“If you see a wolf,” the blond-haired, blue-eyed Swede said, handing me my rental snowshoes, “there are probably a lot more you don’t see.”
I raised an eyebrow and paused, my Visa card hovering halfway out of my wallet.
“Only kidding, have fun out there.”
Thus began the first of my three days mountaineering around Kebnekaise, the tallest peak in Sweden, well above the Arctic Circle at latitude 68°N.
Living in Stockholm for the semester had been going well enough, but after a few months I was eager to break out of the concrete car-ridden jungle and see some real wilderness.
After a few Google searches of “most remote + Sweden,” I had my spring break booked at the Svenska Turistföreningen Fjällstation (Swedish Touring Club Mountain Lodge) at Kebnekaise.
Nineteen kilometers from the nearest road, and so far north that diesel fuel turns to jelly, it would be as far from the motoring world as I had ever been.
Every waypoint en route to the mountain made it more apparent that I was getting exactly what I wanted: far away.
When I finally reached the cabin, words hardly did justice to the awesomeness of what I saw.
Pure snow covered an infinite expanse of rocky peaks and frozen lakes, and my body was paralyzed in the position I had been sitting in on the very chilly ride.
I decided I would spend the first snowshoeing, the second downhill skiing and the third cross-country skiing. The lodge rents all this to you for a reasonable fee, and the staff was very helpful in suggesting routes and activities.
With map, snacks (mostly stolen from the breakfast buffet) and water stuffed in the pockets of my Carhartts, I trekked out into the tundra.
Once I could no longer see the cabin, I was surrounded by the greatest void of humanity I had ever experienced – I was into the wild! There was no sign of humans beyond what I was carrying and a deafening silence punctuated only by my skis gliding over the snow.
I ended each day loosening up in the sauna with my fellow adventurers, then swapping stories over slabs of reindeer meat and pints of beer so dark I thought it might be used to keep the snowmobiles lubricated.
Departure was bittersweet, but at least I was returning to the city with a clear head, fresh air in my lungs and the knowledge that modern transportation (phew!) was coming back into my life.
Kebnekaise may be a bit too far to return to, but I know I’ll be trying to recreate the experience this winter in Vermont.
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