Snowshoeing the Kungsleden
It’s dark, early and rainy at Gatwick airport on a mid April morning. As with many passengers, the banality of the start of my journey belies the nature of my destination. I am travelling what feels like a world away, to the Arctic Circle and the bright, vast landscapes of north Sweden. I’m joining a group to hike a portion of the famous Kungsleden, ‘The King’s Trail,’ an epic hiking route that passes through some of the wildest and most protected areas of Europe. I meet the leader of the group, Jim from Adventurous Ewe at the airport. He has the confidence and knowledge of a perpetual traveler and someone who has always tested the limits of adventure. He delights, with an air of infectious enthusiasm, of passing his skills and experience on to others. Any sense of nerves of the challenge ahead of me are circumvented by his affable nature and professionalism. We fly to Stockholm and then north to Kiruna. The ground below becomes starker and more frosted as we venture into the unknown, as if somebody has covered it in a white emulsion. Frozen lakes and white-capped trees appear into view - the snow starts to look less penetrable and more intimidating. As we step off the plane, the biting cold is markedly different. The air is cleaner, crisper and thinner. Even in Kiruna, which is a relatively built-up, prosperous mining town, breathing in feels healthy and invigorating.
We start at the Abisko Mountain Station, a gateway to the frozen trail ahead of us and a relative sanctuary. It’s here we first get acquainted with the task ahead, pouring over maps and getting briefed on the minutiae of the safety information we all realise may well be vital. Importantly, we try our snowshoes on for the first time. The first tentative steps. Inching forward on my new plastic accoutrements, I’m not altogether sure I’m ready for a week in these things. The snow’s falling, it’s windy, there’s little shelter and we’ve only just left our mountain station haven. My relationship with my snowshoes I can already tell is going to be love/hate. It doesn’t matter, I tell myself, it’ll end up feeling natural. At this point, I find the most concerning thing the fact we’ve only just gone round the block. We’ve got nearly 60km to go.
That being said, there’s already an emerging sense of camaraderie between us in the group. With a sense of trepidation and excitement the next morning, our snowmobile carriages await to take us to the start of the trail ‘proper’ at the STF Alesjaure Mountain Hut. I feel a sense of reassurance and excitement that we’re underway - we are heading into the unknown.
At first the vistas are staggering. Breathtaking. Almost unfathomable. As we snowmobile through the tundra, the natural environment becomes more bleak and less hospitable. The wind has a sharper jagged edge and the temperature drops. We near the cabin and the enormity of what lies ahead sinks in. I knew the arctic would feel big, but I wasn’t prepared for just how all-encompassing. Already, these landscapes with snow around them feel and behave differently. We disappear into snow drifts often waist high, and struggle to imagine an environment where any of this has thawed. The perpetual stillness in the air hides the dramatic movement underneath - the constantly shifting ice and snow - it’s strange to experience a landscape that feels both fragile and resilient at the same time.
After a good meal and a welcome sauna, we start the long hike on the first day to what will be our next cabin, Tjaktja. We start at a good pace, stopping for lunch about 6km in and putting on layers to keep warm. Even though the snow’s falling, walking is hard work and it’s easy to keep warm. Stopping is a different story, and at temperatures of -10 it’s important to always be aware of your body state throughout the day. There’s a comfort in the lack of anything else to think about - only having to put one foot in front of the other with little in the way of distraction other than pleasant conversation feels good for me. Definitely physically, and almost more importantly mentally.
We reach Tjakta. The cabins are impeccably kept and looked after. As the smallest cabin, supplies here are basic, but some of our huts have saunas, and a few even have shops kept stocked by hardy snowmobile delivery drivers. There’s a cracking atmosphere, partly a reflection of people’s sense of achievement getting through the day, and partly due to a general euphoria of being here, in the landscape, surrounding by no-one and nothing else. Over hot, warming reindeer stew, the discussions revolve around the day’s escapades and the atmosphere feels jovial and fun. Nationalities and ages are bound by being out here, in the middle of nowhere in tiny cabins together. We talk for hours. Reassuringly, there’s not a smartphone in sight.
Day three brings us somewhat surprisingly to halfway through the trip. The weather improves, it begins to stop snowing and the sun shines strongly down on us. Layers come off, conversation starts flowing again and our rucksacks suddenly feel lighter. It’s amazing how a bit of a sun makes a difference as we head to the highest point of our trek on top of the Tjaktja pass. The views here are spectacular and venture once again into the incomprehensible. Distances and the perception of scale becomes meaningless. Miles looks like metres and the lack of depth the blanket of snow provides is enchantingly abstract and confusing. From an old reindeer hut perched on high, the valley below descends in front of us flanked by vast mountains. From this elevation we can almost see our next hut for the night. Although it looks close, we’re reminded that it’s over 10km away. We’ve got a long way to go yet.
The sunshine allows us to play in the snow a bit. We’ve got used to the feeling of snowshoes now and the mood is light. We’ve all found an established routine as a group. Sharing wood chopping, water collecting and cooking at the end of each day is a reminder that we’re all settling into feeling more comfortable with our environment. Water collection is especially fun. Delving down into the water below a thick layer of ice another reminder of the amount the landscape changes between seasons.
As we venture on, the landscape begins to look different, too. After descending the other side of the pass, it opens up and there begins to be a sense we’re reaching civilisation again. Snowmobiles with local people come and go to nearby villages, and more visitors can be seen at each of the cabins we stay in. As we turn inland towards the Kebenkaise Mountain Station, our final days walk is difficult for the fact we all realise we’re nearly there. The body begins to relax and ache with knowing it’s all about to end. There’s a sense of sadness that the snowshoes we took our first steps in a few days ago are about to come off for the last time.
Tying the whole trip together is the feeling amongst us that we’re in a precious land. This landscape doesn’t belong to any of the people who work in the cabins, the people who maintain the trail so well or any of the many visitors that come here each year. It’s old native Sami land, place names and mountain names resonate with a Sami language that sounds like an amalgamation of Arctic Swedish and Finnish. Walking through some of it brings a new understanding of how these lands are threatened. The snow and ice in these Arctic environments are threatened geographically and physically, but the other side of the same coin is that they are also in danger spiritually. People have strived to work with these lands, not tame them, and through climate change there is a risk the Sami’s bond and connection to them may one day be non-existent. As we come to the end of the trip, it’s a sobering thought.
At our final stop, at the Kebnekaise Mountain Station, we bask with a well-earned beer in the sun, get changed, enjoy a long-awaited shower and sit down for a meal together to reflect on our journey. It feels like an achievement to get to this point - not only have we watched the landscape change around us as we hike through the Arctic tundra, we’ve also seen our sense of personal well being improve and our relationship to the natural environment become more intense and focussed. There is talk of doing it again, of setting ourselves new challenges and of joining different tours to hike in other far-flung places. We all feel a sense of new-found confidence that we’ve been able to reach and experience places only accessible on foot. There’s something to be said for doing it with a group of people who you know are feeling the same as you.
Our wonderful tour guides, Jim and Sofia, smile with a sense of knowing. They talk of how rewarding they find it when groups reach the end of a trip like this. It’s clear that this is a huge part of the job for them. ‘This is the second time I’ve done this trip this year,’ Jim says, ‘I was here two weeks ago and I’m sure I’ll come back for more.’ After a week walking through the landscape I feel like I get it. In its own wild way, just being in the Arctic is very much a drug in its own right.
