Tag: hammock

C:s first thru hike

On By Småland OutdoorIn 2021, Overnighters, TripsLeave a comment

Ok, so the term thru hike is probably more or less reserved for longer trails, but this was the first time C hiked the entire length of a trail, so I’m calling it a thru hike for her.

My oldest daughter got a gift card for a spa on her 16th birthday, and was going to Kosta Boda Art Hotel with her mother in late June. At the same time my son was staying a couple of days on “Kortis” (a sort of relief home for families with disabled children). This was a perfect time for me and C to go hiking.

I had found a circle trail just outside of Kosta in the nature reserve Visjön. It’s an 8km trail, and I thought it would be a good trail for two days of hiking with C.

We dropped off my wife and oldest daughter at the hotel, and drove north towards Visjön. We parked the car in the west side of the lake, just north of a shooting range. It had started to rain when we arrived, and the forecast showed rain for the next two days. But C was in a good mood. After a short hike along the borders of the shooting range we arrived at the lake. We turned north and hiked along the esker that borders most of the west side of the lake.

After a while we saw the ground sort of moving. With a closer look we saw that the ground was littered with small 1-2cm long frogs. They where everywhere for a long part of the trail. We tried to watch our steps so we wouldn’t step on them. Every now and then we stopped to pick blueberries.

We came to the north side of the lake, and turned down south on the east shore before making dinner. We had noodles with beef jerkey and cheese. So far we hadn’t seen a single suitable place to set up the tent. Eventually we came down to the parking and info sign marked on the map. On a small peninsula nearby we found a perfect spot for our tent, and room for many more too.

The rain had stopped earlier, but we set up the tent right away, and put up the hammock. This time I had brought the half inner, to be able to get in and out of the tent without having rain falling into the inner. On 2/3 of the vestibule I had a polycro groundsheet for the gear. This was actually a perfect setup for me and C. The half inner was large enough for us, without feeling cramped, and we had a large area for the gear.

I made dinner for us, and then we just hung out in the hammock and eat snacks. It didn’t take long before we both fell asleep.

When we woke up it started to rain slightly, so we took down the hammock and retreated to the tent. C watched Vaiana on my phone while I was reading a book writter by a reporter and a photographer who got kidnapped in Syria a few years ago.

After the movie it was time for C to go to sleep. The rain had started to pour down, and once again I had water seeping through, and dropping down on my face. I was pissed. I had carefully taped the insides where the midway corner guylines attatches and where the plastic struts for the vents are, but still water came through. But this time I saw the source. Water kept seeping through the seams on the top hat, and ran down on the inside of the tent before dropping down on my face. I sent a mail to HMG again, and this time I got the $58 i paid for the shipping back. Since then I’ve taped up those seams too, so I think it will be ok now. But then and there I regretted selling my heavier Hillebergs for this. Hilleberg fans can almost be a bit cultist from time to time, but in the end there’s a reason for it. I’ve had three Hillebergs (and a lot of other tents too) and their quality do stand out.

I was a bit annoyed that the super expensive tent didn’t hold up as expected, but I managed to let it go and go to sleep.

The next morning we had chocolate banana oatmeal for breakfast, before packing up. It was raining heavy this morning. C jumped in water pools as we hiked along.

On the southern section of the trail we came to a large open area that probably serves as a pasture from time to time. There weren’t any animals there at that time, so it could have been a nice place for a tent. The place had an abundance of wild strawberries. We ate a lot, and I could barely get C to continue hiking with me.

After that we had a section of road hiking before turning back north on the esker we started with. C was starting to get a bit tired, but it was only a short hike left to the car. When we got to the car we took of our wet rain gear. C was dry as a bone, but my cheapo rainpants had leaked through, and I might as well have skipped them all together.

