against Sweden.  The walls were torn down to about 1-2 meters above the ground.  Unusually, you are encouraged to walk on the walls and you can almost completely circumnavigate the fort and the town on the walls.  

Kristianople’s church was built by the Danes and taken over by the Swedes.  While it shrunk considerably, the town never completely died out and in recent years has experienced a revival as a scenic summer holiday town.

Kristianople's church wall mural features Blekinge's oak tree with three crowns.

 
Our good friends Susanna and Johannes used to live in Karlskrona and they gave us so many great recommendations, thank you!  Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to do and see everything.  As usual, another trip is in order—I definitely wouldn’t mind exploring more of Blekinge’s idyllic oak and meadow landscape!

Being in the Swedish naval town made me think even more of my American naval heroes, Uncle Bill and cousin Buddy.  So a little shout out to you guys, too :)   

Info and maps come from:
Nils Ahlberg, Svensk Stadsplanering (2012)

Some bonus meadonw flowers never hurt!

 

SUNDAY, JUNE 12, 2022  
Sleeping in Malmö

In the beginning of May, Carl and I went down to Malmö to visit our friends Susanna and Johannes and their kiddos.  We were so busy with fun adventures outside of town that we really only slept in Malmö.  Since we took the train down after work on Friday, we got into town fairly late and went straight to bed.  

 

Saturday morning we had a relaxed breakfast before rushing off to the commuter train station to catch the train to Glumslöv, a village north of the town of Landskrona.  From the train, we walked through the blooming canola fields to the sea and Hilleshögs Dalar Nature Reserve.  

The kids took turns walking, running, sitting on their dad’s shoulders, and even getting pushed in a stroller (the youngest) on the beautiful journey south along the coast.  The trail was quite varied—down by the water, on the rolling hills above the water, through wooded sections—and very beautiful.  Spring was full effect this far south, and the greenery was so beautiful after the long Swedish winter.

 
On the northern side of the town of Landskrona, at the edge of a very picturesque historic neighborhood, we enjoyed some ice cream before taking a bus to the train station to catch the train back to Malmö.  Landskrona has some interesting sites and is definitely worth a trip of its own some day.  We had a lovely, sunny dinner in our friends’ backyard before we all collapsed into our beds to charge up for the next day’s adventures.

On Saturday we had gone north, and on Sunday we headed west to downtown Copenhagen on the commuter train.  We met up with some of Susanna and Johannes’ friends who have moved to Copenhagen and rented an electric motor boat to cruise the city’s canals.  Carl was our captain.  Exploring the historic districts by boat was a fun and new-to-us way to see the city.

 

After the boat ride, we spent most of the afternoon in a couple of Copenhagen’s playgrounds, Susanna and I with a beer—when in Copenhagen...  Eventually Susanna and the kiddos headed home while Johannes and I stayed to do some archi-dorking around some newly redeveloped areas in the old port areas of Nordhavnen.  We walked the new neighborhoods and photographed a lot of details.  My favorite project was a vine-covered parking garage with a rooftop playground, 

but there were quite a lot of interesting details to take in.  

That evening, Johannes and I had dinner in a super cozy café that Susanna had suggested (it turned out that Carl and I have actually eaten there before!) before heading to a lecture in Jean Nouvel’s new DR Concert Hall.  We learned about biodiversity and the Sixth Extinction—a frightening and important and overwhelming topic that the scientist somehow managed to close on a positive note.  For some reason, after the lecture, both the subway and the commuter trains were shut down in that part of Copenhagen, so getting back to Malmö proved to be a more complicated and more time-consuming adventure than expected.  But we managed to get back eventually, and Susanna even picked us up at the commuter train station in the middle of the night.

I stayed an extra day and worked from the Malmö office the next day before taking the evening train on a new-to-me stretch of track toward Göteborg for a continuing education class I am attending this year.  When I finally got home late Tuesday night, I was ready to be home.  But it was such a fun, whirlwind weekend in Malmö.  Thank you for everything Susanna and Johannes!     

