Hiking in Sarek, Sweden

It has been a while since I put anything out here and it is due to a trip to England on work and also preparing for my hike to Sarek starting tomorrow. In England I went for a run... Guess what, it rained... The mental pressure was quite strong to make myself get out in the cold rain with the Stockholm Marathon still fresh in memory.

One of the things I upgraded this year in my equipment is the backpack. I have had my eyes on a Arc'teryx Nozone 75 for a while but after some serious consideration and handling it and other backpacks in the store I ended up getting a Bora 95 (same brand). I want much storage space so that I can fit all my gear, present and future, in it. My thinking is that when on mount Elbruz it must be much better to have as little as possible on the outside. When things get extreem you need to be able to handle all your gear easily and swiftly.

After the hike I will be able to write more of an evaluation and also hints or thoughts on what to think of when selecting your backpack. Why did I choose this Bora 95 and not the Nozone 75 (apart from how big it is)? Why did not my old backpack work? I will write about such thoughts later on.

Presently I am having a last slow morning, having a brew, poking about with the gear and so on. The gear is spread out so that I can easily get an overview and the last of the potato slices (chips) are drying in the owen. Yes, drying your own food is very good!
It is easily done with a bit of foil that you corrugate and put the potato slices on. Into the owen at about 50C for a few hours and its all done and ready. You can dry stuff like carrots, apples and basically anything you would like to eat on your hike. The dry food you buy in the stores tend to not taste so much and not good and having your own dry bits of food to add to it makes a whole lot of difference.

The weather forecast looks promising and have been turning for the better steadily for every day closer to the trip and I am glad for that. Just two weeks back there where quite a few heavy avalanches in the area. Most of the hiking will be above 900m (2700ft) and the ground will be covered in snow. It will also be quite exciting to see how fast we can progress since the creaks and small streams will be quite busy with all the snow melting.

That is it for now, I hope I get back with a whole bunch of nice pictures and that I can share some with you. If all goes well I may have all the material I need to complete my book and I will start selecting the pictures for it and also work on actually writing the texts I have planned for it. And yes, you guessed correctly, the theme of the book is hiking!

You will also be able to follow me and my friend on google maps if you are interested (we use Spot), just follow this link: Toby & Harald in Sarek

Take care out there!

Regards, Toby