Breathing is labored, the pack is heavy. Wet boots search for the best path up the rocky slopes. Not a boardwalk in sight, only subtle trails trampled by reindeer and other animals. Sarek’s magnificent autumn landscape stretches for miles and miles.
In early September, autumn sweeps in and paints the mountain heaths, valleys, and high mountains with dramatically vibrant colors. Some mornings, frost sparkles in the ruby-red ptarmigan brush and the mountain peaks shine white. It’s breathtakingly beautiful. The air is cold and clear, the sky infinitely blue. Other days, fog lies heavy in the valleys. The mountain peaks are nowhere to be seen.
It’s time for Laponia Adventures’ autumn hike in Sarek. Mountain guides Christian Heimroth and Mirja Andersson have carefully assessed their participants’ mountain experience and fitness levels before approving their place in the group. This week-long tour is not for Sunday strollers. On the contrary. It requires endurance, good stamina, and a certain measure of determination.
“Hiking experience is required to appreciate this tour at all, preferably also experience with camping and carrying heavy packs in varied terrain. You should really know what it’s about, what it’s like to trek day after day,” says Christian Heimroth, who is a trained nature guide and has been organizing tours in and around the Laponia World Heritage Site since 2004.
Expect Hardships
Carrying your pack on a tour like this really means hauling everything. Clothes, tent, sleeping bag, stove, fuel, toiletries, and other items you don’t want to be without. Plus the week’s food, whose weight the guides distribute among participants. The scale usually lands between eighteen and twenty-two kilos, which is seriously heavy when the climb is steep and well-trodden trails are completely absent.
“It usually takes two days for the body to acclimatize to the heavy pack,” Christian notes.
Sarek has no clearly marked trails, no bridges, no cabins. Nothing here is arranged for hikers. There are no alternatives to wading across the rushing streams. In practice, this means you may have to wait, sometimes for several days, if the water level is too high and the risk too great. Even when the water flow decreases, crossing can still be intimidating. Hiking in Sarek requires readiness for hardship. Things don’t always go as planned.
reach their peak. Photo: David Björkén
History Lesson with Dizzying Time Perspective
After three days of hiking through Rapadalen, home to the large Sarek moose, a rest day awaits in Snavvavagge. The view stretches for miles. From here, you can follow moose with your eyes, and perhaps other animals if you’re lucky.
“In Rapadalen, we focus on the moose and talk a lot about how the area has been used through the centuries, about reindeer herding, Sami culture, and the pioneer era,” Christian explains.
The hike also becomes an odyssey through geological history. It’s fascinating to start noticing and understanding how the area has been carved out over millions of years, as ice ages and thaws have succeeded each other. The time perspective is dizzying. After a while, another realization sinks in. There are only sparse traces of human passage here, and those that exist evoke more reverence than dismay.
“The World Heritage Site is truly Sweden’s wildest area where it’s explicitly stated that everything should be preserved as originally as possible,” says Christian.
Living with Wet Feet
Conversations in the group usually swing between high and low. People get close quickly when sharing fire and hardships.
“There’s usually a lot of talk and often deep discussions, ranging from world politics to tips and tricks on how to stay comfortable despite soaking wet feet.“
Wet feet are a chapter in themselves. No matter how well-oiled and polished your boots are, your feet will get wet. First day.
“It feels tough putting on wet socks and shoes in the morning, but there’s no point putting on the dry socks from your pack. Here we’re all truly outside our comfort zone,” Christian observes.
Food Brightens Rain-Heavy Days
When the sun shines over Bielavallda, life is playful. Then reality is just as fantastic as the tourist brochures’ color-saturated fair-weather pictures. One mighty panorama follows another.
“It’s not difficult being a guide on a nice day, but when you encounter rainy weather with poor visibility and everything gets damp, it becomes more challenging to keep spirits up. Then you have to try to keep a twinkle in your eye,” says Christian.
The guides have a universal trick that works in all weather. Food. There’s not a trace of industrially dried food. Christian and Mirja take pride in cooking up meals from home-dried delicacies made from Jokkmokk’s local ingredients, like suovas-smoked reindeer meat and mountain fish. Such a meal usually lifts the spirits of anyone who’s fallen into a mood slump.
“Food is extremely important. When it’s been really tough, the food raises the positive atmosphere in the group. Sometimes you also need to be ready to redistribute packs and help each other out if someone is having an especially hard time.”
Victory Feeling Despite Numb Legs
The Sarek tour begins with a helicopter transport from Kvikkjokk to Rapadalen, at the border of Sarek National Park, and ends after many miles of hiking in Saltoluokta. In the final days, the group starts yearning to reach the finish. The feeling of having accomplished something together grows into a satisfying sense of victory. The daily routines have settled in and everyone helps out. On numb legs, they stumble wordlessly the last kilometers to the mountain cabin for a final night before the boat transport across Sitojaure. Having a roof over their heads feels luxurious.
“That cabin night is the real end of the mountain tour before civilization awaits again. The final day’s stage is easy walking. The garbage that everyone has carried through all of Sarek is disposed of where it belongs, in the trash bin,” says Christian.
When the group finally reaches the mountain station in Saltoluokta, the desire to mingle with other people is minimal.
“We usually want to sit by ourselves and stay in our own little bubble a while longer. Even though we’re of course happy to tell others how tough it all was.”
It’s tired but satisfied hikers who summarize their Sarek tour on the sauna bench before the final dinner at the mountain station. When the group then disperses and everyday life takes over, there are still images to savor, which are eagerly shared on social media.
“Most people usually stay in touch with each other long afterward. A tour in Sarek, with all it entails, is not something you forget easily,” says Christian Heimroth.
Read more about Sarek National Park: https://www.sverigesnationalparker.se/park/sarek-nationalpark/
Read more at www.axelhamberg.se about researcher, teacher, and professor Axel Hamberg’s life project in Sarek between 1894 and 1931. His work studying glaciers expanded to include cartography, bedrock, quaternary geology, meteorology, and hydrology. He established his own research station in Sarek and published the first major summary of his investigations in 1901.