GB Day 23:

Bållávrjåhkå - Darreluoppal (lake)

Via Duottar, Darreluoppal (cabin)

Sunday 1 August 2021

Today we were woken by a helicopter, that also woke us up on the way back when we had fallen asleep again. We had breakfast together outside our tents, and got going. It wasn't raining today, but a bit windy some now and then and some drizzle. It was chilly though, so it took quite a while to get warm, and for Kim it didn't help that she started with cold and wet shoes and socks either. The way to Duottar was, like the rest of the hike through Padjelanta so far, in very easy terrain. Some ups and downs, sure, but the path was really easy to walk on. The way to Duottar passed quickly too, because we had some nice conversations again. We also saw both a swan family with four babies, and a reindeer with a calf. When we were almost at Duottar we had to cross twice between two lakes. It wasn't very deep, just deep enough that Lukas and I had to remove our trail shoes on the first crossing to stay dry.

In Duottar we talked to the cabin host. He showed us some potential tent spots for tonight, told us about STF's first hut - Darreädnohuhttán from the late 1900's, close to Tarrekaisestugorna, talked to us about the importance of carrying your trash all the way back again (that we of course know of) and what a struggle it is for them to take care of the trash - either store until winter and ship away on snowmobiles or burn. And burning isn't as easy as it sounds when packaging contains aluminum! We highly recommend people to read about this process in STFs magazine "Turist".

But we also bought some stuff there as well - Snickers, 3 bags of yesterday's bread and 2 tins of mackerel. This we feasted on together with tortellini, carbonara and cream. Most likely the best lunch we've had in a really long time.

The hike to the next cabins - Darreluoppal, was an easy walk again. Almost in Darreluoppal I recognised a face, and saw a Garmin Inreach, so I asked if she was a Gröna Bandare, and she was. It was Catherina Björkman. We had quite a long conversation here, so Johannes and Ismaël, and then also another hiker that Catherina had been talking to when we came, started walking again. In the end, we had to end the conversation and try to catch up to Ismaël and Johannes. We kept a good pace, and soon reached the cabins. Here we found that the cabin host would leave tomorrow, and he said that if we bought a lot of things, we could have a quantity discount. Awesome! So we picked out some stuff; Snickers, some different sweets and biscuits, and a lot of bread and butter. All of this we got for almost half the price! Not too bad when they are flown here, together with the host.

We walked down to the water - Darreluoppal, after this to have our feast. We got the tent spots just by the tiny sand beach. When putting up our tent we noticed a tent stake was missing - probably still left on our last tent spot... Luckily we had two extra with us for our kitchen, so we could use one from there.

Before having the feast the guys of course had to go swimming again - all of them. Kim just cleaned her feet before going to bed. We then sat beside each other outside our tents and ate bread warmed on our kitchens together with butter, some cheese that Johannes had with the reindeer meat that we had, ate biscuits and sweets and Johannes had soup too. Everyone was really happy and enjoying it.

The guys finished the evening with playing the knife dance again, while Kim went to bed to take a look at the planned route ahead. All this time, the rain managed to just barely stay away, and sometimes the sun was showing up as well.

We fell asleep to the sound of the wind and a jokk in the distance, and the croak of a bird we didn't recognise, that flew around close to our tents.

Today's:

Favourite: The shopping in Darreluoppal and the feast that followed

Distance: 21.7 km

Start time: 10:25

End time: 19:19

Ascent: 611 m

Descent: 615 m

Snickers eaten: 1

Gröna Bandare spotted: 1

Totals (from Treriksröset)

Distance: 442.1 km

Ascent: 10,272 m

Descent: 10,096 m

Tent nights: 19/23

Gröna Bandare spotted: 9

Snickers eaten: 15

Ice cream eaten: 4