 

WEDNESDAY, MAY 18, 2022  
Best Ski Touring Ever

Over Easter, Carl and I skied Skäckerfjällen and in many ways it was our best ski touring adventure ever.  Skäckerfjällen is a mountainous region in the northwest corner of Jämtland, along the border with Norway, about halfway up Sweden’s long landmass.  It is not on the main public transportation route and was a bit complicated to get to.  First, we took the night train from Stockholm to Östersund.  The private cabins were sold out so we were in a shared cabin with 6 people—needless to say, I didn’t sleep all that much.  In Östersund, we rented a car and then drove about 2.5 hours to the end of the road at the little village of Kolåsen.  When I write end of the road, I mean that literally.  To get to Kolåsen, you turn off the paved regional road and travel along a gravel road for a while.  The gravel road ends at a very small community overlooking a large lake and the Skäckerfjällen mountains.  We left our car at Kolåsen where our trail would end and caught an expensive hour-long ride to the trailhead at Anjan. 

Before our ski touring trips, we’re always worried that there won’t be enough snow.  After a nearly disastrous and very wet ski touring adventure a few years ago, we’re also worried that the ice on the rivers and lakes won’t be thick enough and that there will be lots of meltwater on the surface.  When we arrived at Anjan and saw the five foot high wall of snow at the edge of the road, we realized that we didn’t have to worry any longer.  There was still plenty of snow this year.  

The trail started uphill through the spruce forest and before long we were approaching tree line.  The day was beautifully sunny with almost no wind, and going uphill, we stripped off layer after layer.  When we got high enough that the views started opening up, we stopped for a long, relaxed lunch.  It was so warm and sunny and wind still that we sat in our long johns, with no jackets, shoes, or even socks.  It was the perfect kind of day that doesn’t come along all that often, and we let ourselves relax and not stress about making a certain mileage.  

 
Not stressing was one of the best parts of our Skäckerfjällen adventure.  There is a 30 kilometer-long marked winter trail through the reserve stretching from Anjan to Kolåsen which we could easily ski over two days.  We had five days and wanted to also ski off-trail around a mountain massif, but even that route didn’t require very long days (assuming the weather and snow cooperated!).  We could ski as little or as much as we wanted without stressing about making it back to civilization in time to catch our train.  

After lunch, we proceeded uphill, stopping for a long fika break when the mountain views got more dramatic.  We also made several attempts at telemarking down mild slopes, but the snow was somewhat crusty so the telemark skiing was challenging.

 

We passed by an emergency wind shelter where several groups were camping.  They were all in Skäckerfjällen for the top-tour skiing (climbing up to peaks and skiing down them) and the wind shelter provided a convenient home base close to several peaks.  We, on the other hand, were in the mountains for ski touring (basically cross-country skiing but with hardier skis) and continued up the valley toward a high pass.  We debated climbing up to the pass and camping with wide views in every direction, but since the day was so warm and sunny and beautiful, we decided to prioritize sitting, relaxing, and enjoying the sun.  We stopped about an hour below the pass and Carl dug us a sun bench aka cocktail lounge in the snow.  We sat in the sun, sipped cognac, and enjoyed the mountain view for a couple of hours until the sun sank behind the ridge. 

  

Only then did we set up the tent and sort our gear.  Without wind, we could continue sitting outside to cook and enjoy our dinner.  Being mid-April and a good bit north of Stockholm, it didn’t get dark until around 10pm.  

 
The morning of Day 2 also dawned sunny and wind still—one such day in the Swedish mountains is rare, two in a row is miraculous.  We ate breakfast in our cocktail lounge and packed up our gear.  We then skied up, up, up to the pass.  The pass was farther up than it looked, and we were glad that we had prioritized lounging in the sun the evening before.

On the way up to the pass, we saw a large herd of reindeer.  Despite being fairly far away from them, we startled them and they trotted up the slope away from us.  It was a beautiful experience to watch them run through the snow, one after the other. 

Soon after seeing the reindeer, we made it to the top of the pass.  We sat on a small cliff edge and snacked while looking out over the next incredible valley that we would be skiing through.  

The pass was the highest point of the trip, and we would more or less spend the next 3.5 days skiing downhill.  The winter trail down from the pass was surprisingly steep, and even with skins on our skis, we had to zig-zag down.  We were passed by a couple of top-tour skiers who had downhill skis and no big backpacks, and at that moment we were pretty jealous of how effortlessly they could ski downhill.  We veered off the winter trail to explore a side valley and managed to ski slightly downhill all the way to the head of the valley at the base of the next pass.  There, we took off our packs and spent a while telemark skiing down the slope and climbing back up, skiing down, climbing up, repeatedly.  We eventually sat and had another snack while watching a group of four ski down the peak in front of us.  The downhill backcountry skiing sure did look fun. . . .  Carl and I have never been more tempted by the idea of top-tour skiing!  

