Alesjaure hut to Vistas hut (18 km). We left the main Kungsleden trail for a detour to Vistas, along Visttasvaggi valley and Visttasjohka river.


I wouldn’t exactly describe the Kungsleden as crowded, not while we were there. The opportunities for meeting people on the trail are relatively limited – this route is usually done north-to-south so you don’t normally meet people going in the other direction. You’d have to leave the hut at the same time, or take a lunch break at the same time (because most sections of the trail have exactly one obviously suitable resting place) – or be overtaken if they are going significantly faster than yourself (or vice versa).

Nevertheless we saw a few people yesterday: two skiers who were just leaving the shelter as we stopped there for our snack break, and a group of three whom we passed on the way up to the pass.

Today it was just us and the snow and the mountains. No people. No snowmobile tracks. No trail to follow. No trail markers, even.

We had no shelter for our lunch break either, so it was lucky for us that we had better weather today: sunshine and not much wind.

Skiing is sweaty work, so you don’t wear much: even though temperatures were below zero all week, I just wore a thin wicking top and a Goretex jacket, with no middle layer. But as soon as you stop, you start to cool down. When its windy, nobody wants to stand still for any more than a moment, just enough to do whatever made you stop (most likely: drinking, or taking a photo, or adjusting/putting on/taking off your goggles/sunglasses/mittens/hat/scarf). If you stop for more than a few minutes, you need to put on an extra layer, or more conveniently a down jacket.

The slope down into Visttasvaggi was the steepest downhill section of the path, not only today but of the whole week. It was nowhere near as steep as even a blue piste for alpine skiing, but much more challenging. It was uneven and unpredictable, with powdery snow and icy snow, bumps and hollows, all mixed up, and you couldn’t really see any of these in advance before hitting them with your skis. It took our group a fair amount of time to get down, and a fair few falls.

This was the most fun I had skiing all week. I am bragging only slightly when I say that I got down with no falls and even some style.

The valley after the pass was a bit stony and with a sparse birch forest. We crossed and re-crossed the icy river in places that seemed solid and luckily were solid. We saw lots of tracks of some animal that we at first couldn’t identify, but later realized must have been not an animal but a bird (ptarmigans).

Today’s hut, like today’s skiing, was beautiful and simple and clearly off the beaten path. No solar panels and antennas here! Just Bosse, our friendly host. The huts and the rooms were much smaller than the previous ones, with one small room for everything – bunk beds, table, stove, and barely any room between them.

Since the Vistas hut had no electricity, Bosse also had no contact with the outside world. Nevertheless he had heard (from some unknown source at some unknown time) that there might be another large group coming for the night, and for a while it looked like we might need to double up in some of the wider bunk beds. The huts never turn anyone away – they make sure everybody gets a roof over their heads for the night, sleeping on the floors or wherever. In the end the other group never materialized and each of us got a separate bed after all.

Unlike the huts on the main Kungsleden trail, which were supplied by snowmobile throughout the season, the Vistas hut was stocked once at the beginning of the season (late February) and those supplies had to last until the end of April. We bought the last tins of mackerel in tomato sauce that Bosse had and counted ourselves lucky.

The Vistas hut also had the smallest and most low-tech sauna yet: no separate washing room and no drains. The sauna simply had an uninsulated floor with slight gaps between the floor boards, and any water you poured over yourself just drained out through the floor. Despite its simplicity, the sauna was very pleasant, but it was also blazing hot and I didn’t stay for long.