Over to Visttasvággi

The morning starts early but slow. I’m having breakfast in the roomy, but quiet kitchen. The wind still rattling. Did I clean my mess from yesterday properly? After yesterday’s precise sauna instructions I’m pretty much insecure about everything I do. Yesterday I was making soup, adding noddles to make it more worthwhile. While waiting for them to cook I study the pictures on the wall. They have old pictures from 1910 onwards documenting the glaciers. They once reached all the way to this basin. Like thick tongues licking on those fat moraines. Since the 60‘s you could clearly see how they started to recede. Not so unusual for glaciers. But that process continued and speeded up instead of slowing down. Stunned I hear a hissing coming from the stove. My soup! I created the biggest mess imaginable. Thank god no one’s here to witness but it takes me forever to clean up, no running water doesn’t help that process exactly. Just a few days later I’d repeat that procedure at the tourist station in Abisko.
More people join my breakfast and there Anders reappears. He spent the night „ute“, just returned and thus is very tired but wishes us the best and asks if everything is okay. I don’t dare to ask what „spending the night outside“ means.
The sky cleared up and it promised to be a sunny, beautiful day and so I backtrack to the research station where I expect to find that trail over to Gaskkasvággi. No cairns anywhere. I don’t want to spend too much time searching and just start my climb on what I believe is the least steep route up. 400m up in one go. It gets steeper and steeper, turns into a serious set of stretches where it’s just scrambling over loose rocks and stone. Not my cup of tea. But it looks like I’m not the only one who tried their luck on this route. A trail at least! Soon it begins to flatten out, I’m relieved. At the same time wind picks up noticeably and I start getting cold. I’m drenched in my own sweat. That isn’t helping exactly. Once I reach the top the temperatures are seriously cold and I understand that I need to find a solution or I’ll end up risking hypothermia. Can I wear my down puffy over my rain jacket? I give it a try and soon I feel a thousand times better. Phew!
I look what’s ahead of me and all I see is rocks. Rocks, rocks, rocks. That’s worse than expected. Another six kilometers just climbing over rocks? I’m not amused but I’m not turning back either. At least there seem to be cairns now, I start walking following them when I suits me, losing them when I dream away. Rocks get smaller, rocks get bigger. I have to climb over several moraines, just below the actual Darfalglaciären. Some parts are quite dangerous actually. I would not want to be here in bad weather. But I’m smart and I would never be here if it had bad weather, right? I remember that I seriously considered continuing over here yesterday. What a fabulously stupid idea. No way to camp anywhere here and I’d gotten into storms and rain and would have had to continue all the way to Gaskkasvággi on my tired legs. I‘m so lucky and grateful for my aching stomach!

I reach the shelter at Kaskavagge. Just a cabin. No stove, no nothing. I decide to sit in front in the sun and have lunch there. From now on it would be easygoing. I take a closer look at the map. Well. Still 8km to Visttasvággi and almost 13km to Vistasstugorna. And there is another 200m to climb upwards. Damn. But at least it’s all green and proper trail, well marked. Right? Well. Not quite. The first one or two kilometers are pure joy indeed but then it’s all rocks again. Just when you start the descend into Visttas there’s more and more soft ground. Until you reach the tree line and soon it gets wet. Of course!
I still dream of reaching Visttasstugorna. They are said to have an amazing sauna. And a shop! I need to buy more food. I’m too slow, not making enough progress. I need one extra day! Damn!
The trail after the bridge is really great to walk. For a short while. For most parts it’s quite hard actually. Lots of up and down, rocks and roots. And bogs and muddy puddles where you have to find your way around. Soon I realize I won’t make it in time for the sauna. My heart starts to sink. “Well, then let’s look for a great site to tent! There must be amazing spots!” But it’s just dense forest or swamps. Oh well. I keep on walking. “At least they have a shop”, I tell to myself. I’m mad at myself for leaving some awesome tent sites behind when I crossed that bridge. But then it would have been way too far for tomorrow’s stretch. Or I take a day off at Visttas. Or two? They have a shop. It doesn’t matter how long I stay.
And there it is, that most amazing tent site, just what I’ve been looking for. Only a hundred meters to the left from the trail. By the river, small dry patches and it looks like a good bathing place. Who needs a sauna? At least I can wash all that sweat off and maybe even rinse my t-shirt. Fishermen seem to have camped here and left a lot of trash right next to that ugly and unnecessary fire pit they’ve built. That’s how you ruin an otherwise perfect spot. When I get out of the ice cold water, refreshed, happy, naked I see two hikers passing by, starting at me like “wtf?!”. Oh well. I’m sorry. No, I’m not.Read more