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As the light began to dim we struggled up a small rise to find ourselves in the middle of a wooded glade – a perfect camping spot for the night. We took off our packs (I always love that few seconds’ flying sensation when you take off a backpack), and the first task was to flatten down an area of snow for each tent,to ensure the surface was level and comfortable and pack down the snow to prevent sudden disappearances of stray limbs into the depths.
This, like almost everything done in snowshoes, was a comical sight. Five Englishfolk and a Swede tramping round in circles in the gathering dark. I felt absurdly like a Mediterranean grape-treader transported suddenly and inexplicably by Twilight Zone forces to the Arctic. After a few minutes the tent spots were nicely flattened and we had even created little paths to link them. Hilleberg tents, it is generally agreed, are the business – lightweight, easy to erect, and practically indestructible. As our tent seemed almost to put itself up, I found it hard to disagree with this, and before long we were standing about proudly surveying our little camp.
But the work was far from over, at least not if we wanted any dinner – two of us set to with shovels digging out a fire pit while the others went in search of firewood. Being Sweden, there was wood all around us, but it nevertheless took quite a time to amass enough for the evening’s fire. Camp fires are permitted in Vålådalen, but there are strict regulations governing what wood is acceptable to use. It must not be taken from living trees, and tree stumps and larger dead branches are also off limits (dead wood provides an essential habitat for an enormous range of species). The mountain ecosystem is fragile and the trees exceptionally slow-growing – a stumpy pine just a couple of feet high may be 50 years old or more. The only wood permitted for burning is small loose branches and twigs, and these were surprisingly hard to come by, especially under three feet of snow.
At last we had assembled a respectable-looking pile which looked like it should last us through the evening. With the help of some birch bark – the world’s best firelighter – we soon had a crackling camp fire around which to warm our extremities. By this time it was properly dark, with just the odd star peeking through the forest canopy. It’s hard to imagine a more idyllic place to spend an evening, watching the sparks from the fire twist beguilingly up into the sky and waiting (this was to become a common theme throughout the trip) for the kettle to boil.
This being a camping trip, we had resigned ourselves to sturdy but otherwise uninspiring rations, sensibly packed with sugars and carbohydrates but nothing to stir the culinary soul. When Torkel stood up, disappeared into the darkness for a minute or two and returned with six tantalisingly aromatic foil packets, we were both curious and delighted. By the time he’d unwrapped them to reveal six freshly-caught Arctic Char (a luxury elsewhere but comparatively commonplace in the clean waters of Jämtland), we were ecstatic. And by the time the fish had been grilled over the open fire and ladled with cream sauce, we were convinced we had died and gone to heaven. It’s a cliche that food always tastes better at the end of a day’s hike in the woods, but I would not be exaggerating to say that this was the most delicious fish meal I had ever had, ever, or probably ever will have again. This was of course, inevitably, an exception – Torkel’s sled would have needed to be twice the size to sustain such delicacies for the rest of the tour. Nevertheless, the food generally over the next few days was a real highlight, far better than I’d expected, and he even managed dessert for our final evening…
We sat around the fire for a while, contentedly licking sticky fishy fingers and making “Mmmm” noises, until Torkel suggested a night walk to the nearby waterfall. It is important to get your body warmed up from the inside (not just from the fire) before going to bed if you want to stay warm during the night, and so we kitted up and tramped off through the now moonlit forest.
It is a lovely sensation to go snowshoeing through a forest at night – almost other-worldly. We shuffled along, lost in our own thoughtful silences, until we came to the river, the water babbling quietly over the rocks in the darkness. We stopped to soak up the atmosphere and watch the stars for a few minutes, before Torkel announced that we would be doing a “bear walk”. The idea of the bear walk was to give each person in the group some time alone to enjoy the silence of the forest. One person (me, it turned out), would stand alone for 8 minutes while the rest of the group abandoned them in the wilderness and headed off into the woods. When the allotted time was up, I was to follow their tracks and collect people along the way who had themselves been dropped off at various points.
