I decided to get out this weekend too. I had just purchased an Exped Winterlite sleeping mat, and I wanted to try it. The weather report predicted lows of around -5º C and it seemed like a good time to try it out.

I had planned to go to Lerike, at the north end of the lake Helgasjön. It’s a short drive from home, and the nature is beautiful there. There aren’t any marked trails, but I planned to hike off-trail and just see where I ended up.

At around noon, I parked as far out on Lerike as I could get. There is a lean-to here, but I don’t like to camp on spots like these, but prefer to get away a bit. I hiked out on a cape, that becomes an island when the water rises. It’s just a small cape and I followed the shoreline around it and got back again. On the far edge of the cape there was a homemade lean-to covered in branches and leaves. I remember going here as a boy-scout when I was a kid, so may it was made by scouts.

I kept hiking the shoreline westbound. I’ve mostly hiked on trails, and it is somewhat constricting to just follow the trail, and have a designated goal to reach. Hiking off-trail gives you more freedom to explore, and without a trail to follow, even smaller areas can take time to explore. I didn’t put many kilometers behind me, but that wasn’t the goal with this trip. I just wanted to get outside and enjoy nature.

As I hiked I looked for good places to set up my tent. There were good places everywhere on the first streach, so I planned to get back there later if I didn’t find any other spots.

After a while I came to a beach. There was a fire ring there, and I made a poor attempt to make a fire. But I really didn’t put much effort into it. I don’t have any mad firemaking skills, and I didn’t take the time needed to find dry firewood, and as I didn’t want to get a lot of sand in my gear I continued and found another great place to make lunch.

After my lunch I continued along the shoreline. The forest changed, and eventually the forest consisted of mainly spruce and pine.

I went on for a while, but then came close to a farmhouse. I didn’t really hike far, but since I took it slow, and hiked off-trail, it took some time. I went through the forest and back to the shoreline on the side that I first hiked. I’d like to hike around the entire lake someday, but today I cut it short, and with the sun setting it was time to get the tent up.

I found a good spot that I had passed earlier and set up my Hilleberg Enan. It was starting to get colder and around 17.00 I made dinner, Mint-couscous with feta. It was delicious.

Wise from last weeks wet experience with condensation I decided to sleep with the fly-door open. And I didn’t have any problems with condensation, but it did get colder that with a closed door.

I wish I could say that I slept good, but I had a bad pain in my upper back even before I went out. And it got worse during the night. I toss and turn quite a lot at night, and every time I changed position I had to brace myself for the pain of moving. But despite the poor sleep I was glad to be out there.

When I woke up the skies were clear and the air was cold. I laid in my sleeping bag for some time before I got up and made breakfast.

This trip I brought my 120g cellfoam sleeping mat to use on breaks. In an effort to praise the UL god I had skipped it on most precious trips. But it was perfect to have one a cold trip like this. It was very comfortable to roll out the mat, and lay on it as the water was coming to a boil. I’ll definitely bring it on trips in the colder season, and probably on other trips to. It’s tricky to balance weight vs comfort as too much emphasis on either one of them will reduce comfort.

After breakfast I packed up and left. It was around 10.30 and it was only a short hike back to the car.

I was considering hiking a while longer, but eventually I decided to get back home.

On this hike I did try to make a short hiking movie. Unfortunately I didn’t bring a large enough SD-card so I didn’t film a lot. But I’ll try to put something together from the clips, and put it on Youtube.