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Jumping ahead a little.... conditions from our camp tonight were a little unsettled - but absolutely spectacular!
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After a full day and a half of rest, kicking back and relaxing at Saltoluokta, it was time to start trudging my way north on the Kungsleden again today. Heading north wasn’t going to be as straight forward as pulling on my boots, shouldering my pack and heading off though. There is what appears to be a missing link on the Kungsleden, a section that requires a 3.5 kilometre boat trip followed by a 27 kilometre bus ride, and being late in the season the bus was now only running once a day ….at around 3:30 in the afternoon. So what that meant was that I effectively ended up with another rest day, or nero as my US trekking friends would call it.
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While relaxing at Saltoluokta I got to catch up on a bit of laundry....
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....sit around the fire for approximately 20 hours....
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....and eat:)!
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| Saltoluokta Fellstation. Our cabin is on the left and the bastu is on the right. |
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Vacating our cabin by 10am I spent the next few hours sitting by the fire, eating and bingeing on the wifi while I waited for the boat to leave at around 2:30 pm. I wasn’t exactly lonely though as Skye and Mark along with Anja, Mark and Ribka were all waiting with me. It seemed like a bit of a waste today as the weather was perfect for walking, so sitting around with my feet up definitely felt a bit indulgent. Eventually the clock slowly made it’s way around to 2pm and we shuffled down to the jetty to catch our boat, lining up behind the huge corporate group that we’d been sharing the fell station with…I’m glad it was a big boat!
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Langas Lake from Saltoluokta.
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Hmmm, I'm glad that it was a big boat! - I'm at the back of the line.
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| Left to right...Mark, some Feral bloke, Mark and Anja (Ribka's furry head is just visible behind the second Mark). Once again I'd like to than Skye for any photos that I appear in. |
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Safely across Langas Lake we disembarked from our cruise and set off to find our bus. The go here when heading north is to climb the sealed access road away from the lake for 3 or 4 hundred metres until you arrive at the main road that runs alongside the lake, this is the spot that bus number 93 stops. Thankfully for us things are fairly relaxed up here in the deep north of Sweden as with our corporate friends having a fair bit of gear to load onto the boat it meant that we were actually a little late getting to the bus stop, we arrived to find the bus waiting for us with the cargo doors open. Once safely on the bus we set off on our 27 kilometre journey, a journey that took more than an hour as we stopped at a small servo/café at around half way, no doubt for the driver to have a break. With the bus generally having a few Kungsleden walkers on board I bet this little café does a roaring trade. Back on the bus it wasn’t long before we were deposited on the side of the road beside Suorvajaure Lake, the Vakkotavare Stuga a few metres on the up hill side of the road.
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Our short cruise across Langas Lake wasn't without it's scenic highlights.
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Langas Lake
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I bet this little shop makes a fortune from hungry Kungsleden walkers.
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| Our bus dropped us off on the road directly below the Vakkotavare Stuga. |
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So finally, at around 5pm, it was time to start the days walking! After saying goodbye to Anja, Mark and Ribka who were staying at the stuga, Mark, Skye and I set off. The plan this afternoon was to climb up to the open fells where hopefully we’d find some flat dry ground to pitch the tents for the night. The climb away from Vakkotavare was a solid one, climbing around 200 metres in just over a kilometre. While the climb was steep there were a lot of excuses to stop, the views back over my shoulder across Suorvajaure Lake being a highlight, although not the only highlight. The cascading creek that the Kungsleden was climbing beside also very pretty and no doubt would be a highlight by itself if it was back home in Australia.
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We are about to head up to the open fells from Vakkotavare. Skye is chatting with a lovely French lady who's name I didn't get unfortunately....I actually bumped into this French lady and her partner many times on the journey north to Abisko.
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The Kungsleden climbs fairly steeply from Vakkotavare....although there is plenty to see.
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Like I said plenty to see!
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The views back across Suorvajaure Lake opened up as I climbed.
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Kungsleden
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Suorvajaure Lake
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Kungsleden
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As is pretty normal on the Kungsleden once I was above the tree line the scenery ramped up and the climbing eased off a fair bit. Just after climbing out of the trees the Kunglseden passed between the towering rocky sentinels of Vákkudakvárátja and Garnnelababákta before striking out north, climbing fairly easily on the open fell. It was along here that we met a very large group of around 20 walkers heading south, so far on the Kungsleden I hadn’t really bumped into any huge groups however as I was now walking the more popular north sections so I was expecting some larger crowds. Thankfully this large group was going the opposite way so we didn’t have to camp with them tonight though.
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The weather was pretty changeable this afternoon....thankfully we pretty well made it to camp without getting too wet.
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Above the tree line again :)
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Vákkudakvárátja
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I'm not sure of the name of this mountain... but it was impressive.
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Late afternoon on the Kungsleden above Vakkotavare.
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Kungsleden
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Today was a good day...great company and stunning scenery!
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We didn’t have far to go now to get to our planned camp, which was a fairly good thing as it was now getting pretty late in the day. Arriving at the small creek where we’d guessed that we’d be able to camp we thankfully found no other walkers already occupying the small site. The tents were up quickly tonight and we spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying the changing light in the now somewhat changeable conditions. I’m not sure of the names of the mountains and glaciers that I could see in the distance but whatever their names are they looked pretty stunning to me, especially as the setting sun lit them up. Eventually the cold forced us into our tents, each of us pledging to wake the others up if the Northern Lights came out tonight.
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Tonights camp on the fells above Vakkotavare.
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The view from the tent wasn't too shabby.
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The changing light conditions tonight were amazing.
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| Tjorvek |
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The Dirt.
I walked 3.3 kilometres (that’s not a typo) and climbed 310 metres on today's very easy walk on the Kungsleden. Now if anyone actually reads this waffle they may have noticed that I didn’t actually stop at Vakkotavare, it just happens that Vakkotavare is the nearest well known spot to where we did stop. Over the 15 days of my Kungsleden journey so far I’ve walked 345.6 kilometres and climbed around 8884 metres. There were a few options to camp just as the climb reached the open fells in a shallow valley off to the right of the track. If anyone needed a bed then the Vakkotavare Stuga is the only game in town. Once again I used Cicerone’s Trekking the Kungsleden book along with my GPS topo maps today.
Relevant Posts.
Day 1 on the Kungsleden, 2019.
Previous Day on the Kungsleden, 2019.
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Skye....taking in the scenery.
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Tjaorvek from camp.
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| It's tent o'clock I think. |
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