GB Day 39:

Hemavan - Kullen

Via Holmtjärn

Tuesday 17 August 2021

Had the alarm set quite early today, but Kim had been up late so she was really tired.

We finally got up and went to have breakfast sometime before 9 AM. We got to eat hotel breakfast today again, and ate a loooot. Kim was so happy that they had pancakes here.

During breakfast we met Andreas again, and we talked for a while until we were all done with eating about half an hour later.

We then went to the little shop beside Fjällcentret to buy a new shirt for Kim. Her shirt - a Norrøna Bitihorn Wool Shirt, got a whole in it on the first day, and ever since, it has become bigger, but also joined by even more holes. She really loved the shirt, because it was the most comfortable long-sleeved shirt she had ever worn, but she needed a new one. So she bought an Aclima Lightwool Long-sleeved Crew Shirt instead. It doesn't feel as good while wearing it, but hopefully it'll be better than wearing broken one.

We went back to our room to pack all of our stuff together and make us ready, which actually took until 11 AM when we needed to check out.

Outside they had some tables, and Kim weren't completely done with writing the upcoming blog posts yet, and we hadn't completely decided on a route either, so we sat down by the tables to finish this. Meanwhile, Andreas showed up again, so we were also a bit delayed due to this. But it was nice!

Just when we were about to leave, we heard a voice saying "were you going to leave without saying hello to us?". It was Helena showing up with her dog Black, and sometime later, Per-Erik showed up as well. They were really nice, so we got stuck there, talking about a lot of different things, not only the usual trail talk, and we even stayed there when Andreas got going.

They also suggested we have a look in the store in case we might find hip pockets for Kim's backpack. Unfortunately we didn't, but we did find a new burner. A lot more expensive than when we first bought it, but ours broke the third day or so, and neither the piezo had worked, nor had it burned properly since then. In Ammarnäs we'd gotten an email from Bikesrer (where we bought it) that said we could return it, so we thought that maybe we could buy a new one now and return the old one when we reach Klimpfjäll.

And so we finally got going!

We walked around the airport, threw our recycling as we passed the recycling station, stopped by "Timmerkåtan" to take a geocache, and then continued up on the mountain. This route was all good, and the weather was nice, until we started reaching the lakes. Here it got quite wet. By the first shelter and the lake - Bastan, we stopped on a small bench for a snack pause. Not long after we saw the second shelter by Bastan. When we came to Holmtjärn, things started being a little weird. First there was a shelter, where there wasn't one on the map (at the first bay). Then we passed some people working with clearing the forest for the new Lapplandsleden, and then we came to a crossroad. According to the map, the trail to the west would go pass Holmtjärn, Aejliesjaevrie, Kroktjärn and Rundtjärn and pass two shelters. The other would go past Långsmaltjärn but they would both end up going to Joeström. Kim missed the crossroad though, because it was a bit hidden, so she walked straight towards Långsmaltjärn. Here we also passed the new Lapplandsleden but it wasn't on the map so we thought the best thing would be not to follow it. But the trail supposed to go south past Långsmaltjärn never showed up and we didn't want to cross the mountain and go down on the wrong side, so we stopped and rubbed our heads a little in frustration (because we could see the water but not the trail) and turned around. When we walked back we also walked a few metres on Lapplandsleden, but since it seemed very wet, we changed our minds and headed for the path that would go past Aejliesjaevrie (or Allesjaure, as the signs said). It ended up being super wet marshlands, and so when we saw Lapplandsleden coming through the forest a little higher up, we made our way up there instead, and it was a lot drier. Too bad we hadn't known that right away.

We also saw that the shelter beside Holmtjärn didn't exist where it was painted on the map, which was odd. But the shelter beside Aejliesjaevrie did exist, and there was also a newly built one beside it, so here we stopped to have lunch in the nice weather.

After this we had no problems, we just followed the trail past Kroktjärn and south down to Joeström. It didn't take long until we were tired of roadwalking...

After a little while we met a man who lived in Joeström who was getting his mail for the day, and we talked a little bit to him before moving on. He suggested we might find some camp spot in Ström, or we could just ask someone to camp on their property. He also said we would pass some water along the way too.

To keep us busy while roadwalking we tried a few different guessing games. We guessed how far it was to things we could see far away, how many painted lines there would be to different objects and we also guessed amount of poles in the road safety barriers.

Finally, we got tired of roadwalking, so after 9 km on the asphalt we found a flat spot beside some running water. It was probably going to get muddy, and it was close to the road, but it was getting late, it was 9 PM, so we thought it would have to do. It wasn't close to any houses so at least we wouldn't disturb anyone living in the area.

Today's:

Favourite: Nice weather, nice views

Distance: 23.6 km

Start time: 13:32

End time: 21:07

Ascent: 449 m

Descent: 427 m

Snickers eaten: 1

Gröna Bandare spotted: 2 + 🐶

Totals (from Treriksröset)

Distance: 770.4 km

Ascent: 17,828 m

Descent: 17,786 m

Tent nights: 29/39

Gröna Bandare spotted: 19 + 1 🐶

Via Suecia-hikers spotted: 2/4

Snickers eaten: 28

Ice cream eaten: 13