of Lars J. Nilsson

Some years back, the gang and I started to get interested in light-weight hiking. A small but persistent group of Swedish hikers started moaning about the weight that you traditionally carry around: heavy back pack, heavy tents, and relevant for this post, heavy boots. That’s when I first came into contact with minimalist running, and the ideas that our feet might be best left alone, and unencumbered.

You see, hiking in the Swedish mountains is traditionally done in boots. Rather heavy ones. Preferably with extremely hard and inflexible soles. And Gore Text lining. But more and more people started to point out that 1) it’s dubious that big boots actually prevents injuries; 2) boots can protect you from becoming wet for a while, but once drenched, they stay wet for a very long time; and 3) carrying 800 grams or more per foot isn’t very cost effective, it’s going to drain a lot of energy from you.

And so it goes. We scaled back on our equipment. I went from a pack weighting in on something like 13-14 kilos (excluding food) to 11 kilos last year, and this year I scaled back further, landing on a comfortable 8.5 kilos. But my boots stayed on.

At least until now.

I read “Born to Run”. I discovered Barefoot University. I started following various blogs. In short, I discovered the barefoot/minimalist trend. And there was something that allured to me. These guys and girls seemed to have genuinely fun when running, something that I had lost a few years back. I’ve always had bad knees and stiff ligaments and tendons, but have been running nevertheless the last 12 years or so. But it wasn’t fun anymore. My last longer run, on one of the beaches of Malaga should have been great: sea, sand and sun, what’s not to like? But it wasn’t.

And so I went immediately and bought a pair of Merrel Trail Gloves. I had read up enough to realize that learning barefoot would probably be done best with actual bare feet, but being a barefoot sissy, and running  on trails 75% of the time I went minimalist instead. There was also this: I realized there would be an adjustment period, and I figured a pair of shoes that actually looks like ordinary trainers (in contrast to Vibram FiveFingers) could comfortably be used daily, hence giving my feet some needed extra practise.

Obviously I went straight for the beginners most common mistake instead: too far too fast. It felt great! It was fun! I wanted more! And almost immediately I had a sprained Achilles tendon to deal with. Ah well, I’ve always said stupidity is supposed to pay off, so this one’s on me.

And now? Well, today I ran 6 kilometers, which is a the longest so far. Perhaps a bit too long, and I figure my ankles and Achilles will tell me so tomorrow. But damn, it felt great! Two laps around the “block”, where the block being a patch of wood at my mothers cottage in the Swedish woods, and then straight down to the small forest lake for a dip, and it felt like I want running to feel: light, smooth, easy and fun. Lovely stuff!

And next week I’ll head up to the mountains for a 4 day solo hike.

See where this is going? Well, much as I love my boots, and I do, I think they’ll be left home this time. On the other hand, much as I love my Merrels, I don’t think they’ll make it either. Although I’m sorely tempted. The reason being I’m a bit of a chicken again: The mountains I’m going to (for reference, Grövelsjön) are… stony. All Swedish mountains are (as the last ice age reduced our mountains to rubble), and my feet recoil a bit at the thought of walking 5+ hours a day in thin soles with a fair few kilos on my back. But I will go with a pair of Salamon Techamphibian (or similar). They’re fairly light, have a good grip on slippery surfaces, and dry out quickly. That will bring the full weight of my equipment down under 10 kilos. Not bad, not bad.

Also, I think my feet will love me for it!

IntroductionI have talked about walking alone for some time now… Actually, since I started hiking the Swedish mountains. But I never got around to it. Until now.Since this would be my first time up alone, and also because I was on a bit of a budget, I decided to go back to Grövelsjön again. Easy to get to cheaply and also familiar, which felt safe and comfortable.I had a bit of equipment upgrade for this trip.

• Therm-A-Rest Z Lite mattress. An instant hit. Light, compact, not very expensive, and warm. Apparently some people have had problems with condensation in the small “egg shell holes”, but so far I haven’t seen it.
• Primus EtaExpress stove. All thumbs up here. Fast, light and… and… just good, OK?

