Camp at Skarja

Wow, what a night! It started raining around 4:30 pm yesterday and kept pouring down more or less intense the entire night and morning. Finally, shortly after 11 am the rain started to subside and minutes later I could wipe off the majority of the water from the rain fly.

Just after noon I had everything packed up more or less dry and could continue my journey after spending 20h inside the tent. I guess God wanted me to have another rest period!

Starting on a downhill slope towards the river I soon found myself on the trail again. From here on it’s very clear and easy to follow, it just blurs out into several separate ‘suggestions’ a couple of times during the day and it’s always effortless to find the main trail.

I pass two rivers, swollen by the heavy rain, that normally would be easy to cross without changing. Today it was an adventure and I chose to gamble a little, betting high boot shafts, skills, experience, and good balance against, maybe, better judgment. It worked out, though, and I saved a lot of time – besides, getting one’s feet dry when it rains is not an easy endeavor.

Soon after the second crossing, I arrive at the reindeer watcher cabin marked on the map. Turns out it’s being kept open as an emergency cabin, and people left it in a depressing state, full of trash piles and with the outer door removed. Kinda makes me sad…

Now, entering Ruohtesvagge, I come to the one major river crossing of the day, being fed by a large glacier in the southwest and swollen by the rain, it’s wide, murky and super cold. One guy I met yesterday told me the water went halfway up his thighs, and that was before all the rain…

Turns out he must have picked the wrong spot to cross, I never got wet above my knees. The main challenge was the cold and I admit it took me maybe an hour afterward before my feet felt normal again.

The rest of the trail was a breeze, nice and soft for the feet and super easy to follow. A couple of rather easy crossings, and soon (well a few hours later) I reached the emergency cabin here at Skarja. Due to the weather, there were quite a lot of people choosing to camp here and have the option of dinner inside, leaving a total of eight tents on the ground.

I had dinner early and left for my tent to make space for others, looking at checking out for the night around 9 pm.

Super special view around here now due to the clouds and rain all around us!