I begun my interest in the outdoors with hiking. I had traditional heavy weight gear, and though I enjoyed the outdoors there was too much discomfort with it. I learned about Ultralight backpacking and gradually reduced my base weight, one item at the time and I did quite a few hiking trips. I found a perfect balance between camp comfort and hiking comfort. This last year, and the trips this year too, has mostly been camping trips though. Trips with heavy gear, focused on comfort, and that’s been really nice too.
I’ve been less inclined to leave my wife with all the kids at home, even though she’s ok with it. And I do love to bring C with me (the only one in the family except me who enjoys the outdoors), but I really miss hiking. The trip with Brian last November was very much needed. Camp comfort and munching on a big fat load of good food is nice, but as a remedy for the soul, hiking does the trick better. I like the monotony of hiking from dawn to dusk, barely stopping to eat, but just snacking on route. Pushing myself, clearing my head and emptying my brain of thoughts. It’s a meditative state and a form of mindfulness I guess. I’ve gone back to watching UL hiking videos on YouTube, and I long to get back into hiking, and I miss the mountains.
I hope I’ll go to Hardangervidda this year, and I’d really like to hike the Arctic Circle Trail soon. We’ll see what the future has in store.
There are quite a few hiking trails and places that I hope and plan to hike someday. The shorter ones are easier to combine with family life, while others will have to wait until the kids are grown up, or at least until my youngest are old enough to come with me. Anyways, here’s my list. Please comment with your own bucket list. Any advice on more trails are welcome 🙂
Jämtlandstriangeln between the mountain stations Storulvån, Sylarna and Blåhammaren. A 46 km long trail and should take around 3 days to complete. Maybe I’ll be able to get here next year.
Gr 20 in Corsica, known as the toughest long distance trail in Europe. The 180 km long trail traverses the island north to south across the mountains. From videos I’ve seen it seems to be a pretty tough hike, but the trail is supposed to be well marked. Depending on the speed, it should take somewhere between 9 to 12 days. Cam Honan wrote a quick-guide to this trail recently.
Arctic Circle Trail in Greenland. This 160 km trail goes across Greenland, from Kangerlussuaq to Sisimiut. I had initially planned to hike ACT this summer, but it has been postponed. Hopefully I’ll get there next summer. I’ve planned two weeks for the hike and traveling back and forth, but the trail itself should take somewhere between 7 to 12 days to complete.
John Muir Trail in Sierra Nevada, California. It’s been described as one of the most beautiful trails in the world. It’s a 338 km long trail and goes through Yosemite National Park, Ansel Adams Wilderness, Sequoia National Park, King’s Canyon National Park and ends at Mount Whitney, the highest point in continental USA. My estimation is that it should take up to three weeks to complete.
Tasmania. I’ve read a couple of trip reports and seen videos from Tasmania, and sometime I’d like to hike here. I don’t have any specific trail in mind, but I’d really like to go here someday and hike for 2 to 3 weeks.
Thru-hiking Kungsleden in northern Sweden. The whole trail is 440 km long, from Hemavan in the south to Abisko in the north. I think it should take somewhere between 2 to 3 weeks to complete the whole trail, and I want to hike it north-bound.
I want to go to Alaska for 2 to 4 weeks, hiking and packrafting. As with Tasmania I don’t have a specific place in mind for now.
Colorado Trail is a 782 km long trail, and an estimation is that it takes 4 to 6 weeks to complete. From blogs and videos it seems to be a beautiful trail.
Gröna- and vita bandet (The green- and white ribbon) from Grövelsjön, 1300 km to Treriksröset along the Scandinavian mountains. The plan is to hike the green ribbon and ski the white ribbon. It should take roughly 3 month each. I’m not overly fond of having to follow certain rules, so I might just do the hiking and skiing without actually applying and getting the ribbon.
Pacific Crest Trail When I found the hiking passion a couple of year ago I also first heard of the Pacific Crest Trail. The 4279 km long trail goes from the US-Mexico border, through California, Oregon and Washington to the US-Canada border. I’ve read several blogs, read Cheryl Strayeds “Wild” and watched countless of YouTube-videos about it, and I really want to get there. I think the hike itself should take somewhere between 4 to 6 months. Of course this will have to wait until my kids are grown up. But PCT is the number one favorite on my bucket list today.