I have to say I was a bit concerned about this. Vålådalen is remote, very remote, and it was hard to shake off a sudden vision of me thrashing about alone in the woods for days before popping out by accident into semi-civilisation crazed and half-starved. Eight minutes sounded like a very long time indeed and plenty of time for the group to stomp a good distance off into the forest. I looked apprehensively at my little torch with its feeble and fast-failing light, but decided that after the car-in-the-snowdrift episode on my first night I wasn’t about to go all chicken now.
So I watched as my fellow adventurers became retreating shadows and the crunch of their snowshoes got ever fainter until there was nothing but silence.
Left fully alone at last, I looked up and almost immediately noticed the first swirls of a Northern Lights display in the sky. Granted, this was a very faint version of the spectacular displays that can sometimes be seen (strong Northern Lights displays are certainly possible in this region but more common further north, and we are also currently in a period of low solar activity which makes sightings less frequent and less intense), but the hypnotic swirls and shifting bands of green making their way across the sky were nevertheless truly magical, all the more so for being appreciated in solitude in the middle of the wilderness.
When my eight minutes was finally up, I was rather sorry that it was time to go, but with a last look over my shoulder at the shimmering sky I headed off in pursuit of the rest of the group. Finding the way, it turned out, was no challenge at all (5 people on snowshoes make a rather obvious set of tracks) and before long I had collected the first person who had been waiting for me quietly in the dark.
Soon we were all together again, standing on the banks of the river. Just beyond our vision, a little too far to be seen but easily heard, were the falls. No matter, we would be back this way tomorrow to have a closer look. For now, it was time to head for home.
“Which way are we going?” I asked.
“Better head back the way we came,” replied Torkel, “we don’t want to push our luck.”
I was profoundly pleased to discover that, even with his superhuman powers and great knowledge of the area, even Torkel would have had trouble getting us home in the dark on a circular route.
It wasn’t long before I was wriggling down inside my two enormous sleeping bags for the night (my little down bag had expanded magically to fill most of the tent, or so it seemed). Far from being cold, I had soon worked up a powerful heat and needed to strip off a layer before settling down to a deep and surprisingly comfortable sleep…
Over the next few days we continued our expedition into the nature reserve, passing out of the birch wood and into pine forests, through an area destroyed by forest fires decades before and only now just recovering, up and over the occasional ridge or hill (at which times I was glad I hadn’t chosen the pulk option – navigating a 45 degree slope with a sled in tow is devilishly hard work), and through a stunning gorge. We honed our knowledge of animal tracks, beginning to be able to identify some of the easier ones ourselves without asking Torkel “What’s this? What’s this?” every ten seconds like children on a school outing. We found pine cones wedged into tree trunks by woodpeckers, examined dung of all shapes and sizes and belonging to a host of creatures, told stories around the camp fire and, perhaps most importantly of all, drank a great deal of tea.
When we finally arrived back at Vålådalen mountain station some days later, there was no doubt about it – we had been on an adventure. A little stiff perhaps, a little tired certainly, but utterly satisfied, we stripped off and settled in to the sauna for a blissful afternoon of reflection on our experience. For myself, my thoughts were filled with how much I had learnt during the tour: not just how to distinguish animal tracks or how to pitch a tent in deep snow, but some very important lessons in winter outdoor toiletry:
- When answering a major call of nature, make sure you’re on a firm footing before getting down to business. Falling bare-buttocks-first into your newly-dug snow hole when it’s -6 is rather a shock, especially since, with snowshoes on, it’s practically impossible to get up again.
