In late February me, my wife and C decided to go on a road trip to do some Geocaching. In our part of the world it’s been raining more or less non stop for since beginning of October, and this weekend would be one of the rare ones with sun.

We decided to go to Tiveden national park, situated between the two largest lakes in Sweden, Vänern and Vättern. Tiveden is roughly a 3h drive from home. The last times I was there camping was prohibited within the park, but since then the park has expanded some 30-50% (not sure about the exact numbers), and now has two designated campsites. These are fairly small though, and you’re only allowed to have the tent pitched between 18.00-10.00.

When we arrived I ran out to one of the campsites to check it out, and see if it was possible to bring the tipi and the stove out there. We had also brought a backpacking tent, in case it would prove to hard to carry the heavy gear to the campsite.

After I had checked out the campsite, we drove to the main entrance of the park, and started to hike in the northern parts of the park. Tiveden national park consists of old pine forests and steep cliffs. I’ve been here a couple of times before, but this was the first time my family came along.

We hiked a mixed route where we followed parts of the yellow, grey and purple routes, and found some Geocaches along the way.

We had some spectacular views over the lake Stora Trehörningen, in the sunset. Despite being one of the few sunny days, and during the February school break, it was fairly few people there.

After our hike, and bagging a few Geocaches, we got back to the main entrance and drove back to the southern parts of Tiveden, to get to the campsite on Mellannäsudden.

It was dark when we got there, and we had to hike with the head lamps on the narrow trail out to the camp site. I had the stove and cooking gear on my back, a bag of fire wood in one hand and the tipi in the other hand. It was only a 1 km walk, but it was a hard km. The tipi weighs 10+ kg, the stove with the cooking gear probably weighs 15+ kg and I don’t know how much the firewood weighted. But since my wife isn’t too fond of camping I wanted to bring luxury.

Once there it felt really nice to set up the tipi and the stove and get going with dinner. The campsite did have some firewood, an axe, a saw and a privy. It was a nice place, but I guess it will be crowded during peak season.

We snuggled up in the tipi and enjoyed our good food before going to bed. The sky was clear with no clouds, and there wasn’t any wind. I went outside too cool off, and stood a long time by the lake, just enjoying the silence and watching the stars in the sky and their reflection in the mirror-like lake.

The temperature dropped during the night, and the next morning a thin layer of ice had formed on the lake. The winds picked up, and the large thin ice sheet blew towards the shore, where it cracked to pieced, that piled up on the shore. It was a marvelous spectacle.

After packing up we carried all of our gear back to the car, and drove to the entrance at Vitsand, where we hiked out to the campsite Käringaudden and took a couple of Geocaches on the way.

We left Tiveden, and spent the next night at a hotel in Arboga, before driving back home again.

 Tiveden is a beautiful area, and I want to come back here again when it’s warmer outside. But it’s a place I really recommend visiting.