I also decided to make it a fairly short trip. Going up to Grövelsjön over a day, staying at STF (hostel) there over the night, hike around Töfingen (lake) and its wild life preserve, and then back. Day by day:

• To Grövelsjön, stay the night at STF
• Grövelsjön -> Hävlingstugorna -> Slagufjället
• Slagufjället -> Spångkojan -> Nedersthån
• Nedersthån -> Grövelsjön -> Home

Sound easy huh? Well, it was and it wasn’t.Day one; Travel onSo… Train to Borlänge, another train to Mora and then 4 hours of bus 170 to Grövelsjön. Total travel time, aprox. 8 hours. Whee!But in reality, it’s not that hard. I’m getting quite good zoning out and just passing time when traveling. At least as long as I have earplugs or head phones to shut out conversations around me.The trains where uneventful. The bus…interesting. This was after all a thursday evening, which meant that there weren’t many people on the bus to start with and they just dropped off. From Idre and onwards there was me and… the driver I’ve stayed at STF before. A nice place. Helpful and friendly people. However, this time I was only slightly disappointed by the dinner. A hamburger which left a lot to wish for. Dry, tasteless and rather sad. But I did have a Belgian very dark, very nice beer (Bernard?) to it so that’s alright Update: If I whine about the ‘burger, I absolutely must mention the breakfast: It’s excellent! Really, really nice. 5 out of 5 on my personal scale. Most other guests seemed to be day trippers. This was a bit off season of course. But surprisingly many guests there, which is nice.I slept very well thank you.Day two; Overcast and warming upI followed the trail east of Jacobshöjden up to Hävlingstugorna. Or rather, I went off track immediately slightly west of the real track towards Jacobshöjden. Could have been a bad idea as the terrain there is rocky.Och yes, I learned that, and no one is going to be surprised by this, Grövelsjöns name probably comes from the Norwegian word gravel which means stone or rock. You can just image someone looking at the place thinking “oh dear, this is a rocky place indeed, what shall I call it?”I hit the track again north of Jacobshöjden and continued. The tracks leading out half a day from STF ghware all well walked “highways” making for good speed.I lunched at the lean to north of the bridge between Hävlingen and Särsjön. The day was overcast, but now the sun decided to honor me with a visit making the quiet little meal a treat.I had opted for bought dry food for this trip for convenie. Worked well.The part from Särsjön east to Slagufjället looks like its going to be easy, but be warned, you’re now outside the day-tripper area. Also, this is a wild life preserve. It was very beautiful, but also rather hard to walk. And I now started a game which lasted for well over 24 hours called “spot the path” ”Spot the path” reached its peak late afternoon when I decided to take the small track down to Töfingen and have a look. Oh dear, you wouldn’t want to try to hurry about that path.In the end I struck tent behind the east-most lean to. And started to relax.Two things to note at this part of the tale: It’s getting dark early. It’s getting cold over the nights. Which meant getting into the tent at 2000 or so. I had bought a small lantern for the tent time which was very comforting. Also I had Douglas Adams as an ebook. Which also was nice.The night was cold with the tent covered in frost in the morning. It was very nice, but I was slightly unprepared, and problem is: When you wake up at 0400 in the morning realising your slightly under-dressed, you still really don’t want to get out of you sleeping bag to fix the problem. It’s much easier to just lie still and hope for morning Day three; Hard to come byNice weather. The path up east through the birch forest towards Spånhkojan was lovely in the morning light. Here the calm of the mountains reached me, I figured I’d been slightly nervous the first day, but having survivied the first night with flying color I started to relax.Through the forest to Spångkojan the path was again rough. Not hard to spot, just… fairly rough walked. But nice and varying.For some reason I had figured that going up from Spångkojan following Storån would be a little bit easier. I… was wrong. Dead wrong The first 3 kilometers or so of that particular bit was surprisingly hard. The path occationally hard to spot (the game continues), climbing over boulders, under stocks, getting across moors. You got the whole package there.In fact, I met passed an older guy at the end who seemed almost chocked. He had very much *not* counted on the toughness of that last bit.After Töfingån came down the path got a lot better and I started to make up lost time (remember, it get’s dark early, you don’t want to be cought without your camp setup after nightfall).I planned to make camp at aprox. the same place as two years back. I found the place altough I coulnd’t pinpoint the exakt place we had had the tents. But I remember to suroundings well. In fact, I think I must have been very close indeed, the stone in the brook where I washed up looked decidedly familiar As it went I found a very nice spot among the birches. A spot which didn’t get frost for some reason, in the morning a could see frost all around, but not in my little copse.The evening was spent with La Boheme -69 (Pavarotti, Wixell) and sundown over Slagufjälet.Day four; HomerunSince you tend to wake with the sun when you also go to bed with the sun, I now witnessed my first sunrise in… Er.. A long time apparently Blazing sun and clear skies. Also, again within day tripper range of STF which meant nice paths again.I passed on the path cutting north west of Storvätteshågna and straight home. In fact, since I really didn’t want to cut it to close to my bus departure, I made sure I had plenty of time and arrived 2 hours early at Blåkläppen just above STF. So, I stopped, had lunch and promptly laid my self down for a bit of a siesta in the sunshine. Lovely stuff!The bus down to Mora was packed. This was sunday after all, and every student and their dog needs to get out of the woods back to civilization. It went alright though.The calm of the mountains stayed with me for the train trip as well. I din’t mind it being late. Or packed. I had my head phones and my peace.Aftermath and after thoughsSo, how was it, doing it alone? It was very nice. Although… I had hoped for some sort of… I don’t know, revelation? Nothing big mind you, but I know how the lonely wolf inside me can feel when the large vistas opens up before him. Exaltation. Freedom. You get the picture. But I figure that didn’t happen, and perhaps for a very simple reason: I’m a fairly high-controlled guy, I like thinking before doing. I like knowing what and how to do things. And exaltation and revalation is more, in my experience, of *not* tightly controlling things. And perhaps alone in the mountains isn’t the best time for me to let it all go with the wind eh?But don’t get me wrong, the second and third day had some truly lovely moments. Also, going alone puts a very real edge on every step you take, it’s for real and no messing up my boy, or there’ll be trouble of a kind sheltered city-people like me aren’t really prepared for. I like that edge. I like it a lot.There’s a small problem with my tent as well. When you’re out this late, condensation is always going to be with you and in a small tent (in propertion to you size) you absolutely cannot get aways in the mornings without touchin the inner tent when dressing. Meaning you’ll get wet. Also, a small tent (again in proportion) makes it hard to relax in the evenings and/or reainy days. My next late autumn solo-wolk I’ll consider carrying a two person tent despite the extra kilos.The whisky for the trip was Morrison’s Islay Legend, a blend of Islay whiskys based on Bowmore. Quite good, I’m sipping it now as well Yes, we have pretty pictures!The aftermath? Well I came back late sunday, emptied my back pack in my living room (this includes the tent, separated, which needed to dry out). Worked 12 hours a day for two days and then disappeared to Fano for the choir tour with St Jacobs CC. I still have camping gear all over my living room Will I do it again? Oh hell yes!