- Watch what you drink very carefully in the hours before bedtime, especially as you’ll be sleeping a good 11 hours a night. No matter how desperate you are, nothing is worth the hassle of getting out of the tent before morning. Torkel summarised my own feelings nicely one morning when, on opening his eyes, his first words were, “Ow! My bladder hurts.” It seemed he really was only human after all…
Best regards
The Nature Travels Team
This is the second part of a description of this season’s Snowshoeing in Wolverine Country tour in February 2008. To find out more about snowshoeing holidays in Sweden, see here. We also have a number of other experiences in the beautiful region of Vålådalen, including dog sledding tours, winter mountaincraft and summer mountaincraft training and guided hiking tours.
Having achieved widespread popularity in central Europe, snowshoeing is just beginning to become known here in the UK, as a growing number of people discover how liberating it is to be able to step off the beaten (or ploughed) track and strike out into the white wilderness.
This February I had the chance to join our local guide Torkel for four days of snowshoeing and winter camping in the silent expanses of Vålådalen Nature Reserve in western Sweden.
Torkel is no stranger to the frozen wastes, having traversed Greenland in the footsteps of Nansen, and no stranger to adventure, having been the first person, along with his wife Annica, to make an extended expedition right around Sweden.
With the prospect of exploring the mountains in such rugged company, I was just a little apprehensive about what I’d let myself in for as I slithered along in my little Vauxhall Corsa hire car up the 30km forest track through a howling snowstorm to Vålådalen Tourist Station, where we were to assemble next morning to head off into the wilds.
That evening, I received a cheery call from Torkel asking me to drive down the road a few kilometres to his house to collect some equipment I had arranged to borrow. I looked out with trepidation at the blizzard raging outside.
“Umm…are you sure?” I said. “Couldn’t I pick it up tomorrow? What about the snow?”
“Snow? What snow? Oh, don’t worry about that, there’s just a dusting…”
And so I set out of the station car park, windscreen wipers going for all they were worth but failing miserably to clear my vision, headlights straining weakly through the white onslaught. “Ah, there’s the road”, I thought confidently, and swung hard left and down the hill. It took just a few metres before it dawned on me that what had looked invitingly like a minor road was in fact a ski track, and sure enough a couple of seconds later I ground decisively to a halt, the nose of the car wedged alarmingly deeply into the snow.
After much grunting and straining and spinning of wheels, there was nothing left for it but to call Torkel to come to my rescue to help push me out of a snowdrift I’d apparently deliberately driven myself into.
After such a shaky start, I was determined to prove my worth as an experienced adventurer over the next few days. We gathered next morning in reception and were taken into a side room to divvy up the food and other equipment for the trip. We were each presented with a mixture of individual food rations (including the worryingly termed “coma bag”, a high-energy mix of chocolate, dried fruit and nuts to munch as needed along the trail) and communal items. We staggered off laden down with all our various bits and pieces to try to find a place for it all in our packs. Some of the more foresighted members of the group had arranged to borrow a “pulk”, or sled, to drag behind, and as I looked at the effortless way they seemed to pack everything down I began to wonder if I shouldn’t have done the same.
When Torkel had lobbed an enormous sack of Santa Claus proportions in my direction the previous evening and proclaimed matter-of-factly, “Here’s your share of the stuff”, I had honestly assumed that he was joking. It had taken me much of the night and a great deal of straining and puffing to get everything into my pack, which was now bulging at every seam. Not heavy at all, as the equipment I had borrowed was top-of-the-range: lightweight Hilleberg tent, two sleeping bags (a synthetic outer and down inner) and Ridgerest sleeping mattress, but the bulk of it proved a real packing challenge. Still, somehow I found a little extra space for the food rations, and at last we were standing together, expectant and ready.
“Have you all brought toilet paper?” asked Torkel, and as one we all scattered sheepishly off to the loos (apologies to any guests at the mountain station at the time who are reading this and found a mysterious absence of loo roll for the rest of the day).
