After a group of us visited Norway for a week long hiking expedition in the Joutenheim National Park last Summer, this year we had our minds set on a bigger and better challenge, so this year we planned a seven day expedition across Arctic Sweden, which would include an attempt at climbing Sweden’s highest mountain – Mt Kebnekaise.
After an extremely wet practise expedition in the Scottish Highlands at Easter, in June a group of seven enthusiastic members headed out to Sweden ready to complete one our most challenging and exciting expeditions yet. After a seventeen hour train Journey from Stockholm, we arrived at our starting point, a small village called Abisko which is located in northern Sweden, over 200 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle. From there, our planned route would take us south along the Kungsleden – which in English translates as King’s Trail – heading towards Kebnekaise – before heading west towards our finishing point of Nikkaluokata.
It all started well with us making excellent progress over the first two days hiking, enjoying the beautiful scenery and wilderness that northern Sweden has to offer. Having made good progress so far, our third day was meant to be a nice and easy day, with just a relatively short distance to travel to where we intended to camp. The reality was very different. We decided to take a detour from the main path into a valley in order to get up close to some glaciers. The snow in the valley we were heading up however was much deeper than expected, and we soon found ourselves hiking through knee deep snow whilst traversing a steep slope, which was incredibly tiring and frustrating work.
Due to all the snow however we couldn’t stop and camp where we wanted, and had to keep walking though the night until 3am where we eventually found some suitable ground to camp on.
After another day hiking through deep snow we rejoined the main trail at Salka, and from there a long days walk took us to the base of Kebnekaise.
From there, a final day of hiking took us to the village of Nikkaloukata, the finish point of the expedition. After an awesome seven days in the mountains, we caught the bus back to Kiruna before boarding the train for the long journey back to Stockholm.Looking up towards the peak form where we were stood in the valley below, the route to the top looked ridiculously challenging, with steep slopes covered in snow and ice. The next morning, two of the group, Fergal and Richard, set off on their attempt to reach the summit, with the rest of the group opting to have a relaxing day at camp. Twelve hours later, they returned, feeling rather pleased to have successfully reached the summit of Sweden’s highest mountain.
From there, a final day of hiking took us to the village of Nikkaloukata, the finish point of the expedition. After an awesome seven days in the mountains, we caught the bus back to Kiruna before boarding the train for the long journey back to Stockholm.
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