IntroductionAgain off to Grövelsjön. This year R+V and I had really expected to go somewhere a bit north but time constraints (largely mine, due to a new company) made us return to Grövelsjön, this time to go into the Norwegian mountains.Here’s some of the equipment I used for this trip:

• Haglöfs “Solid” boots.
• Hilleberg “Akto” 1 pers. tent.
• Fjällräven “Råstu” 75L back pack.
• Fjällräven “Siluette M5” sleeping bag.
• Fjällräven “Vidda” trousers. New!
• Icebreaker “Skin200” leggings/crewe. New!

I really needed new trousers and Fjällräven makes excellent stuff. I’m really satisfied with them. The Icebreaker layer one was bought on a whim, but damn! Good stuff. Hot or cold, they were just there: Day two I went to bed and got really surprised when I realized I still had them on. Excellent!Oh, and yes: R+V had a new Hilleberg tent, a “Nammatj Nallo GT”. And… I think we’re all actually slightly in love with Hilleberg. Personality and details and low weight and… Here’s a fan photo.Update 20070727: V herself pops by in the comments and corrects me, it was of course a “Nallo” and not a “Nammatj”. My Bad The Failed PlanThis was the original plan:

• Stay at STF Grövelsjön.
• Day 1: Boat to Ryvang, walk north and follow the east/north east edge of Grøthögna. Sleep north of Sylfjellet.
• Day 2: Cross over towards Svukuriset, strike tents, and take a trip to the top of Stor-Svuku.
• Day 3: Go east past Rønsjøen to Sylen. Strike tents.
• Day 4: Back to Grövelsjön on foot.