This was C:s first hike of an entire trail. We’ve done a lot of paddling, camping and off trail hiking but this was the first time she hiked an entire trail. It went really good, even though her favourite part is hanging out in camp. (It’s actually my favourite part too, when I’m not solo hiking)

Climbing in Småland

On By Småland OutdoorIn 2018, Overnighters, Trips5 Comments

Earlier this week, my neighbor Lars asked me if I wanted to join up for short climbing trip in the northern parts of Småland. Lars is pretty active in the local climbing club and he had two different places in mind. We would drive up on Friday afternoon, climb one of the walls and then do some hammock camping. The next morning we would drive to the other wall and climb there before the temperatures got too hot.

Lars posted a note on Facebook, asking if anyone wanted to join up. A couple of guys from Växjö climbing club and a guy from Lenhovda, a nearby town, decided to join on Friday evening.

Lars and I packed up the car after I got off from work, and drove north. We drove to the town Vetlanda, where we would meet up with the others. We stopped by the pizzeria “Hasses” that Lars had been recommended, met up with Alfred and Filip from Växjö and Mikael from Lenhovda. We bought food and then set off towards Rankulla, where we would climb this evening.

We used the app 27Crags to navigate to the parking lot near the wall. The approach went through the forest, which was packed with mosquitoes and moose flies. Either we took a wrong turn somewhere, or the place is not well visited, because it was hardly a trail we followed.

We came up from the backside of the wall, and ended up on top of it. We decided to rappel down the wall, in an attempt to save time. I’m scared of heights, wouldn’t go near the edge, and felt really uneasy when anyone else did too. But I learned that the other guys, despite being experienced climbers, where also scared of heights. My fear of heights diminishes as soon as I get my gear on though, as I trust it to save me.

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Alfred, the climbing instructor, went down first, and I came down as the third guy. It’s quite scary to go over the edge, but once you start rappelling down the fear disappears. In the end it took a lot longer for all of us to rappel down than to just hike down, but it was a fun way of going down.

We had one route where we rappelled down, Mikael climbed another route to get a new rope up next to it, and Alfred and Filip put up yet another rope.

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I haven’t been climbing since last summer, and I’m a real rookie when it comes to climbing. I compensate my lack of technique with brute force though. I’m borrowing gear from Lars, but this is something that I want to continue doing, so I’ve decided to buy my own kit as soon as possible. I like top rope climbing, as my fear of heights makes it a bit scary.

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I fell a couple of times at a (for me) difficult route with a bit of an overhang, and got a couple of trips through the air. We kept climbing until dusk, when we had to pack up. The other guys drove home, but Lars and I headed towards our planned camp site.

We had planned to camp at a beach near the next wall, Skärsjön, which is a new wall. When we came to the beach though it was crowded with a dozen Epa-tractors and a handfull of mopeds. It was obviously the place where the local teenagers hung out. We looked up another place on Vindskyddskartan, a map that shows lean-to shelters across Sweden.

The shelter we found didn’t have a nice view at all, but we continued hiking for a couple of hundred meters and camped at a beach with birch trees perfect for hanging hammocks.

It was almost midnight when we’d got out hammocks up, but we had some snacks, shared a couple of beers and watched the moon come up across the lake. There wasn’t even a breeze, and the silence was almost deafening.

We went to bed, and I used one of my Wind Hard Tiny quilts as an under quilt. It’s not meant to be an under quilt, and it took a bit of fiddling to get it to work.

In the early morning I woke up to the sound of rain. Neither one of us had brought tarps, but I was too tired to do anything else but stay in the hammock. The rain was only a light shower though, and most if it didn’t even penetrate the leaves above us.

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The next morning we packed up and drove to the next wall, Skärsjön. Skärsjön is a Slab, and it was a bit different to climb there than on Rankulla. We took a wrong turn this time too, and ended up bushwhacking our way to the top of the rock.

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Being just the two of us, we decided to hike down instead of rappelling down. We tried three different routes, and I tried to make it a bit more difficult by avoiding some of the largest and most obvious holds. Around lunchtime we decided to drive back home, and packed up all our gear.

It was a nice trip, and I’ve really come to like climbing. The area around Växjö is pretty flat, and there’s mostly bouldering around here, but I do like top rope climbing like this. Sadly for my wallet, I’ve found another outdoor interest that requires new gear purchases.