Vålåstugan to Stensdalen. 18.5 km due to long detours.

The night was incredibly windy. Air vents in all rooms rattled constantly, and the trek to the loo was a struggle, not to mention the longer trek to fetch water.

The weather report promised that the wind would slacken in the morning but this never happened. The gusts were strong enough to nearly blow me off my feet; at times I was literally blown several steps off course and had to plant my pole to stay standing.

Speaking of poles, one of my walking poles stopped working. I couldn’t fix it in the extended position – it just kept collapsing. Forced to walk with a single pole, I realized that I liked this even better. With one pole I still get the balance and support, but at the same time I always have one hand free for the camera or a hankie or a snack. So I’m not going to buy a new pair of poles as I had initially planned – I’ll just keep walking with the one pole that still works.

The weather report also promised that there wouldn’t be any rain. That may have been technically correct; maybe it was just the cloud that was hanging all the way to the ground. In any case I could see sheets of wetness blowing through the air. The air was saturated with water and so was I.


The first half of this walk crosses the same empty plateau that I’ve usually walked across during the afternoon of my first day, but in the other direction. The trail then descends to below the tree line and continues through alpine birch forest.

About halfway there is a river, the Tvärån, to cross. When I got to the river I was immediately taken aback by its size and strength. This did not look like a river to wade through. The water looked deep and was flowing very fast, and there river bottom looked very uneven. I walked upstream along the river for a good while, looking for a better place, but wherever I thought I saw a promising spot, it turned out to be just as bad as all the other places when I got closer. So I gave up searching and went back to the original spot.

A couple of other hikers had just crossed the river there and pointed out the spot where they had crossed. Since I have very limited experience of fording rivers, I guessed that maybe they knew more about this, and maybe it wasn’t as bad as it looked. So I set out to do wade across in the same place.

I was barely a few steps into the water when I realized that this was not a good idea. The water was up to my hips and the flow of it was very, very strong. Were I to lift just one of my feet to take a step forward, I would simply be pushed off my feet. I have no idea how those other ladies managed to do this, and how they could have thought that this made sense! Once you lose your balance even the slightest bit, when the flow of water is so strong there is no way of regaining your balance. You’ll be off your feet, tumbling down the river between those rocks until they stop you. You can of course slip and fall in shallower water as well, but then at least you’ll be able to keep your head above the water, regardless of which way you fall. Whereas in hip deep water, you’ll be lucky to get a breath at all while you’re tumbling downstream.

Anyway, I turned around and was luckily able to make it back to the shore without falling.

I think I had probably spent about an hour at this river by now, and gotten nowhere. Just as I was feeling rather lost, more hikers caught up with me, and then even more. One of them shared information they had heard earlier from hikers going in the other direction, who had forded the river much further upstream. Based on their description (“small islands in the river”) and our maps, we figured out where that spot was, and then we set out walking upstream again. If nothing else, we agreed, the river would get smaller – based on the maps it seemed to become a stream a few kilometres up.

Nearly two kilometres from where the path met the river, we found the ford that the others had described, and it was clearly a much better place for crossing. The water was still strong and fast but the riverbed was much wider and more even. As a result the water barely reached my knees. Wading still took concentration, but never actually felt like a risky enterprise.

From this point there was first some more trackless walking to get back downstream to where the path was. This was fun: instead of just following the path, I had to think about where I should be walking, both on a large scale (which direction) and a small one (where to actually put my feet). After all, if I was off the path anyway, there was no point in walking back straight along the river when I could instead cut straight across the heath and rejoin the path further along. I even took out my map and compass, which I haven’t otherwise needed and only had with me “just in case”.

The path then went steadily downhill through a birch forest. When I neared the hut, there was another wide river to ford, but here the path met the river at a suitable place and I had no trouble getting across.

The one and only river I had forded before today (which I did two years ago) was so small that I went across barefoot. Here the river was so much wider that I thought that might be unwise, so I waded in my boots, which then naturally got completely waterlogged. The wet socks and boots still kept my feet quite warm, but were somewhat uncomfortable. For next year, I’ll have to buy some kind of extra shoes for wading. I’ve seen some people wade in Crocs, and others have lightweight running shoes.

The weather never got any better and I never stopped for an actual lunch, so by the time I got to the hut I was cold and starving again. I finally got my lunch at half past three.

The Stensdalen hut boasts beautiful views and is quite modern and comfortable. (The old hut here burned down and was replaced, so this one is barely ten years old.) The rooms are large and light and airy compared to the older huts, and the kitchen is very spacious. There’s even lighting, with electricity supplied by solar cells. It’s convenient, but it lacks the cozy charm of the older huts, so I didn’t really feel at home here.