One Swedish Summer
  • My Blog
    • About Me
My Gronabandet Summer 2013

Wilderness Walking In Northern Places

'there is nothing like a wilderness journey for rekindling the fires of life. Simplicity is part of it. Transportation reduced to leg - or arm - power, eating irons to one spoon. Such simplicity, together with sweat and silence, amplify the rhythms of any long journey, especially through unknown, untattered territory. And in the end such a journey can restore an understanding of how insignificant you are - and thereby set you free' (Colin Fletcher)
Picture

Day 16 - A Swedish Tiger - Ansattan to Myrbodarna

7/1/2014

 
Picture
A little wind and rain overnight but I am up at 7 and away at 8.30. Back over the wide but shallow Ansattan the summer trail is marked by a myriad of trail blazes. In the main old winter marking (high red crosses) obscured in the bush. Consequently, I lose the track pretty quickly and spend around forty minutes thrashing through mire. At one point I end up waist high in a marsh. I'm not pleased, not least as I know only half a kilometer away a forest road should start. My way out to the village of Rotviken.

But to my relief I find a footpath which leads up to the road. I'm delighted. Soon I notice more foot paths and I follow one back down to the river to discover a viewing platform. In a number of kilometers the river I've camped by has morphed into a deep canyon with some high waterfalls. The river travels through at some speed. It's impressive.

Picture
What follows is less impressive and now numbingly familiar. A day on forest track and then highway. But it's the last day of this, in some sense the end of stage 2 as the route to Gaddede itself takes me over high fells.

Of some compensation is a lunch time stop at Rotviken. I emerge from the rough forest road and onto the highway. Within a short while I meander into Rotviken, a small village on the shores of Hotagen. It's attractive, a small campsite with huts and pitches on the shores of the lake and the first shop for over a week! In I go and emerge clutching several cans of coke and a large packet of OL Chips. I demolish these as I watch Norwegian families park up and wander around, the border nearby. I pinch myself and decide I am feeling thin. I go back in for some more food!

And then it's the last tramp down a highway for a while. The roads dull and my right ankle throbs but the views are not half bad. First the shoreline of Hotagen and then it's attractive wooden church. Next Valsjon itself. Some distraction at least from a twenty kilometer road day!

Picture
But there is much else of interest too. This is fishing country clearly. I greet two mature ladies dressed for fly fishing heading to the shore of Stor-Gruveln. Signs along the road advertise fishing licences and tell of small mountain lakes rich with char.

Of most interest though are the fortifications at Skansen Klintaberg. Along border roads I'm to note second world war fortifications, there to defend Sweden from Nazi attack where cross border roads would have made an obvious route into the Kingdom from occupied Norway. Sweden has an underlying confidence that she could have resisted Nazi occupation. Whose to say really, but the belief in the Swedish Tiger is important to some. In any event these fortifications would be worth a visit (pictures here).

The road into Valsjobyn feels long. Cross-border traffic screams past but within a few hours I pass another shop. Resisting the idea of a night in lodging I find my way on a quiet forest road again that heads up into the fells and the Sami settlement of Vinklumpen. For me it's another night I scratch camping. I find a culvert (ditch really!) with water and head into the forest a little above it. In a clearing allowing the passage of power lines up to Vinklumpen I find my pitch. Midgey and damp but I'm used to it now. I'm looking forward to heading up into the hills again tomorrow.


Comments are closed.

    Archives

    July 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    April 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    March 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • My Blog
    • About Me