I had done a fair bit of snowshoeing as day tours before, both in Switzerland and Sweden, but I had never had the chance to try an extended expedition. As we flopped around the car park like drunken penguins trying out our snowshoes for size, I just had a feeling that this was going to be a great trip. The wind had dropped, it had stopped snowing and the sun was beginning to peep through the clouds. Mild, stable weather conditions had been forecast for the following days, and we were all very excited indeed. Even Torkel seemed positively brimming with enthusiasm for the trek, which is a very good thing for a guide to be.
“Where are we going?” we asked. “I don’t really know”, answered Torkel with a cheeky smile. This felt a bit odd at first, but was to turn out to be one of the huge attractions of the whole experience for me. There was no fixed route, no fixed destination. We walked when we wanted, stopped when we were hungry, and pitched camp when we were tired. The profound satisfaction of an extended trip where we just walked for the sheer fun of it and to see what we would find was as uplifting as it was unexpected.
It took just a few minutes of self-conscious wobbling before we found our balance, adjusted to the unexpected weight of the packs and sleds and got into the stride of things. We passed quickly along some of the prepared cross-country tracks surrounding the station and then suddenly Torkel stopped in his tracks, looked up as though struck by divine inspiration, and announced “This way!” Clambering over a fence, he headed off into the woods, making fresh tracks in the virgin snow.
As well as being a patient and inspiring guide, Torkel also turned out to be a knowledgeable and passionate naturalist. One of the other real surprises of the trip was to be how much we would learn about the flora and fauna of this region over the next few days, from which lichen are eaten by the passing reindeer to how to tell the difference between pine marten and weasel tracks. Every few minutes we would stop to look at some new discovery, fresh elk tracks in the snow, their depth clearly indicating the great weight of this majestic animal, the phoenix-like patterns left by a capercaillie taken flight from its night shelter beneath the snow, the pitter-patter tracks of a pine marten scurrying from tree to tree.
We stopped for lunch in a forest glade, and set to working out how to get the Primus stoves lit. Always a big fan of Trangias myself (great for general camping, not so good at low temperatures), this was unfamiliar territory for me, and it took a fair bit of fiddling about to get lunch on the go. Torkel maintained a good balance between hanging back to let us work things out for ourselves and pitching in to rescue us from disaster, and before too long we had two stoves hissing away happily melting snow for tea.
When we started to get cold, Torkel had us all “doing the penguin”, hopping up and down with fingers splayed out to the sides to encourage blood flow. We felt silly, but it didn’t matter – there was no-one to see us. In fact, it wouldn’t be until we returned to the station four days later that we would see another human being.
Looking around, at the forest with the imposing bulk of the Jämtland mountains rising behind, at our little group bustling about with the paraphenalia of lunch, at the lichen hanging like miniature beards from the trees, I felt strongly that this was going to be a very very good trip indeed. And, to make life perfect, the tea was ready…
Best regards
Bob from The Nature Travels Team
This article describes the first day of our Snowshoeing in Wolverine Country experience. The Vålådalen Nature Reserve is also the setting for many of our dog sledding holidays in Sweden, as well as for our summer mountain skills training and guided hiking tour, Mountain Magic for Beginners.
Look out for the next instalment, when we go in search of our first camping spot and discover something fishy in Torkel’s sled…
The next two days of the tour were to pass in a euphoric blur of sunshine, powder and flying fur.
Waking from our night of comparative luxury at Helags, the morning had an air of unhurried calm, as we luxuriated in the good weather and marvelled at the imposing bulk of Helagsfjället, Sweden’s most southerly glacier, looming over us as we did our morning rounds of feeding, watering, and poo collection.
Replete from a leisurely breakfast, we harnessed the dogs and tore off across the plains en route for Gåsen. The first downhill section was truly exhilarating. With both mushers and dogs well-rested and spirits fired by the glorious weather, it was a joyous experience racing over the virgin snowfields, stealing quick glances behind us to catch another glimpse of the retreating L-shaped glacier. With the sleds emptied now of much of their original food supplies, the difference in speed was noticeable. But our new dogsled handling skills had also kept pace, and we coped effortlessly with twists, turns and bumps which would have easily defeated us just a couple of short days before.
