Kebnekaisefjällen, September 2017

A week walking around Mt. Kebnekaise in Swedish Lapland. September 2017.

We enjoyed of a whole week of almost dry and even partially sunny weather which cannot be taken for granted in this part of Skandinavia. It was already quite cold — the very begin of the arctic autumn — and birch trees leaves turned from green to yellow during the week we were there. As if our luck with the weather was not enough, we fulfilled all obligatory points of a visit in Lapland. Namely:

a few nasty moskitos in lower Vistasvággi swamps before they died in the first frosty night,
some moose that came boldly for the breakfast to our tent camp by Vistasstugorna,
green-white northern lights appeared in the clear night sky over Nallostugan,
we saw reindeer (chased from a helicopter!) exactly as we went nearby in the lower Tjäktjajohkka river valley.

Just the evening of the day we reached the end point closing our trail loop in Nikkaluokta it started to rain heavily, with snow falling all over the tops reaching down to upper valleys. The official tourist season ends this year on 24th September, the hosts of all these friendly shelter huts along the trails make them ready for winter and abandon their posts.

Our loop around Kebnekaise was (Sami and Swedish names mixed, sorry…): Nikkaluokta — a boat ride up the Vistasdalen valley on the Vistasjohkka river — Vistasdalen (Vistasvággi) — Vistasstugorna — Stuor Reaiddávággi — Nallostugan — a side trip to Unna Reaiddávággi (up to Unna Räitastugan) — Sälka — the Guobirvággi valley outlet — traverse below Siŋŋičohkka — Láddjuvággi — a boat trip on the Láddjujávri lake — Nikkaluokta. The entry point was the small airport of Kiruna.