Gautelisehytte to Abisko: Along the Kungsleden

The weather continued to be windy, cool with occasional light showers when I left Gautelisehytte. I was thankful for the DNT markers and appreciated the artist flair on this marker.

The trail headed east towards the Swedish border and ultimately to the Kungsleden. I continued through open moorland with occasional bridges, rocky paths and swampy sections. By now I had decided that my boots would probably hold together, and I with only 5 days of walking left my pack was also noticeably smaller.

Having crossed the border I headed along what I thought was the trail, but it appeared that at some point I wandered off on one of the many reindeer tracks, a look at the map indicated to me that if I continued  I would ultimately cross the trail again. However, after awhile I began to realise that not only was I not on the trail but the trail did not appear to be in the same location as shown on the map. A close look at the map indicated a summer bridge about 2 km away, so I decided to head across country to the bridge which entailed a 300 metre climb crossing a plateau and descending to the river. It was still cold and windy and the isolation of the plateau with some views to the valley below made for an eerie walk. I finally began to descended to the bridge, and as I sidled down and around a small peak I came across the bright orange coloured cairns marking the trail. They appeared to come from a different direction to the one I had expected, and thus I decided that the trail had been rerouted since the map was drawn. Feeling happier because I was now back on the trail I descended to the river and sought a sheltered spot for a late lunch.

It was cool and while it was not raining the strong westerly wind ensured that I was wearing my windshirt and my possum fur beanie.

Gear Reflections Lapland 2011

I thought I would describe the gear I used and how it performed for this instalment of the report of my trip along the Nordkalottleden. The final report on the trip will appear soon.


 Packing

Aarn Natural Balance

The Aarn Natural Balance (NB) is the big brother to the Aarn Featherlite Freedom (FF), I recently wrote a review on the FF and many of the design features are also the same for the NB. Perhaps the major differences are;

• Vertical bars form part of the frame on the NB as shown in the picture below
• The NB has 2 compartments one accessed at the top of the pack and the other at the bottom. 

For this trip I used the lower compartment of the pack for my sleeping bag and dry clothes, the upper section included all my food along with the GoLite SL2 and other odds and ends.

Similar to the FF the NB includes watertight inner sacks and thus there is no need for a pack cover.

For the trip I attached the Expedition pockets on the front, and the starting volume of the pack was 83 litres, which is similar to many packs seen on the Kungsleden. This volume enabled me to easily pack all my required gear and food in the main pack whilst the front pockets contained everything required during the day such as food, camera, stove, navigation equipment.

The starting weight of the pack was approximately 23kgs, which was heavier than I prefer but once the fit had been adjusted I found it to be comfortable with none of the sore shoulders or hips that can come from carrying big loads. By the end of the trip, the pack was too large but I was able to compress the pack to a smaller size as shown below.