(Sid) – Are we there yet ?
(Peaches) – No
(Sid) – Are we there yet ?
(Peaches) – No!
(Sid) – Are we th…
(Peaches) – NOOO!
(Oh wait, that ain’t the Ice Age…)Saturday March 8th:
Peaches arrives at Arlanda at 9.30, early laundry and it’s time to pick her up at the Airport. She does not really know when we’re leaving, nor where actually. The first plan was to make an “easy” trek in the Jämtlandtriangeln, where I was with Baptiste last summer. But this time, we’re heading north, really north! Over the arctic circle, close to the Sarek National Park, one of those last place in Sweden not yet impacted by humans. The trip is from Kebnats to Kvikkjokk. A 4 full-day ski-trek.
Back home at 11.00, time to start listing all the food required for the trip. And there’s a lot! Chocolate bars, cookies, sugar, pasta, couscous, soups, and a bit of Chartreuse. Quick trip to the shop, and we start packing. The bags are heavy… Don’t remember if it was the same 2 years ago. We have too much candies, too much cookies (and it will be true since I’m still eating those cookies right now while writing, back home). Most important, the 4 huuuge oranges we took (at least 2kg according to Peaches…) that we will carry till the end of the trip… Note for next time, try to optimize food supplies!
22.30, train to the north, and the show is ON! The train is completely full and everybody took skis, big bags and pulka (big sledge to carry what doesn’t fit in the bags). Nice Tetris game in the wagon to make our way. We finally found our beds and dreamed about the cold coming days.
Sunday March 10th:
Waking up early, it’s cold in the wagon. There’s even snow inside! Hum… Rather not thinking about outside’s temprature. 10.30, we’re in Boden, train change towards Gällivare. 13.30 Gällivare, changing to a bus towards Ritsem. Less and less folk with us. But still a big number of families with small children… Hum… strange. Hope they’re not going to the same place than us. They did…
Final destination reached at 15.30, we’re at Kebnats bus station. From there, it’s an easy walk to Saltoluokta fjällstationen, 5km on a flat lake (Yes, we’ll see in a coming episode that lakes are not always flat…). The walk took approximately an hour, but we started to feel the heavy bags after a while, leaving a small apprehension for the coming days… We really have to eat all that food!
Arrival around 17.00 at the cottages. Check-in, ski/shoes/sticks rental, paiement (gloups… You even needs to pay 10€/head to use the kitchen!), shower, sauna, short dinner (pasta, taking good habits…), quick look at the map for tomorrow: It’s gonna start steep up! One couldn’t dream of a better start to test the condition and the material…
On these pleasant thoughts, time to bed, tomorrow is another day, towards the unknown (infinity ?)