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I'll be travelling between August, 11th and September, 9th 2007

I started planning for this trail back in 2005 to eventually put the idea back. In part, due to the lack of information in a language I could understand, oddly enough in this information era where everything is supposed to be available on the internet.

A couple of years later, it seems the english speaking world hasn't got hold of this trail yet. Not many outside Scandinavia anyway. Good god, I feel like a pioneer...

I'll go for the blue one

Note: some of the slots below are obviously empty. It's no mistake or computer failure, it's... lack of time. It was my obvious intention to fill them and I know how silly it is to upload a mostly empty document but as of July, 27th I'm not sure I'll have time to write all that before I leave... but I'm so excited about it and I wanted to announce the english speaking world I'm hiking in the bloody arctic. And it's gonna be great.

Background

I felt if I went to hike in North America again this year, I should consider moving there permanently. Maybe not a bad idea but for the moment I decided to justify my stay in old Europe by bringing the big time hiking home again.

I knew I would greatly and painfully miss the wilderness feeling so I decided to try to find it somewhere near home, whatever "near" means nowadays. That's the same goal that made me look towards the arctic back in 2005 but this time, I told myself, I wouldn't let the lack of info wear my motivation down. Maybe two years later info sources in english had come up...

Not the case, unfortunately. I faced the same lack of resources I remembered from that previous attempt but not to worry: I'll take notes and write about it all when I'm back!

The Nordkalottleden is probably the northernmost real trail of that length in the world. It's about 800 km. long, all of them above the Arctic Circle. I must say that, without having visited neither, the european arctic doesn't feel as extreme nor it's as remote as the north american arctic. There are roads, villages and even railways in Lapland and the Gulf Stream seems to warm things up a bit... but there are also mountains whose powerful presence makes the northern landscapes take a most dramatic feel.

The Nordkalottleden trail will be my attempt at wilderness travel in Europe. This time, the wilderness will be for real.

Lapland: the last wilderness in Europe

Europe is so densely populated there's no real wilderness anywhere, not even in the mountain areas so it's probably right to say Lapland is among the wildest places, one of the few real wild areas left in old Europe.

During my first visits to North America, the one thing I found striking was the isolation, how far you could get from anything human. I hadn't found anything like that in Europe where your're hardly ever more than a few hours' walk from a road or village.

I do hope I can find that wilderness feeling in Lapland. I've never been there before and that title sentence comes from some tourist internet site but it's really high latitude and the maps don't show much as far as human made things go. I'll only know when I get there.

Everyman's right

This must rank among the most beautiful laws made by humans... because, as far as I know, it's got the law category.

In Scandinavia, you can roam freely and you can also camp for the night, anywhere in the territory, even if you're in private land and as long as you don't bother the owners. That's great news for the traveller. Be sure I miss that where I live. It's such a great feeling when you know you can be at home wherever you go.

Three countries, one region

The transnational concept was kind of central to the Nordkalottleden trail from the time the idea came up. The no borders trail is one I particularly like. There are no borders in the terrain anyway...

Planning

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Trip outline

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Trip phylosophy

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Gear: ultralight in the arctic?

I've already proven myself, over the last few years, that I can do it. I can go UL. I don't have anything else to prove the world or myself. Can I go back to ultra-heavy?

Just kidding... no way I'm leaving the UL paradigm behind, no matter where I'm travelling. That said, I'll relax the whole thing a bit for this trip: first, it's the arctic. It's supposed to be challenging up there. Second, and most important, I don't really know what I'm getting into so a certain safety margin will be in order.

Nothing dramatic though. I'll keep most of the gear I trust. The one important thing I'll change is my shelter: I'm sure this trail can be done with a tarp but... I'm not really sure; and I don't have a source of info I can trust in this subject. I tried with a tarptent kind of shelter I got recently, expecting it'd be what I needed, but some tough testing during super windy weather last spring revealed the Six Moon Designs Lunar Solo is not as wind worthy as I had expected. It's a great shelter but I saw I wouldn't trust it in the wind beaten arctic fells...

I needed something sturdier (if only for the peace of mind) but I still wanted it to be lightweight so that was my perfect excuse to take the plunge and buy a Stephenson's tent.

I just got my brand new, beautiful and awfully pricey 2C model and just had time to seal seams and take it to the local mountains for a mild weather test. I don't like trying new gear on a main trip but I made up my mind about this too late. I can only hope the Stephenson's will be my new best friend when the wind howls outside.

Just above 1 kg for a remarkably bombproof shelter

Most of the rest of my gear stays the same as usual. I'll be adding a bit more of insulation capacity (it might get cold up there) and will update the rain protection: a slightly bigger umbrella and a nylon jacket; I'm aware the latter is more for the psychological peace of mind than anything else, the propore (paper-like) stuff really works, but I guess I need some reassurance. oh, and no rain skirt this time... I anticipate too low temperatures for it when it rains. And I won't need to give so many explanations.

Published on July 27th, 2007