Though today was one of the longest stretches of the trip, it seemed no time at all before we were puffing and panting our way along the final 1km ascent towards Gåsen. Perched spectacularly on a rise, the views from Gåsen were simply stunning. An enormous wide sweep of peaks, alpine and jagged, and a huge sky of perfect blue.
We had made good time to Gåsen and had plenty of time ahead of us before sunset in which to bask in the afternoon sunshine. The dogs clearly loved the unexpected warmth, turning their faces to the sun and closing their eyes in contentment.
For a few blissful hours, we took time out from our adventures and revelled in the glow of the afternoon sun and the breathtaking views. One of our group commented, and we all agreed, that part of what made this view so particularly special and the whole afternoon so idyllic was that we were, quite literally, the only ones around to enjoy it.
Spectacular views may be common enough from mountain peaks in alpine ski resorts, but the experience is always shared with (and some would say marred by) the restaurants, ski lifts and general hubbub of life on the pistes. This afternoon was ours and ours alone, and we were determined to make the most of it. Even our guide Tommy, a veteran musher in this area for more than 20 years, was delighted. “It’s never like this up at Gåsen in February,” he told us, smiling, “this is more like April.”
As the sun began to boil away below the peaks, the temperature dropped sharply, and it was time to build the shelters for the dogs to protect them through the coming night. Here again it was noticeable how much our skills had improved. Instead of the shaky, ramshackle creations of our nights at Vålåstugan, we crafted sturdy shelters in half the time that looked like they would withstand a hurricane, each little wind hole between the snow blocks lovingly filled with loose snow.
After some hot work of digging and packing, we stepped back to admire our handiwork, feeling a certain pride in what hardened Arctic pros the previous days had moulded us into. But while our shelters may have looked hurricane-proof, they were far from husky-proof, as we discovered when many of our charges hopped over to the windward side of the walls to catch the last fading rays of warmth from the setting sun, nonchalantly demolishing many of our little shelters in the process. Ah well, a musher’s work is never done….
This being our last night in cabins for the tour, Tommy and Lena surpassed themselves, putting on a feast of traditional Swedish meatballs (including a veggie version for me) and surprising us with chocolate mousse with whipped cream. Outside, the stars shone bright and clear in the sky and the mountains echoed to the howls of the dogs as they bayed at the full moon like a wolf pack.
Stomachs full and thoughts still back on the trail, it was a reflective evening of solitary reading broken by occasional interjections of “Pass the chocolate biscuits” or “Have you seen my headtorch?” This was no awkward silence born of lack of conversation, but a comfortable, mindful quiet. We were adventurers who had shared an amazing common experience, and there was no need for words. One by one, like characters in an Agatha Christie novel, people drifted off unseen to bed, until I suddenly found myself alone, reading in a pool of torchlight.
As I stepped out of the cabin to brush my teeth by the light of the moon, I had to wonder if it was possible for life to get any better. It was, as they say, the perfect end to a perfect day.
The following morning, our final day of dog sledding in the mountains of Jämtland, was our coldest yet at -6 degrees, though still much milder than normal February temperatures in this part of Sweden.
Though the day started overcast, the clouds were clearing nicely as we readied the dogs for their final pull. Perhaps it was an after-effect of the sunshine the day before, or perhaps it was because the dogs clearly knew they were now within striking distance of home, but harnessing the sleds was an even more riotous affair than usual. By the time we were ready to cast off, my ears were singing from the noise and I was using all my weight to hold the sled on the brake.
Once again, it was immediately obvious this day how far our sled-handling skills, our sense of balance and our general confidence in ourselves and in the dogs had improved. Once again we flew across the snow surrounded by a gorgeous panorama of mountains, negotiating steep downhill sections with the wind whipping through our hair and clouds of powder rising behind us as we braked, before traversing downwards through an icy wind and flying spindrift, at last leaving the high mountain plains behind and entering the shelter of the birch forests.