Now, grövelsjön (the lake) can be a bit rough in strong northerly winds. And of course: Day one there was indeed a strong northerly wind and the boat was canceled. Thus we had a quick change of plans.STF GrövelsjönSince we drove from Stockholm it was convenient to stay the night befor egoing out. Really nice place! Excellent breakfast! Nice staff! A good whisky shelf! Recommended!Day one; Wind in our facesThe boat was cancelled, so instead we started off taking the track to Ryvang/Sylen and then continued onwards north west over Sylvola to strike the tens at Rønsjøen. Sounds easy, right? Well, there was just one problem here: we had the wind in our faces the entire day. Just ascending the side of Sjöhöjden with full packs was a real pain and when we arrived at Rønsjøen… Let’s just say we were pretty damn tired.If not for the wind, it’d been a very good day. Just some small showers, and we proceeded to find a very nice camping spot south of the lake: flat, close to the lake, lush green grass and away from the wind. You can spot where I slept, right?Day two; Stones, mosquitoes, pain and dessertsThe wind was not as strong this day. And again just some very small showers. We followed the track west towards Svukuriset, but turned east again on the Linné path, and stopped just past Revlingsjøarne. The path past Revlingkletten was slightly stony. The birch forest around Revlingsjøarne was lovely and the sun shone down on us in the evening.Any problems? Well, two major ones: (1) Mosquitoes; and (2) A bad knee. Normally mosquitoes are a part of the deal when in north Sweden. However, this time… It was a bit silly really. But one shouldn’t complain, we had plenty of Djungelolja (anti-mosquito oil), thank goodness. R’s bad knee was a bit more serious though. Apparently he had managed to hurt it in some unspecified way the day before, and at the end of the days walk he was in serious pain. What to do? I had some heavy duty bandage (to use for stabilizing knees, shoulders etc), but if that wouldn’t be enough? So we formulated an emergency plan: If R would feel better the next morning he and V would backtrack the few kilometers to Svukurisets Fjellstation (manned mountain “lodge”), I’d press on to Grövelsjön to pick up the car and then take it back into Norway to pick them up.The evening was brilliant! Sunset over Revlingsjøarne. Very nice indeed. We also had a small cake (sockerkaka) for the evening coffee. That’s the sort of moments I live for.Day three; Red noses and desertsBut thankfully we never had to try our emergency bad-knee plan. R decided to press on and at the end of the day his pain had disappeared almost entirely. We continued on the Linné track over Forborgen and struck an early camp on the plateau between Forborgen and Salsfjellet. As we’d drive back to Stockholm day four we decided we could make an early camp to safe the short distance back to the car for the next day. Also, the sky was entirely clear and having a few hours with our feet out of the boots felt like a really neat idea.However, we had made the absolute noob mistake of forgetting the sunscreen. R and V made it through alright, but I had problems rather early in the day as my nose turned redder, and redder and… Hence:

• Sunscreen attempt no. one
• And attempt no. two (the winner)

A glorious day. Almost two much so, no wind and the air was standing still. It was very, very hot. And on a place like that, where there is no cover what so ever, the mountains started to feel like a desert with no shade to be found. But we’re not complaining, it was very nice.Day four; An easy strollThe pass over Salsfjellet and back to Grövelsjön was an easy stroll indeed. We started early as we had a 6-7 hour drive ahead as well. All in all, the Linné track between Grövelsjön and Svukurisets Fjellstation is extremely easy to walk, it felt like a highway compared to some of the rougher paths we’ve encountered (the pass over Sølenskardet at Rendalssølen comes to mind).As we came over the pass the touri… erm… the day trippers appeared again. Otherwise we encountered people only occasionally once or twice a day.At the EndA very nice trip. The best weather we’ve ever had. No real hickups except the missing sunscreen. A nice total distance walked. No mountain top this time, but the weather more than made up for it. Sitting down in the car at the end was a bit sad, you felt like you could have continued for a while longer. And next year we’ll probably do just that and spend an entire week trekking. 7 > 4, right?Marc wasn’t with us this trip. That counts as a big minus, but perhaps that’s why the weather was so nice, eh? The whisky for the trip was Bowmore Darkest.Yes, we have pretty pictures!I’m already looking forward to the next trip…

