What a week!

Friday 10 June

It started with us going over to my parents house to meet up with my parents, sister, grandparents, uncle etc to celebrate with some fika that my sister is off school for the summer, something that we do every summer. We had a really great time there, and originally we had planned to stay a bit shorter, but it was so nice that we decided to not hurry.

In the evening we took our car and drove towards Falun.

Saturday 11 June

We stayed the night on the parking spot of a climbing crag and geocache place. So in the morning we got up, and started repelling etc until we found the cache. Then, we had planned to do some climbing, but soon others were coming there, and we also realised that it was way too late - we had to go.

So we went back to the car and continued north.

As mentioned in a previous post, in geocaching I'm "collecting" municipalities. This means that I'm trying to find a geocache in as many different municipalities that I can. So we took a different route north this time, and passed Ovanåker, Ljusdal, Ånge and Bräcke. In Bräcke we of course also stopped to buy ice cream at Glassbaren, a place I've wanted to stop at for a really long time now since I've heard they make one of Sweden's best ice cream!

While there, we heard thunder in the background, and the rain started pouring. But soon we came to Östersund, and the rain faded away.

We went to visit our friend Elise, had some dinner together and then afterwards we tried the delicious ice cream from Bräcke. Which was indeed really good!

We then continued the evening with playing board games together until we almost fell asleep.

Sunday 12 June

After a night in the parking lot (😂🙈) we continued to spend some time with Elise. We had nice breakfast/brunch together, went to the climbing gym in Östersund to climb with Elise, solved a mystery cache and went out to do some geocaching together.

But in the afternoon we had to leave, since Lukas was meeting up with his friends for the river kayaking course that they would have this week.

We had been recommended a spot by Indalsälven, the river that goes past Åre and Undersåker. We came there, but couldn't see the other guys despite them telling us they had arrived! But suddenly they showed up from nowhere, scaring the hell out of us.

Apparently they were just deeper in, hidden on some small road that we thought wouldn't fit a car. So we went there too, and hung out by a nice shelter where they had started a cozy (but very smoky) fire. We had some dinner together and hung out, then I hid away in the car for some alone time.

Monday 13 June

Today Lukas and his friends had their first day on the kayaking course (more on that in another post by Lukas). So off they went in the morning, but what about me? Well, I had some huge plans for myself and wanted to take a lot of geocaches, but I wasn't sure I would be able to make it (and I didn’t really, down below is an explanation of what the hell happened).

I started with going to Åre to climb Åreskutan to get the virtual cache there. On the way up I was planning to take another cache along the very steep route called "Vertical K". This is what didn’t go as planned.

First of all I had trouble finding the path to it, because it was super small and very discreet (and not marked). When I finally found it, and it went straight up into the forest, and there was even a rope to hold on to. That's how steep it was. But now came the next issue. Some birds were getting very upset with me being there, and started, of course, to protest really loudly. I was maybe 10-15 meters away from the geocache I wanted to find there. Since it was so steep I'm not sure it is possible to climb down the same way you come. Either way, you shouldn't, and I had to get to the top anyway. The birds were now super annoyed with me though, and started to swoop down and try to attack me. So with one had I had to protect myself with my trekking poles, and with the other hand I held onto the rope. I couldn't really move anywhere because the bird attacks came so often, so I just stood there, trying to protect myself. Passing this short section might have taken less than 10 minutes, but for me I it took AN HOUR! The geocache was supposed to be a little off to the side by a spruce, so I tried my best to slowly move over to the side to look for it. Really hard with those birds attacking though and no rope to hold on to, just trees, stones and roots… But slowly slowly... It was hard to look for it though - and I never found it. But this much off to the side, the birds suddenly calmed down with their attacking. So I decided to climb through the forest instead of along the path, and after having moved a few meters up, I made my way back onto the path. And now they didn't care about me anymore. How nice!

But, now I had wasted about an hour, not found the cache and was generally a bit pissed about the situation. I reached the first little hill on Åreskutan, Mörvikshummeln, and had a nice view over Åre. During the climb I had a little bit of rain, and later I would get wind and more wind. On the way to the top I tried to avoid the snow patches, which meant I had to kind of zigzag my way to the top.

Up at the top I met two people, after not having seen anyone since Mörvikshummeln. It was a bit of a surprise, but apparently they took some other route up.

We talked a little bit, but I wasn't planning on staying long.

