Hej from Hemavan!
This morning I woke up right on time, 3am. Perfect! I figure, not only do I need to adjust to the new time zone, I need to adjust to my general hiking wake up time.
In the wee hours of the morning I pondered my apparent scheduled flight from Stockholm to Hemavan, which I booked through a third party site as there were no other options. I thought, what if it’s a fake flight, what if I need to find another way to get there? Even though Hemavan is the southern terminus of Kungsleden, it is still way up in northern Sweden, a full day’s drive away from Stockholm (over 13 hours by bus). The hike hasn’t even begun and already I’m problem solving and coming up with possible solutions just in case.
It turns out my flight was indeed real. I could only check in at the airport 90 minutes to departure. There were so few people on the flight that we could choose our own seats. I dozed off and woke up to see an amazing view of the Gulf of Bothnia from my window.
I’ve been thinking about this trip and why I’m here. There are easy, surface-level answers that could suffice: I want to experience a part of the world I’ve never seen before by foot. I want to challenge myself. I want to inspire others. These things are all true.
But then there are other questions this brings up. Why am I going this alone? Why do I feel compelled to not only hike, which is a hard thing, but to make it harder on myself by seeing how quickly I can go, Especially when it’s not the most pleasurable or fun way to do it, by the standard definitions.
Earlier this summer in Virginia I got to experience what it was like to fall short of a goal and finish out my remaining days on the trail as purely fun. It was a meaningful hike for many reasons, and everything worked out as well as it could have, but at the end I felt a bit disappointed all the same. Having that experience helped me to see more clearly what I want, and I think what I want is not a tangible thing beyond a feeling. I want to feel spent and satisfied with my effort. It’s a feeling I want from my everyday to my last day; that I did my best.
Looking back on the last half year or so, everything I’ve been doing has been building toward this idea of hiking Kungsleden. I poured a lot of time into to training and planning the logistics, which are quite tricky with the seven lake crossings. Even though I have never set foot on this trail, aside from tagging the northern terminus in Abisko this past winter, I now know quite a bit about it. Thinking of experiencing it with my own eyes and on my own two feet feels akin to unwrapping a gift or opening a book.
My partner reminded me that the outcome of my hike is not predetermined. I am now reminding myself this as I have some nerves going into the unknown. Since arriving in Hemavan I’ve been feeling more at ease. I’ve already counted seven hikers in town. I may be hiking solo, but I wont be out there alone. I also already ran into my first bout of problem solving. There are no ATMs in Hemavan! I need some cash to pay for the boat crossings, and made a bad assumption that ATMs are everywhere like grocery stores and gas stations. I called ahead to the next trail town, no ATMs there either. However, the manager asked if I was a hiker, then said I could just PayPal him at the store, and he’d give me some cash if he had enough in the till at the end of the day. The trail provides!
I was considering delaying my hike due to some rain forecasted on Thursday and Friday. However, every time I check, the predicted amount and intensity of rain is less and less. And if I were to delay, it might mean pushing into some rainy days at the end of the trip, where I’ll be further north and reaching the highest elevation of the trail. Tomorrow’s weather is looking beautiful, and I accept that Thursday and Friday might be sad weather days. Ultimately, it is impossible to perfectly predict mountain weather, and I am sure to get a good dose of all of it! I am feeling good about my decision to start tomorrow… and being open and flexible with whatever happens!
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Thanks for reading. I’m thrilled to continue sharing how my Kungsleden journey unfolds. You can find more information, logistics, tracking, and sign up for trail dispatches here.
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All my best,
Liz (Mercury)