Tour of 2018 – Day 8, August 3rd 2018

Camp near Storsteynshytta
Woke up early and just stayed in my sleeping bag as I didn’t want to disturb the guests inside the cabin. Turned out I should have followed my first instinct and packed everything up – minutes after 6 am it started to rain heavily.
Not until 8 the rain lightened enough to get from the camp to the cabin without getting totally drenched. I grabbed everything except the tent and went for breakfast.
As the cabin was rather cold and damp I made a fire in the stove, very appreciated by all the other guests!
After a couple of mugs of coffee with coconut oil, I went back to the camp and took the tent down. One of the groups had left their room already and I could hang my tent to dry, two hours later it was good to pack!
Still, I lingered in the cabin, waiting for the host to be ready for an interview, finally, I left at around 1 pm.
Getting into another rain shower on the first stretch, I dropped into the cabin at Cunojaure to have a cup of coffee away from the rain. Between chatting with two Austrian guys and a Swedish couple I met already on the trail to Unna Allakas yesterday, I stayed until 4:30 pm.
In the meantime, I had decided to go check out Storsteynshytta, as my original plan of going up towards Smaileriehpas felt a little cocky due to the weather. Pitching my tent in the clouds isn’t one of my favorites…
The hike up to that cabin was only around 12km and I’d easily been there before 8 pm if it hadn’t been for the last river crossing. Right below the glacier, the meltwater stream spread out into a kind of delta, leaving islands of sediment between the arms of the river. I made it about 1/3 of the way before I had to change into my Crocks and pack my trousers into the backpack. Water was more than knee deep and painfully cold, worse, the sediment wasn’t stable… I sank into the bottom and almost lost one of my Crocks, the last arm I did barefoot, carrying the wading shoes in one hand.
Once through the river, I didn’t stop to change yet continued up the hill all the way to the cabin in a successful attempt to get warm.
The cabin itself turned out to be a disappointment, though, there is a nice one that is privately owned, the NTO cabin didn’t have a stove to make fire and the ceiling was so low I couldn’t stand up. After a quick glance, I went and pitched my tent instead!
Soon I had dinner ready, followed by a couple of mugs of tea, and soon after 10 pm, I went to bed.
Even if the hike was neither long nor hard this day, the last 3km involved quite some elevation and the river crossing was tiring and I’ll have no issues sleeping well tonight!

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Peace // Claes

Tour of 2018 – Day 7, August 2nd 2018

Camp at Unna Allakas
The rain had stopped just after midnight and the sky looked a lot more friendly when I got out and shaked most of the water off my tent at around 7 am. Ashleigh was already awake and we ended up chatting for a couple of hours having several cups of coffee while Cornelia slept in.
Altogether a very pleasant morning that led to a rather late start just shy of noon. The girls decided to make it to the campsite 3km (2 miles) before Abisko and aim for breakfast at the tourist station tomorrow morning.
So we agreed that I take them up to Kungsleden, make sure they recognize the markers and then move on westwards towards Norway, aiming to end the day here in Unna Allakas.
After spending a week with them and having a lot of adventurous experiences and fun together I have to admit getting a little emotional when we parted.
I’m confident that they make their way just great and will enjoy that breakfast immensely.
I, on my part, looked forward to the sauna in Unna Allakas and to clean up thoroughly for the first time in a week.
Didn’t make any real breaks during the hike, and didn’t need any, just stopped for water a few times and ended up being on the trail for almost 6 hours straight.
Feels so great how the body adjusts itself and has moved into hiking mode again. Of course, it’s also helpful that I’ve been using up some of my food and the weight of the backpack goes down.
I’m still amazed, though, how much less food I need than anticipated. My guess is that my body is well aware of the extra body fat I intentionally put on before the tour, use that first and that my hunger will increase down the road.
Obviously, we can’t fool nature and my trick to lessen the load a little by putting on some weight seems to backfire slightly as less food leaves my backpack.
Anyway, the sauna was wonderful, as expected, and the lake was warm enough to actually swim around for a while. The first time that happens up here!
After cleaning up I enjoyed a nice dinner inside the cabin, chatted with the other guests and got down to my tent just after 10:30 pm.

