Kungsleden Day 1 – The Night that Never Was

Day 1 – 10 miles

The night train rumbles north from Stockholm under the lingering twilight of the Swedish summer sky. In my tiny railcar bunk I rock from side to side as the train winds from the city center, through dwindling suburbs and finally away from civilization entirely as telephone poles give way to endless rows of ramrod straight birch trees, their silver skin glowing in the pale light. Where we are headed the sun will never fully set, instead spinning in a lazy arc above us as it does every year during the highest days of summer.

We depart the train in early morning and climb aboard a bus heading north, always north, always towards the mountains. Keith and I are tackling the northernmost 60 something miles of the Kungsleden, Sweden’s oldest hiking trail which runs 290 miles through the Lapland from Hemavan to Abisko. The Lapland is the name given to the nearly-uninhabited land in the northernmost region of Finland, Denmark and Sweden. The Kungsleden could be likened to America’s John Muir Trail in that it is a highlight reel of some of the best nature in the country. After some hours of increasingly narrow roads the bus deposits us in a dirt pull-off and finally, finally it is time to hike. The trail is immediately unrelenting and my pack feels heavy and unwieldy beneath seven days worth of food. Whoever designed the Kungsleden was clearly unfamiliar with the concept of switchbacks. We climb straight up until all of a sudden the trees drop away, the horizon expands, and we are walking like water droplets rolling from the shoulders of giants.

The terrain here wears no mask but its own as I try to liken it to places I’ve been before. And I suppose in that unwillingness to be codified this land has begun to nestle its way into my heart. Throughout the afternoon we play leapfrog with stream crossings and fellow hikers until the evening where we find ourselves mercifully alone in a little campground near the rushing waters cascading down what we will climb up tomorrow. Turning to my familiar backcountry bed I am grateful to find myself held by the nature I know I can always return to.