Te Araroa is a relatively new trail, and it wasn’t finished until 2011. The trail is 3000 km long and goes along both the main islands on New Zeeland. 3 to 6 month is the estimated time to complete the trail. As with the PCT this is something that will have to wait a few years.
Please comment and let me know about your favorite hiking trails, that you’d either hiked or want to hike.
As I’ve wrote in previous posts, my big trips this year was planned to be the Arctic Circle Trail between Kangerlussuak and Sisimiut in Greenland. I had really been looking forward to it, and basically everything was planned, except buying the plane tickets. The thing is though that I’m also going on a week-long hike with my childhood friend Fredrik, who hiked with me in Jotunheimen last year. Three weeks away from my family this summer was to much, and I decided to postpone the trip to Greenland. It actually felt like a hard choice to make as I was dead set on getting to Greenland, and my planning had to start from the beginning again. My wife has told me though that we’ll make sure I can go to Greenland next summer instead.
I still wanted to go on a two-week hike, but Fredrik wanted to hike for a week at the most. To make this work, I had to come up with a route that would make it possible for me to start hiking a week in advance, meet up with Fredrik and then continue together. I also needed to make sure there were shortcuts to our meetup point if weather or my physique would keep me from reaching it in time.
If I could make this work, I would still get the solitude I wanted the first week, and then a second week of hiking with a good friend. I started to look at Sarek, but I’ve never been there, and from answers in Swedens largest outdoor forum I came to the conclusion that it would be hard to put together a 1+1 week trip that didn’t include Fredrik flying out with a helicopter to a meetup point. I knew before even asking him that this wouldn’t be an option. I also felt that hiking for the first time Sarek, with no marked trails, shouldn’t be done with a timeschedule like that.
Eventually I looked at Kungsleden, the Kings trail, and the possibility to meet up at Nikkaluokta and hike to Abisko together. My plan was to start south of Nikkaluokta about a week before Fredrik. The starting point had to close enough to reach Nikkaluokta in time even if the weather forced me to have a rest day or I would hike slower than I had planned. But I also wanted to be able to take a longer route if I hiked as fast, or faster than planned.
My planned route to Nikkaluokta
After looking at the maps and searching for places to get to by bus I planned to start at Vakkotavare, in the lower left corner of the map. I would then follow the green line to Singistugorna. Here, I could turn east and hike to Nikkaluokta (the red line). This route should take approximately 3 day. But my initial plan is to keep following the green line until 2,5-3 km before Sälkastugorna. Here I’ll turn east along Gaskkasjohka. I could turn south again and take a shortcut to Kebnekaise mountainstation and then hike to Nikkaluokta (the orange line), keep hiking to Kaskavagge and there turn south to Kebnekasie mountainstation (the yellow line). But the plan is to hike around the mountain Palkastak and then hike south along Visttasvaggi until I reach Nikkaluokta (where the red and green line meets in the right part of the map).
The planned route, following the green line, should take somewhere between 6-7 days. The rest of the hike, between Nikkaluokta and Abisko should take somewhere between 5-6 days.
I have also done a few gear changes. A few very large gear changes. I did spontaneously bought the Exped Expedition 80 backpack, but I realized that I didn’t want to go the heavier route, but instead will try to fit two weeks worth of gear and food in my Exped Lightning 60 pack. If I come to the conclusion that I’ll need a bigger pack I’ll probably just go with the Hyperlite Mountain Gear 4400 Southwest instead. A sub-1kg 70l backpack.
But I’ll do my best to get the gear to fit in my 60l backpack. I thought I’d use this summers trip to test it. Otherwise it would be easier to have just one weeks worth of food in the backpack and then post a food cache to Nikkaluokta and restock for the second week. We’ll see how I’ll do it.
Anyways, I’m a bit embarrassed to write about it, but I sold the Expedition 80 pack without even using it. I don’t want do start using heavier gear again, and I think I’ll be fine using the Lightning. I also sold two old backpacks that haven’t been used for a long time, my Hilleberg Enan and my Luxe Outdoor Sil Hexpeak.
With this setup my shelter, with polestraps, groundsheet, tent pegs and bivy will weigh ~900g. And it will be large enough to use with my wife or with two of my kids. Hopefully this will subdue my gear ADHD and I’ll stick with what I got.