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Peace // Claes

Tour of 2018 – Day 6, August 1st 2018

Camp west of the crossing between Radujavri and Miesakjavri
The day started very relaxed, all woke up rather early and we got going at 9:20 without any rush in the morning!
Continuing the trail up valley at a pleasant pace we reached the meadow where we originally planned to camp after just 1 hour and 20 minutes, stopping for a longer snack break.
After another hour we reached the northwest ‘corner’ of Bajip Cazajavri and Cornelia wanted to stop for lunch.
That taken care of we followed the trail through the Sami village Alisjavri and continued on the east side of the lake. Soon we heard thunder in the far and looking back the clouds were building up closer and closer.
During a short water break we all changed into rain gear, anticipating to get wet soon.
The first rain shower was surprisingly light, yet the thunder storm came closer and moved around in the area. When the first heavy rain hit us we found shelter under a protruding rock formation, moving on as soon as it lightened up.

Not long after we got hit by the next, even heavier shower and reaching the crossing over Godujohka we had to wait a while for the rain to get lighter before we could attempt to cross.

Crossing the river was rather sketchy, I’ve never seen the water flow that high and the current was stronger than I was really comfortable with. At one spot the water was knee high with very strong current and I had to ask the girls to wait in the cold water while I went all the way over to the other side and could come back to help them through the roughest part.
After everyone of us was safely on the other river bank we continued down to the crossing between Radujavri and Miesakjavri. And You really need to love irony as this crossing, that was planned to be an adventurous end of the tour before reaching Kungsleden, ended up being a pretty easy anticlimax after the river crossing right before!
We made camp right on the west side of the crossing and used my gear shed to have dinner after killing off the mosquitoes that already found their way in. The rain had started again just shortly after we got our tents set up and I’m so grateful we could still sit together for a meal. Totally worth carrying around those extra 900g!
During dinner, we heard voices outside and later they got disturbing enough that I got out to check what was going on. Turns out some family had pitched their tent just about 30m (100ft) away from us, having loud conversations among themselves.
I asked them to quiet down a bit and after that, it was possible to sleep.
Side note: In just short of 30 years up here this is the first time anyone has been inconsiderate enough to pitch a tent that close to my camp when away from the cabins. So most people actually behave very well and enjoy their own privacy as well as respecting others.
We could still hear thunder far in the distance through the early hours of the night and it rained on and off

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Peace // Claes

Tour of 2018 – Day 5, July 31st 2018

Camp across from the large boulders in the middle of Vistasvagge
Great night at Vassajavri, woke up with morning sun and a light breeze and enjoyed a slow morning. Got started towards Vistas (one of the girls wanted to visit the shop) and got further delayed as I found service on top of Vassanjunnji ridge and got some messages sent.
The descent to Vistas was pleasant and without any challenges, we arrived at the cabin shortly after 12:30 and left over three hours later. The girls went down to the river for lunch, sunbathing and a dip, and I chatted with the cabin host and a couple of other guests while enjoying a cup of coffee!
Once back on the trail we all enjoyed the ease of the hike up the valley, the sun was shining and it was rather hot so we took it easy and made many short breaks for water.
Originally we aimed for the meadow right after the bridge over Moahrmannjohka yet made the decision to stop early at another beautiful place as the long stop in Vistas led to it already being 6:30 when we got there.
We enjoyed a very nice evening, bug-free due to the wind and a small campfire, and kept chatting for some time. Finally, around 10 pm we split up and went to our tents!