Perhaps a less dramatic landscape than the high plains with their sweeping views and endless horizons, the forest nevertheless presented its own challenges: tight, twisty tracks requiring full concentration and precise braking. The sleds were all but empty now apart from our personal luggage, and our turns of speed on the downhill sections were thrilling. It is vital when going downhill to brake sufficiently, keeping the lines tight and the sled well behind the dogs. Serious injury can result to the rear dogs if the sled runners catch up with them, and we needed every ounce of our newly-honed dog sledding skills to negotiate the labyrinthine forest tracks.
After a lunch stop at Stensdalen (with a quite spectacular but harmless spill on the way in from Chris as he flew over a sharp rise), it was time to saddle up for the final stretch. With the mix of joy and sadness that accompanies the end of all great adventures, we saw the sign for Vålådalen Tourist Station. At the last moment, Tommy stopped our convoy and relayed a message back down the lines. We had made excellent time on our descent, and with such good weather he had decided to take us on a detour through the forest before finishing the tour – the adventure wasn’t over yet. He swung his sled right onto a new trail and sped off through the trees, and we set off in pursuit.
An hour or so later, now utterly exhausted having covered about 35km in total since leaving Gåsen but delighted to have had the chance for an extra tour, we arrived back at Vålådalen. How long it seemed since we had stood there just 5 days before, huddled nervously around the sleds listening to Tommy’s instructions and fumbling with our dog harnesses.
It was an emotional moment saying goodbye to the dogs as we hoisted them two-by-two into the trailer boxes. They had been our engines, our companions and our friends during our adventure, and we had each developed a fierce bond of trust and loyalty with “our” dogs. When we had first met these 44 animals it had been hard to tell one from the other, and for the first couple of mornings we had needed help from Lena and Tommy to recognise the members of our team when picking them out for harnessing.
But now they were very much individuals to us. We knew their characters, the patterns and feel of their fur, whether they pulled a little to the side or straight ahead, whether they were fussy eaters who liked to be hand-fed, whether they were one of the cheeky ones who always seemed to wait until you had just finished a round of poo collecting before squatting smugly to deposit another little brown pile in the snow. We had breathed in their warm musky odours and huddled with them against the driving snow. We knew them, and we would sorely miss them.
We shook the ice from our sleds and loaded them onto the roof of the truck. As the other guests set off up the hill for showers and sauna and a well-earned hearty meal at Vålådalen, I climbed into the cab, Tommy gunned the engine and truck and dogs rumbled off along the track to Undersåker. As we bumped our way home, I opened my breast pocket and took out my little card with the names of my team which had been handed to all of us on the first day. At the time those names had meant nothing to me, but as I read them now they conjured vivid images from our journey. Marte, golden-furred and full of energy, pulling hard on the front left. Bruno, darker, stronger, a calm and steady force on the front right. Behind and on the left, the lightly-built but tireless Tindra, rolling in the snow to cool down as we stopped for a rest, and my personal favourite, Haddock, a little jumpy and surprisingly shy for such a big dog, but strong and intelligent with deep, rich fur.
I have always counted myself lucky to be able to work in the business of outdoor experiences, but as we rattled along through light snowfall on our way back to the kennels, I reflected that we had named this experience very well indeed – it really had been a Dogsled Adventure.
Best regards
The Nature Travels Team
This is the final part of the description of our Dogsled Adventure in Jämtland tour in February 2008. You can also watch a slideshow of images from this experience at www.naturetravels.co.uk/slideshow-dog-sledding-feb-08.htm. For further details of our range of dog sledding holidays in Sweden, please see our website at www.naturetravels.co.uk/category-dog-sledding.htm. Dates and prices for winter 2008/2009 will be released shortly. For groups of 5 or more persons, we are able to offer private dog sledding holidays in Sweden by arrangement. Please contact us to discuss your requirements.