In a few hours from writing this 2016 will end and 2017 will begin. I’ve never really cared much about New Years Eve as a holiday. For years I’ve been working nights either on New Years Eve or started early the morning after. But I do like to make plans for my life in a year to year basis, and I have started to lay out the plans for my outdoor life in the next year.
2016 offered stunning viewsPlans for 2017
I plan to get out on at least one overnight trip every month. I didn’t succeed with this in 2016, but I’ll make another attempt this year. I got better hours on my new job, with no work on weekends, and that will probably make it easier to get away.
I want to spend at least 10% of the years nights sleeping outside, under the stars, in a tent, in a lean-to or otherwise out in nature. That’s 36 night, and shouldn’t be impossible to do.
Travel to Greenland and hike the Arctic Circle Trail. The planning is nearly done, and I’ve done some gear purchases, put away money for the plane tickets and notified my boss about vacation for the planned weeks.
Lots of day hikes with my youngest daughter since I’ll be home from work with her quite a lot up until August when she’ll start to go to kindergarten.
I’ll start with some more advanced, yet lightweight, outdoor cooking this year. I’m getting tired of eating the same freezer bag meals as always, and it will be fun to expand the culinary experience.
Buy a canoe and have overnight canoetrips on both Helgasjön and Åsnen. Åsnen is the second largest lake in Småland, and parts of it will most likely be transformed to a National park in the near future. This goal however is depending on whether I can afford to spend that much money or not. I got my eye set on this beauty
Work on getting a hiking trail around Helgasjön. I’ve been in contact with the local authorities and it’s been up for discussion, but they won’t fund it right now. But I know there are more hikers around Växjö who’d like a trail there, and I’ll try to get more people to push for it.
Make the blog more active and write at least once a week, preferably two times a week.
Start making movies of my hikes and movies with gear reviews.
This year I also want to seriously start planning for a shift in my life, with more passive income than today, and find ways to cut down on office time and maybe find a way to make an income from my outdoor interest. I have both Angeliqa Mejstedt from Vandringsbloggen and Philip Werner from sectionhiker.com as role models. Both of them have a larger outdoor experience than me and have a really large number of readers, but you got to start somewhere 🙂
These are the plans I have now for the next year. Some will be easier to succeed with than others but in general, I’ll try to spend more time in the outdoors and focus more actively on finding alternative ways to make an income. In a year or so I’ll summarize how well I did in reaching my goals.
Happy new year everyone. Let’s make it a great one!
The New Years Eve is closing in, and it’s time to sum up the past year. My goal for the year was to get out on at least one overnight trip every month of the year.
I didn’t succeed with this though, but I did get out on quite a few trips.
My third child was born, so hiking was not a priority in Februari.
March:
A two night trip on John Bauerleden north of Jönköping in the beginning of March, that nearly ruined my feet.
An overnighter again in the end of March on Vildmarksleden near Åseda. I got sick during the hike and spent the next few days in bed after this hike.
April:
I didn’t get away on a hike this month.
May:
A two night trip to Tresticklan and Lundsneset in the Swedish-Norwegian border. This trip was great and I’ll be back here more times to explore the area.
June:
No trip this month either.
July:
I didn’t get out on an overnight trip this month either, but I wrote a post about an afternoon hike in Greece.
The “big” trip this year begun in late August and ended in the beginning of September and was a week-long hike in Jotunheimen in Norway. It was a great trip with mostly good weather. It was very windy though. But I can’t wait to get back to some real mountains again.
October:
In late October I finally got out on a trip. I had planned for a two night hike in Tiveden, but really poor weather made me change my mind, and despite the long drive I ended up with a short overnighter.
November:
In the beginning of November I got out on an overnighter on Helgö, just outside Växjö. It was one of the first cold nights, and I woke up to a white layer of snow. I did have some serious condensation on this trip.
In the middle of the month I got out again. This time on an overnighter in Lerike, at the north end of the lake Helgasjön. Everything was covered in a thick layer of frost, and the nature was absolutely stunning. I tried to make a short video of the trip, but it got quite short since I had forgotten to bring a larger memory card. I haven’t decided if I’m going to publish it or not.
December:
No trip this month, but in the first week of January I plan to be out in the wild again.
When it comes to gear I both added and changed a few things. My biggest purchase was the Hilleberg Enan. I actually like it better than I thought I would. I was afraid I’d find it too small and cramped, but it felt a lot roomier than expected.