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Peace // Claes

Tour of 2018 – Day 4, July 30th 2018

Camp at Vassajavri
Turned out none of us slept any good at that last camp, personally, I woke up repeatedly and in the first half of the night never went deep enough to notice I actually slept at all… Only a look at the clock told me how much time had past.
It rained rather heavily around 1:30 am and this again interrupted everybody’s sleep.
Still, I woke up at 5:40 and felt rested enough to start my day with some reading and a couple of coffee with coconut oil!
We had agreed on waking at 7 and I made sure everyone was up, from that on until we could finally dry our tents and get packed up, we got another two rain showers.
The first half of the hike up to the security cabin at Mårma was very pleasant, easy walk, nice temperatures, and a welcome breeze!
Then we started catching some rain again, light showers at first, yet then some heavier rain that not only made us wet but also made the rocks pretty slippery and slowed us down quite a bit. Nearing the cabin the rain stopped, still, we decided to have lunch inside to escape the cold wind!
Side note: The cabin at Mårma is in a horrible state, it’s doubtable if it would even do much good in an emergency situation. There’s no firewood in the shed, people have used the stairs to the outhouse and parts of the floor of the shed for firewood.
Trash has been accumulating for God knows how long and nobody seems to take responsibility for the place.
Upon coming home I’ll send an email to the organizations who are supposed to care for the cabins and ask who’s actually in charge.
During our break, the sky started to look friendlier and we decided to give it a go!
I must say that the girls did great, totally overthrew my wildest expectations and behaved like seasoned hikers on the whole stretch. Tons of respect and a big shoutout for them, I’ve never heard of anyone doing a tour like this on their first time in Lapland, or even the second or third for all that matters.
And they handled every part of it equally well, ascent, descent, river crossing, etc.
I’ll take these two on a hike anytime!!!

Finally, we chose to stay up here in the ‘Lost Valley’ instead of continuing to the planned destination. We’d been delayed several times during the day for different reasons, it was already 7 pm when we got here and the evening sun was so inviting!
I treated myself to a (very short) swim inVassajavri, super cold and very refreshing, before making camp and cooking dinner.
By 9 pm we were all inside our respective tent and looking at an early night.
Hopefully, all of us get some good sleep and wake up rested tomorrow!

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Peace // Claes

Tour of 2018 – Day 3, July 29th 2018

Camp at bridge over Vierrojohka
We went to bed early last night and everyone was probably asleep by 9pm, I know for sure that I was. The frenzy of the last week before departing obviously had caught up with me when I started relaxing out here in nature!
Slept super well and woke up just after 6:30 in the morning, turns out I was the only one up and I let the girls sleep in while doing some reading and enjoying a great meditation.
After a long, relaxed morning we got going at 11am, maybe half hour earlier Ashleigh got some Advil out of her bag and offered Cornelia for her knee pain. This turned out to be one of the highlights of the tour as we all finished today’s hike felling really well. Cornelia felt a slight discomfort at times, no pain.
The trail through Bessesvagge was, for the most part, in better shape than I’ve ever seen it. Still I lost it once on the stretch through the bushes and found it again after some struggling with vegetation.
I followed a creek uphill until I got back on the trail and then got back down to get my backpack and the girls. Super impressed by their effort, they did 100m (300ft) of steep elevation in just about 20min!
After a short break we continued along the trail, turned south towards the bridge over Aliseatnu and crossed over to the south side.
Side note: there’s a new trail heading eastbound when the wetlands start to show up, I checked it out and highly recommend to stick with the original one!
Reaching the intended campsite at the western shore of Vierrojohka we ignored the cold of the glacier water and first got cleaned up. Then setting up camp and having dinner down by the little pebble beach, starting a small fire to fend off the mosquitoes that appeared when the wind went down.
Tomorrow we need to get started a few hours earlier to have enough time for the Mårma pass so we’re all heading for another early night!