 

We strapped our skis back on and skied down and out of the valley and eventually reconnected with the trail.  We followed the trail into the next dramatic U-shaped glacier-carved valley where we lounged in the sun and ate lunch while enjoying the dramatic view.

After lunch, we left the trail and started circumnavigating a mountain massif.  We would not see other people for the next three days.  After a skiing for a while, I turned around to look at where we had come from and wow, what a view.  We could see the pass we had crossed over that morning, both side valleys that we had explored, and all of the surrounding peaks.  

 
We skied slightly uphill over a shoulder of the mountain we were circumnavigating and then stopped for a fika break when we could see down into the side valley where we planned to camp.  Across the valley, a deep cornice of snow was overhanging the ridge.  We made note not to camp too close to that mountainside!  

 

At camp at the bottom of the valley, we dug another cocktail lounge/sun bench in the snow and set up the tent.  Our boots weren’t sopping yet, but we took the opportunity to dry out our boots and socks in the sun.  We sat in the sun basking in the warmth, the views, and the incredible weather, sipping more cognac and reading off and on for several hours.  It felt so luxurious—not just the miraculous weather, but not having to ski all day and being able to just relax and enjoy.  Eventually we made dinner and enjoyed it on the sun bench before crawling to bed.    

Day 3 dawned overcast.  The valley was foggy and the light was so flat that we couldn’t see what was up or down, but once we climbed out of the valley the visibility improved greatly and we could see ahead into Norway.  We continued around the massif while continually descending ever so slightly.  We stopped for a fika break and enjoyed the view out over Norway before rounding the massif and descending into the Rutsdalen valley.  

We timed the downhill so that we hit the valley floor right at the valley’s pass so that we avoided having to ski uphill at all.  This pass was at tree line and was quite undramatic, especially compared to the pass we had crossed the day before.  At the pass, we stopped for lunch.  The wind was still pretty mild, but it was blowing enough to make stopping chilly, so Carl dug us a snow bench with a high back to block the wind.  We were relatively cozy, but by the time we finished lunch, the wind had picked up and was blowing strongly and steadily.  

 

We continued along the valley for a while and eventually turned into another side valley.  We put on our skins and climbed steeply.  The wind increased the higher we climbed, and by the time we reached the hanging valley where we planned to camp, the wind was a force to be reckoned with.  However, the wind broke up the clouds and it started to clear up a bit.  It was far from the craziest winter wind we have camped in so we weren’t worried about the tent collapsing, but it was too windy to enjoy sitting outside.

 
We spent quite a long time digging a low platform for our tent and then constructing a windbreak wall out of snow blocks.  It was hard work which kept us warm despite the wind.  Once we had the tent up, we crawled in and sat in our camp chairs reading.  We kept the front door of the tent open so that we could look out over the valley from the cozy tent.

 
The morning of Day 4 dawned hazy, but by the time we were ready to start skiing, the sky was completely clear of any clouds.  The wind had totally disappeared and we lucked out with yet another incredibly sunny, wind still day.  

We skied deeper into the side valley, passing the site of a previous avalanche.  

We kept skiing until we could see the head of the valley and the pass over to where we had started our circumnavigation.  We hadn’t been skiing for long, but the view was so beautiful that we had to stop for a fika break and bask in the scenery.  We witnessed several small avalanches during our fika break.  We had really, really wanted to ski over the pass we were gazing up at, but it was just slightly over the avalanche-safety threshold, and considering that we saw several avalanches within half an hour, it wasn’t hard to decide to go the long way around instead of up and over.

Eventually we skied down and out of the side valley and back into the big, wide Rutsdalen valley.  We passed a number of ancient, gnarled pine trees that stood in small clusters.  

While the snow cover was generally still good, we passed by more and more and larger and larger patches of bare land.  We crossed and re-crossed the valley’s winding river and enjoyed skiing on the very flat boglands beside the river.  

 

We stopped for a sunny, relaxed lunch and were so enjoying the relaxed pace that we decided not to continue skiing that day.  Instead, we made camp then and there and spent almost the entire afternoon and evening sitting in yet another cocktail lounge/snow bench, reading, basking in the sun, and enjoying the view.  Carl found us a nearby slope that was a perfect angle for testing our telemark skills, and we proceeded to ski up and down, up and down.  After a while I went back to camp for more lounging and reading while Carl continued to telemark.  

