I started planning for this trail back in 2005 to eventually put the idea back. In part, due to the lack of information in a language I could understand, oddly enough in this information era where everything is supposed to be available on the internet.
A couple of years later, it seems the English speaking world hasn’t got hold of this trail yet. Not many outside Scandinavia anyway. Good god, I feel like a pioneer…
Background
I felt if I went to hike in North America again this year, I should consider moving there permanently. Maybe not a bad idea but for the moment I decided to justify my stay in old Europe by bringing the big time hiking home again.
I knew I would greatly and painfully miss the wilderness feeling so I decided to try to find it somewhere near home, whatever “near” means nowadays. That’s the same goal that made me look towards the arctic back in 2005 but this time, I told myself, I wouldn’t let the lack of info wear my motivation down. Maybe two years later info sources in english had come up…
Not the case, unfortunately. I faced the same lack of resources I remembered from that previous attempt but not to worry: I’ll take notes and write about it all when I’m back!
The Nordkalottleden is probably the northernmost real trail of that length in the world. It’s about 800 km. long, all of them above the Arctic Circle. I must say that, without having visited neither, the european arctic doesn’t feel as extreme nor it’s as remote as the north american arctic. There are roads, villages and even railways in Lapland and the Gulf Stream seems to warm things up a bit… but there are also mountains whose powerful presence makes the northern landscapes take a most dramatic feel.
The Nordkalottleden trail will be my attempt at wilderness travel in Europe. This time, the wilderness will be for real.
Lapland: the last wilderness in Europe
Europe is so densely populated there’s no real wilderness anywhere, not even in the mountain areas so it’s probably right to say Lapland is among the wildest places, one of the few real wild areas left in old Europe.
During my first visits to North America, the one thing I found striking was the isolation, how far you could get from anything human. I hadn’t found anything like that in Europe where your’re hardly ever more than a few hours’ walk from a road or village.
I do hope I can find that wilderness feeling in Lapland. I’ve never been there before and that title sentence comes from some tourist internet site but it’s really high latitude and the maps don’t show much as far as human made things go. I’ll only know when I get there.
Everyman’s right
This must rank among the most beautiful laws made by humans… because, as far as I know, it’s got the law category.
In Scandinavia, you can roam freely and you can also camp for the night, anywhere in the territory, even if you’re in private land and as long as you don’t bother the owners. That’s great news for the traveller. Be sure I miss that where I live. It’s such a great feeling when you know you can be at home wherever you go.
Three countries, one region
The transnational concept was kind of central to the Nordkalottleden trail from the time the idea came up. The no borders trail is one I particularly like. There are no borders in the terrain anyway…
Planning
As of 2007, it seems this trail is only hiked by scandinavians, germans and a few dutch. It hasn’t got any popular in the English speaking world, hence the difficulty in finding information, even on the net, in such language.
This is what I’ve got so far:
- Maps: a ton on paper
- A few pages in English with brief route descriptions
- A guidebook written in German
- A guidebook written in English that applies to one of the sections in Norway
- Links to texts I can’t read
- A very limited amount of first-hand information
Maps
Different flavors, depending on the country:
Sweden: all the swedish maps belong to the same series in 1:100.000 scale. Not too detailed for a topo map but otherwise fine for hiking as these series have a recreational focus. Hiking and mountaineering related things like trails or huts are clearly depicted. It seems there are no more detailed maps, which I find odd in a region with a very solid background in hiking and mountaineering. It is probably due to the relatively uncomplicated topography.
Norway: I’ve got hold of a recreational-oriented map, in 1:100.000 scale and similar in concept to the swedish maps that covers a sizeable section of trail. All the rest I’ve found are 1:50.000 sheets of a national grid with good topo detail but no focus on recreation: trails are not accurately shown.
Finland: I’ve found two recreational maps for the short finnish section, one in 1:100.000, the other in 1:50.000 scales.
Guidebooks
Nordskandinavien – Der Wanderführer
Apparently the only available guidebook for Nordkalottleden is this one written by german Peter Bickel which is quite obviously written in German. The guidebook is for the three main long distance routes in the area: Kungsleden, Padjelantaleden and Nordkalottleden, with just one chapter devoted to the latter. At least, it’s got sketch maps, which are so far the only hints I’ve got to where the trail actually goes for some of the norwegian sections.
Most typical Cicerone guidebook, which means excellent quality. It describes several walking routes in Norway. Only one of them is part of the Nordkalottleden system: just 141 km. At least, it is in English.
Etc…
When you don’t know something, it’s better to ask the ones in the know. Most scandinavians speak correct English so you can fire away in specialized forums and hope to get some good information bits. The problem is such specialized resources are obviously not in English. If you don’t know Swedish, Norwegian or Finnish, it may be difficult to find the relevant forums. It may be difficult to get to register in one and even when you have gone through all that successfully and have written your first message, it may be difficult to discriminate the “send” button from the “cancel”. Better keep an offline copy of your texts.
So far, I have registered and actually asked for information in swedish and norwegian forums.