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Peace // Claes

Tour of 2018 – Day 2, July 28th 2018

Camp at Nissonvaggijohka
This was another great hiking day with amazing weather, actually the sun woke me up at 5am and I had to get out of the sleeping bag to cool down and fall back to sleep.
Next I woke at 6:20, got out of the tent and was met by the unexpected sight of both my hiking companions having breakfast outside.  Normally I’m the early riser in most companies yet the last week before departure I let myself get pretty sleep deprived and I needed that extra hour badly. Still I can feel the need to catch up!
Anyway, really nice to take two that self reliant girls on their first hike up here!
After a slow and lazy morning we got started about quarter to nine and made quite a few stops to fix emerging blisters on toes and drink lots of water. So happy about this weather, sun is shining and the temperature is well over 25C (77F) during the day.
What a welcome contrast to last years cold and rain!
Now, one of the girls had an old knee injury flare up and we decided to make camp right after lunch. Beautiful grass area right next to the Nissonvaggijohka.
After everything was set Ashleigh, the other participant and daughter of good friends in Minnesota, and myself went up to the nearest summit, named Goalkascohkka, to enjoy the view from there and just move around in the fantastic weather.
Quite a climb up there, we first went around the mountain and up the valley towards Guhkesriehppi. After enjoying the view of the glaciers we turned southeast and switchbacked up the slope to the summit. Marvelous view down Rautasjaure and, a little further west, up the valley all the way to Mårma pass.
Descending towards northeast there was a very steep area where everyone must find his own path down. More to the north was an easier route that was just slightly longer.
Everyone of us is rather nackered and we plan on an early bedtime after having dinner already around 6pm!

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Peace // Claes

Tour of 2018 – Day 1, July 27th 2018

Camp at Cuonjajavri
A day of travel, it turned out that there were no really good connections from Kiruna that fitted our arrival from Stockholm, ARN, and we ended up spending over 3.5h in Kiruna.
The day started a little challenging with one from the group sleeping in, yet our driver was super friendly and agreed to a detour to pick her up. Challenge successfully solved!

Finally at 4pm we got off the bus in Abisko and hit the trail!

Beautiful hike in fantastic weather, actually the heat made it necessary to force down extra water at every creek. One of us was especially challenged by the hot sun and had to wet her cap repeatedly to keep her head cold.
Needless to say we took it very easy and reached the camp site after around four hours of hiking, taking several breaks to cool down!
After pitching our tents we sat down for a late dinner and soon after it was time to hit the sleeping bags!
From a personal perspective I’m super happy that I start the hike this year being fat adapted. Didn’t eat for nine hours between lunch and dinner, felt super great, full of energy and no hunger at all!
I cannot recommend enough that You make sure to be fat adapted when going on a longer hike, it’s a total game changer!

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Peace // Claes

Hiking the Sleeping Giant near Thunder Bay, Ontario

September 19th 2018
Camp at Lehtinen’s Bay
After getting off to a rather late start this morning, I stopped at the ‘Bay Village’ coffee shop to pick up some gear they offered to lend me. Naturally, I stayed for a nice ‘Bulletproof’ – and didn’t get on the road until after 11 am.
Luckily I just made it to the parking permit office 5min before they closed for lunch, got my paperwork in order and continued to the parking lot at the trailhead!
Around 12:15 I started on the trail towards ‘Sawyer Bay’, planning to climb the head of the giant on the first day.
‘Sawyer Bay Trail’ does frankly resemble a quad track more than a hiking trail, it’s also very easy to walk and should be ideal for groups as two or three people can walk beside each other and chat comfortably.
Where the trail reached ‘Sawyer Bay’ there are several, really nice campsites and fireplaces. Beautifully arranged right at the shore!
The trail continues as a clearly visible, and easy to follow, footpath, soon reaching the fork where the ‘Head Trail’ takes of up the hillside.
 
I followed it up to the top, and the view is totally worth the effort of climbing the trail. And, yes, partly it is more a climb than a hike, just take it slow and You’ll be good!
Once back at the fork I continued the ‘Kabeyun Trail’ along the shore of ‘Lake Superior. The trail is very easy to find and follow, mostly close to the water and with very few changes in elevation.
After leaving the western shoreline and starting the climb over the giant’s feet, the ground gets clearly rougher. First, just an uphill slope, later steeply downhill on the east side. Closer to ‘Lehtinen’s Bay’ the trail climbs over large rocks and progress slows down immensely!
Just a short way past the rocky area I found this beautiful camp between the trail and the shore, the view over the lake is truly amazing and I look forward to falling asleep to the sound of the waves hitting shore!