IntroductionWell then, a two day trip to Grövelsjön is on the agenda. The idea was R+V’s although I had talked about getting up in the mountains one more time this year. The plan was to take it easy, stay at Lövåsgårdens Fjällhotell (hotel) the first night and then get out Saturday. Be back at the car Sunday late afternoon again.Here’s some of the equipment I used for this trip:

• Haglöfs “Solid” boots.
• Hilleberg “Akto” 1 pers. tent. New!
• Fjällräven “Råstu” 75L back pack.
• Fjällräven “Siluette M5” sleeping bag.

The exciting thing being the new tent of course. Hilleberg generally makes excellent tent and the Akto is certainly not any exception. Very light, 1.5 kg, and extremely easy to set up and tear down. Absolutely brilliant stuff.Interlude; The HotelSince this was to be an easy trip we, or rather R+V, had decided to stay the the Lövåsgårdens Fjällhotell the first night. No complaints about that decision! Three course dinner with decent wine, nice enough rooms and a feeling of luxury set up a perfect start of the weekend. Most people staying there looked like day trippers, staying the weekend and making short walk on the mountain side during the days…. Which looked, having been there, as a bloody brilliant vacation as well.Day one: Off on the mountain sideAnother brilliant part of staying at a hotel the night before going out is of course… breakfast!! This wasn’t exactly a Hilton international, but before going out to live on hard bread and soups for two days it was magnificent.The hotel is situated right on the side of the kalfjäll (above mountain tree limit). We set out almost straight north, following the track up passing between western and eastern Barfredågna targeting the small hut Oscarsstugan, where we stopped for coffee.Out original plan was to try Storvätteshågna (1204 m) the first day but we’d been tipped off at the hotel that maybe the weather would be better the next day. The Saturday was slightly overcast and quite windy. So instead we continued straight north on an unmarked track between Storvätteshågna and Fosksjökläpparna, aiming for the north side of Storvätteshågna for the night. We passed the plateau north of Övre Fosksjön on the marked summer track after lunch. before this we had seen the occasional day tripper aiming for Storvätteshågna from Grövelsjön but from this point onward we didn’t see anyone until returning the next day.We stopped early afternoon just below the tree limit north north-west of Nedersthån north of Storvätteshågna. Where R proceeded to magic up a small bottle of wine and some parmegiano cheese for the ready made pasta carbonara. Lovely stuff!(And yes, I did have some whisky with me as well. A half litre 12 YO MacAllan in a plastic bottle. Really? Did you think I would not have?)At the evening the sun emerged. R relaxed, V picked a litre of blue berries in no time – the north side of Storvätteshågna was filled with them! – and I took a small walk down to the first lake on the border of Töfingdalens Nationalpark (töfingdalens wild life preserve) before sitting around a small fire, sipping MacAllan and eating blue berries. Neat? You bet!Day two; Up and up we goWe went straight up on Storvätteshågna following the marked summer track. It could have been worse, but starting your day with 400 meters height difference on 2 km walking (gaining 2 meters for every 10 you walk) will wake you up nicely. However, we weren’t in any hurry and did stop to admire the view occasionally.The day was semi overcast but not as windy as the Saturday. And when we reached the top the clouds broke and we had blue skies and sunshine! Beautiful does really cover it. We sat with our lunch at the top of Storvätteshågna for an hour just baking in the sun and generally feeling great.From there on it was easy walking south back to Lövåsen. Although we almost took a wrong turn, where the summer track turns slightly south east towards Lillvätteshågna we almost managed to turn south west instead… Brilliant. R and me was completely out in the blue but thanks to V we figured it out.The end words; The motorway inspectionIf there’s one think you can count on, it is that if you car is going to break down, it is going to do so in the middle of the night after two days of trekking, and is going to do so in the middle of the motorway… But fortunately it was just outside Enköping (close to Stockholm) and also fortunately, I hear from R+V that it wasn’t very hard to fix nor very expensive. Annoying though? A bit.But ignoring the car accident: ‘Twas a lovely weekend!Update 20061004:I finally got my thumb working again. We know have pretty pictures!