 
The sun had shifted to the western quadrant of the sky, so Carl dug us a final sun bench, this time facing west.  The wind was still completely absent, and we ate dinner while watching the sun disappear behind one ridge, reappear in the valley, and then finally sink behind another ridge.  The relaxed, sunny afternoon and evening had passed by far too quickly and all too soon it was time to go to bed.

 
Our final day in Skäckerfjällen proved to be yet another warm, sunny, wind-still day.  Having such perfect weather four out of five days is unheard of in the Swedish mountains, and we enjoyed every second of it, even while worrying that we were going to run out of sunscreen, thinking that we should have brought sun hats, and sweating rivers while skiing.  

After breaking camp, we continued skiing down the Rutsdalen valley toward Kolåsen.  Right before we  re-joined the official winter trail, we stopped for a fika break and spent some time telemarking down a perfectly graded slope. 

 

We continued down the valley and there were more and more trees.  Considering the hot sun beating down on us and reflecting off the snow, we were thankful every time we crossed into a bit of shade and stopped to enjoy the coolness.  Eventually the flat, boggy valley transformed into a steep ravine, and the winter trail became crazy steep.  We had thought it was steep on the other side when we were skiing in, but this was a whole different world of steepness.  There was absolutely no way to ski down the steep slopes in touring skis, especially with the thick forest of trees on either side of the trail, so we had to take our skis off and walk down.  We could see that other people before us had also come to the same conclusion, and we walked in their post holes.  

This steep section lasted for quite a while and we eventually neared the river again.  Here, the river was open and we could hear a rushing torrent.  It was about time for lunch so we followed the sound of the water through the trees to the riverbank.  It turned out that the rushing torrent we could hear was actually a big waterfall.  Just below the waterfall, the river divided into two streams around an island.  The stream on the far side of the island was open, but the stream closest to us was still covered with ice and snow.  We crossed the ice to the island and skied to the tip of the island closest to the waterfall for an incredibly scenic picnic lunch.  We ate and then continued to lounge in the sun for another hour or so, reading, enjoying the waterfall, and wringing every possible second out of our adventure before leaving the backcountry.  

 
We had a train to catch so we eventually had to leave our magical island.  The trail continued to be steep and hard to ski for another kilometer, but soon it had descended all the way to the huge lake at Kolåsen.  We skied out on the ice all the way back to the village.  It was a bit of a culture shock to get back to the tiny village after being out in the wilderness and not seeing another human being for days on end.  We would have loved to stay out in the wilderness for another week or more, but alas, we had to get back to our jobs.  We drove back to Östersund where we ate hamburgers out on a dock before returning our rental car and climbing aboard the night train to Stockholm.  We showered and climbed into bed in our blissfully private sleeping compartment and awoke in Stockholm.  An hour later, we were clickety clacketing on our computers, back at work, almost as if we had never left.         

    

Skäckerfjällen is nicknamed “Sweden’s Alaska” (the area is a mecca for top-tour skiing) and “Little Sarek” (Sarek is Sweden’s largest wilderness—a wonderland of mountains and glaciers and rivers but no trails and extremely few bridges which are only in place to facilitate reindeer herding, not recreation).  I can’t say that Skäckerfjällen quite lives up to either Alaska or Sarek, but it is indeed a special, beautiful, sparsely visited place.  Skäckerfjällen is protected as a nature reserve and some, but not all, of the neighboring mountain ranges are also protected as nature reserves.  On the Norwegian side of the border, however, the entire area is protected as Blåfjella-Skjaekerfjella National Park.  While we have now explored one corner of the mountainous region, there is still much to explore and I am looking forward to future adventures in these mountains.

I so completely fell in love with the area that I have set up a real estate alert for Kolåsen.  I can’t think of a better place to retire.  While there are plenty of small communities in the Swedish mountains, there are few villages with such amazing views, or that are so close to such wild and dramatic landscapes.  It looks like a house gets sold in Kolåsen ever five or seven years or so...not a lot of turnover in other words.  But maybe we’ll get lucky and the perfect house will go on sale just when we’re ready to leave the big city?

I always love our ski touring adventures.  I am never ready to go home.  But there are usually several really tough days due to the distance, or to sticky snow, or to blisters, or to storm-force winds, or a combination of all four like last year.  On this trip, however, we were incredibly lucky to have good weather, good snow, no blisters, and short stages.  The combination made for a relaxing, beautiful, stress-free trip that was pure enjoyment.  Future ski-touring adventures are going to be hard to live up to our experience in Skäckerfjällen.      

Older Posts