Trip outline
My idea is to start from the northern end and walk south. I’ll have 4 weeks for the trip, including the getting there and back home. It shouldn’t be a problem to complete a 800 km trail in that window but I don’t know what kind of terrain I’ll find and what daily averages I’ll be able to do. So far reports I’ve found are for daily averages below 20 km which would be not enough to complete the trail but I don’t know whether it is due to the inherent difficulty of the terrain or to the hiking style of the relevant person.
Walking south makes going back from trail end easier, which can be important if I’m short on time towards the end. That’s also why I’ve chosen Sweden and Stockholm as the access. It makes it more complicated to get to trail start, as this one is in Norway, but the Swedish side is gentler and offers more straightforward routes out the mountains and on to the relevant capital city. In the norwegian side, you wouldn’t actually get off the mountains at all, and communications down to Oslo are probably slower than to Stockholm.
I plan to take as much as two days of land travel to get to trail start. It may seem a lot and it probably is but combinations are rather complicated. Air travel was outrageously expensive.
Planning a trip in this region means facing a whole lot of new names in a phonetic system remarkably different from what I’m used to. After a while, all names sound similar and planning becomes a mess. It all settles after a while but it will be useful for any prospective planner to get a hold of the key names that’ll eventually show up:
Key names for planning time
Kautokeino (Norway): Start/End point in the north
Kilpisjarvi (Finland): First village and first road en-route coming from the north
Treriksroset: The one single point where the three countries (Finland, Norway and Sweden) meet.
Abisko (Sweden): Second village (and third road) en-route for the southbound hiker. It is also the northern end for the Kungsleden, with which Nordkalottleden shares a section.
Kebnekaise (Sweden): Highest peak in Sweden which Nordkalottleden skirts before parting ways with the Kungsleden.
Sarek (Sweden): Famous swedish National Park which Nordkalottleden skirts. Real Wilderness.
Vaisaluokta (Sweden): possible escape route via a boat trip over the lake to Ritsem, where there is a road end.
Sulitjelma (Norway): One of the two southern endpoints for the Nordkalottleden.
Kvikkjokk (Sweden): The other southern endpoint.
Tromsö (Norway): The biggest town in northern Norway, relatively close to the trail
Alta (Norway): The town with an airport that’s closest to Kautokeino and the trail northern endpoint. There is bus service between the two.
Narvik (Norway): Sizeable town, good access point for the mid part of the Nordkalottleden.
Kiruna (Sweden): Main town in the swedish Lapland. It’s got an airport and it is in the main route (road and railway) between Abisko and Narvik.
I’ll choose Kvikkjokk among the two possible finishing points. It is considered part of the Nordkalottleden even though it is only shown in the Padjelanta-orange in the map above.
Trip phylosophy
I’ll be definitely camping along. It is one of the obvious goals of being outside for me and it couldn’t be more straightforward in a place like Lapland. That said, I’m aware of the relative abundance of mountain huts along the Nordkalottleden and how much these can help when the weather weakens morale. I’ll try to keep the option of using the huts, master key systems permitting.
I’ll need to average well above 30 km per day to be able to finish the trail. I’m still not aware how difficult this will be in this trail but I’ll nonetheless apply the usual strategy for hiking long distances: hike long days. Keep the hiking smooth and fluent, just walking long hours. The long arctic summer days will surely help.
Gear: ultralight in the arctic?
UL is not really about just gear but it’s a paradigm. It always means a challenge but for certain conditions I already know what to expect from that challenge. Not this time.
It is a place and environment new to me. It is way north. And I haven’t been able to gather enough information beforehand to know what to expect.
I’ll stick to the UL paradigm but I’ll be sure to add some safety margin, if only for my peace of mind. There’ll be time to evaluate when I’m back.
Nothing dramatic though. I’ll keep most of the gear I trust. The one important thing I’ll change is my shelter: I’m sure this trail can be done with a tarp but… I’m not really sure; and I don’t have a source of info I can trust in this subject. I tried with a tarptent kind of shelter I got recently, expecting it’d be what I needed, but some tough testing during super windy weather last spring revealed the Six Moon Designs Lunar Solo is not as wind worthy as I had expected. It’s a great shelter but I saw I wouldn’t trust it in the wind beaten arctic fells…
I needed something sturdier (if only for the said peace of mind) but I still wanted it to be lightweight so that was my perfect excuse to take the plunge and buy a Stephenson’s tent.
I just got my brand new, beautiful and awfully pricey 2C model and just had time to seal seams and take it to the local mountains for a mild weather test. I don’t like trying new gear on a main trip but I made up my mind about this too late. I can only hope the Stephenson’s will be my new best friend when the wind howls outside.
Just above 1 kg for a remarkably bombproof shelter
Most of the rest of my gear stays the same as usual. I’ll be adding a bit more of insulation capacity (it might get cold up there) and will update the rain protection: a slightly bigger umbrella and a nylon jacket; I’m aware the latter is more for the psychological peace of mind than anything else, the propore (paper-like) stuff really works, but I guess I need some reassurance. oh, and no rain skirt this time… I anticipate too low temperatures for it when it rains. And I won’t need to give so many explanations.
Say what you want