It's funny because I was actually prepared, but they looked at me with so much shock, and asked if I wanted tea, food, nuts etc 🤣 Really nice of them, but I was prepared with both snacks, water and warmer clothes. I think it was all because of the fact that they sat there with boots, robust shell jacket/pants and were eating warm food and drinking warm drinks, and there I came... In shorts. And trail runners.

It was really not a problem though, and while resting for a short time at the top I put on my down jacket. I also wore this for some time while I started going down, to keep warm. As I went down, I knew I had wasted way too much time going up because of the bird attacks, so I decided to spend the rest of the time just taking as many geocaches as I could on the way back to the car.

Tuesday 14 June

This day kinda started planless.

The first day of the kayaking course, our friend Micke dislocated his shoulder and could not continue. So during the week he had to do something else, which meant he got to hang out with me :)

We decided to go to Tännforsen first, which was really cool. Nature is so incredible. Just a crazy amount of water and force in the same spot!

Then, I brought him to go geocaching with me (what else) and we went around Åre. To top of the day, a day that wasn’t too great because it was my birthday, the weather was cold and boring and we were both tired and feeling a bit off, we decided to eat food at Crêperie & Logi. I’ve never had “food crêpes” before, so these were my first and they were just soooo good. So I’m really glad we decided to do that.

But, things weren’t going to stay great.

After coming back to our camping spot and again met up with Lukas and his friends - Ismaël and Johannes, Micke started feeling worse. And spent the night in a separate tent and running back and forth throwing his guts up.

Wednesday 15 June

Luckily the day after he felt better, but he rented a place and stayed inside until he was going to go home again, to rest and get better.
I was super tired today, and my throat didn’t feel great. So I took it easy, went to Ullådalen in Åre and looked for some geocaches in that area. Then as usual went back in the evening to hang out with Lukas and his friends, or chill in the bed in the car.

Thursday 16 June

Today I didn’t feel great either, but we had decided to go climbing all of us today. So we had a chill morning, then packed our bags and off we went to Välaberget. Here we spent the rest of the day at the base of the crag. Climbing a bit. In the afternoon a big group of other people came. We also spotted some really cute mice!

Friday 17 June - Sunday 19 June: Fjällträff!

And so it was finally time for the very anticipated Fjällträff in Vålådalen. A meetup with people who has, or are going to hike Gröna Bandet like we did last year, or skied Vita Bandet (same concept but during winter).

The same day we left for Jämtland on 10 June, I was called and asked if I could speak about my hike through Sweden on the Fjällträff. I was not prepared, and not spoken about my hike since April, but decided to say yes anyway.

On the friday of the Fjällträff, I really regretted this though. I had not prepared myself during the vacation, and was really worried I would mess up completely. A few hours before it all, I even said to Lukas how I regretted saying yes, and how I should have stayed at home. It also didn’t help that I was really hoarse and my throat felt bad as well. Would it even hold up during my talk?

It did go well though, and I was talking with more ease than I have when I have spoken earlier as well. My voice held up too.

I have always found it hard to know how to receive feedback - both positive and negative. So I had the same problem now, but luckily it was all positive! I got so many people coming up to me during the weekend, saying I didn’t look nervous at all, that I was talking really calmly and that my speech was really good. I was told it was raw, honest and transparent.
It’s hard to put into words how happy all of this positive feedback made me though, and that I really was understood in the things I was talking about. Both the good things, and the tough moments. And that’s something that is nice with most long distance hikers. I feel like we understand each other, speaks each other’s language. Even if we’re all different, are doing it for different reasons and had different experiences, I still feel like we understand each other.

It is a beautiful thing.

The rest of the weekend at the Fjällträff was amazing. We talked to so many different people, met people from the different partners of the Fjällträff like the people from Backpackinglight, Lundhags, Primus, Hilleberg, Silva and Hestra.

I was so happy that we went there, and I hope to go to a meetup like that again!

In addition to hanging out with people (which was what Lukas and I mostly did when we were there) we also went to one of the activities which was learning how to handle a compass properly. I know some stuff from earlier because I have an interest in maps, some I knew through geocaching (like coordinate systems and direction and bearing) and some I knew because I have been orienteering a little bit. But it was a great course and something I would like to practise more actually.

After the amazing weekend we had to go (almost) straight home because we were supposed to go working again on Monday morning and we had a long drive ahead of us. We just did two stops on the way home. Again in Bräcke to have ice cream, and once more at Flataklocken - Sveriges Mitt (Sweden’s Geographical Middle Point). This meant, that last year I hiked from Treriksröset down to Smygehuk, and now I finished with getting to visit Sweden’s middle point as well. A great cherry on top of a great weekend!

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