I also bought a down quilt from Cumulus. This was my first time using a quilt instead of a sleeping bag, and I’m still not sure if I like it. I might end up selling it, and buying a Liteline 400 instead.
I also bought an Exped Winterlite sleeping pad. I really like my Synmat 7 UL, but as soon as the temperatures drop below freezing I find it too cold. It was comfortable and warm, but the mummyshape takes some getting used to.
During the fall I started to stock up gear for my planned ACT hike. After the trip to Jotunheimen I realised that I would have a hard time fitting 12-14 days worth of food in my 60l backpack (it’s not like it can’t be done, but I’d have a hard time making it work). The hike takes somewhere between 9-11 days, but I might also start at the Ice cap, with will add 40 km to the trail. I also want to do some more advanced outdoor cooking than just eating my freezer bag meals. It also seems to be really hard to get gas canisters in Greenland and a multi fuel stove seems to be the best way to go. For this I purchased an Exped Expedition 80 backpack, a Trangia 27 ULHA and the multi fuel burner X2 to the Trangia. I did put some thought down before I bought the Trangia, considering it’s weight and volume. But in Norway, where I was constantly above timberline and with really strong winds most of the time I did miss having a sturdy stove with a better windshield. Cooking was a pain in the ass when the windshield almost blew away and much of the heat escaped because of the wind.
I’m constantly trying to improve my gear and find the perfect gear for me and for the designated trip. I try to conserve my shopping in my everyday life, but when it comes to outdoor gear, I think I have a problem. 🙂
All things considered, I had a great hiking year. I do want to get out a lot more than I do. But it is a balance between familylife, work and my need to get out on hikes.
Next year I’d really like to buy a pair of Åsnes Sondre and get out on a winter trip. I also have loosely planned to buy a canoe, and if so, it’ll most likely be an Esker Wood Ki Chi Saga. It was love at first sight, and I’ll go to their showroom next year and look at one up close. There aren’t that many good hiking trails close to Växjö (if you don’t like dark spruce forests), but Småland is littered with lakes, and with a canoe I can do a lot of trips in beautiful scenery close to home. It’s a really big investment though and I don’t know if I can prioritize the cost.
I wish you all a happy new year, and I hope that you have a lot of great trips in 2017!
In the last few week I’ve been slowly starting to prepare for next years trip to Greenland. As I’ve wrote before I plan to hike the Arctic Circle Trail in late August – early September next year. I’ve started to make a packlist, e-mailed questions to the Greenland Tourist bureau and the Arctic Circle business, and started to make a list of the food I plan to bring, and what ingredients I need to dry.
I will bring food for 12 days, and I actually plan to do some more cooking then usual, as I’m starting to grow tired of my freezerbag-meals. For this I’ll bring a Trangia 27-1 ULHA. It’s not UL at all with a weight of 760g with the gasburner. But it’s a real stabile stoveset suitable for more cooking.
Bringing that much food calls for a bigger backpack. My 60l Exped Lightning is a great pack. But I filled it up with only one weeks worth of food. And I also want to be able to take food that takes more volume to and not feel restricted by the volume of the pack.
That’s why I ordered an Exped Expedition 80 from komplettfritid.no. It normally cost around 4500SEK on most places i looked, but komplettfritid had a discount and sold them for less 3200SEK. I was too slow to order though, and when I finally decided to buy one the discount was gone. I e-mailed komplettfritid and told them that I had planned to buy the pack but was to slow to order. Today I got a reply, with a link to the backpack, and saw that they had lowered the price again. Now that’s costumer service.
If you’ve seen my packlists and read my trip reports you can see that I have a thing for Exped. I have an Exped Synmat 7 UL, a Synmat Winterlite, the UL Pillow, the Schnozzle pumpbag and the Lightning 60 backpack. I really like their lightweight products and their great quality.
The Expedition 80 isn’t really lightweight, at 2450g. But it’s somewhat light with the volume it offers. It’s also waterproof with a PU coated fabric and taped seams. I think it will be a great pack for longer trips and for wintertrips. I love my Lightning pack, but for extended trips I think this will be great.
On another notion, I have applied for Fjällräven Polar 2017. I was late to complete the application, and I’m really far behind the leader. But as a wise person said, “it ain’t over ’til it’s over” 🙂
Please vote for me, and spread the word, and I’ll be ever grateful. Every vote counts.
Småland Outdoor 