On the next morning, I got started around 9 am and headed for the Talus trail to get to the crossing that would take me to the top of the giant. This was a much more mellow hike than to the head, still partly steep, yet with beautiful steps built into the trail, making the steep parts so much easier.

I found it a little weird when finding the sign for the ‘top’ pretty much in the woods and not even near the highest point in the area.

Continuing further up the trail got me to the western cliffs and opened up a beautiful scenery!

The sky, that had been overcast already, grew darker the longer the day went towards noon and, also considering the fact that I didn´t find any water in the streams, I decided to head back to the car. Finally leaving the park just after 1 pm for the hour-long drive back to town!

I really enjoyed hiking the area and am rather happy to have left the ‘chest’ for a later occation, giving me an excuse to come back!

The journey continues, please leave a comment to tell me what You think and share this with friends and loved ones who might benefit or be interested!

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Peace // Claes

Hiking while fasting!

In March of 2018 I conducted a short experiment with going on a hike while fasting, the hike itself is described Here:
In this article I want to clarify what led up to the decision to hike fasted and how I prepared for the experiment.
So, if You been following my stuff for any amount of time, You already know that I’m a proponent of low carb nutrition and fuel my own activities primarily with fat. I noticed a considerable shift in my metabolism after the 30 day hike in nutritional ketosis I did in the summer of 2017, after which I no longer need a few days adaptation when choosing to up the carbs for a day or a few. My thoughts are that the prolonged activity during ketosis restored my bodies natural metabolic flexibility and increased my ability to fuel with free fatty acids directly.
I have felt inclined to try an extended fast for quite some time, just didn’t seem to get to it, and now I thought the time was right and the decision was made on pretty short notice.
Just a couple of days before the start of the hike on Friday, March 23rd 2018, I caught myself falling into a pattern of spontaneous OMAD (one meal a day). I had my usual fat coffee in the morning and just wasn’t hungry more than once a day.
Probably this can be explained by stress levels being a lot lower than back in Stockholm and the abundance of sunlight I enjoy here on the island.
Anyway, I was clearly in fat burning mode when I skipped my fat coffee on Friday morning, leaving dinner at 18:00 (6PM) Thursday as my last meal before going out into the hills 13:30 (1:30PM) Friday.
Totalling just short of 80km (50 miles) I ended the hike on Sunday 16:00 and did only take in water and pink Himalayan salt (contains lots of electrolytes besides the sodium) during this time. Admittedly I consumed a lot of water and added about 0.5 tsp salt to each 1.5l bottle.
Timing proved to be perfect and on Sunday night my body told me to end the fast, dinner at 20:00 (8PM) left me with a 74 hour fasting period, maybe it had felt good to go longer if I had not been hiking. For now and under the circumstances, this was exactly right for me.
Now, I can’t stretch enough the importance of being properly fat and keto adapted if You want to copy the experience. Though it is true that fasting is one of the fastest ways of entering nutritional ketosis, doing that while being this physically active can only be a very unpleasant experience.
So, will I do this again?
Well, on the fasting side – definitely! I felt really good the whole weekend, good energy levels most of the time and really no feelings of fatigue or even serious hunger. The plan for now is to incorporate 24-36 hours fasts on a more or less weekly basis with an extended fast every now and then when it fits into my life situation.
At some point, when life’s slow and rather stress free, I´d like to go for a longer fast, maybe 7-10 days, to really reap the health benefits. For now the natural intermittent fasting I do on an almost daily basis will suffice!
That’s all for now, thanks for checking out the post and I hope you found it valuable.
Please share if you did!
Peace // Claes