Preparing for the Fjallraven Classic Sweden
The Fjallraven Classic is a hiking event put on by the Swedish outdoor brand, Fjallraven. I first learned about the Fjallraven Sweden hike about 7 or 8 years ago. I stumbled across the event online, and as someone who loves to travel, and a fan of all things Scandinavian, I thought it might be something up my alley. When I found out that the hike is 80 miles long, through the wild and often wet Arctic wilderness of Sweden, and has to be done while carrying all of your camping gear on your back… I was sure that it wasn’t something I would be able to do. The most I had ever hiked in one go was likely only 5 or 6 miles, and with short legs and weak cardio endurance, I was the kind of hiker that constantly needed to take breaks and catch my breath when hiking up any amount of an incline (I wasn’t entirely out of shape, I was just a much better swimmer or climber, with all of my strength in my upper-body).
Fast forward to 2018, when I got bit by the hiking bug. My love for visiting and photographing pristine, natural places fueled my desire to become a better hiker. I was no longer content to see and shoot the world from the parking lots and crowded viewing platforms of the world. My hiking really ramped up on my May 2018 Yosemite trip. I wanted to challenge myself to do some of the park’s famous hikes, despite knowing that I had always been a slow hiker. When I got to Yosemite, my friends and I day-hiked to Vernal and Nevada Falls, which was 8-9 miles round-trip and nearly 3000 feet of elevation gain. It kicked my butt, and I took plenty of breaks, but I did it! Since then, I have regularly hiked steep, and up to 10-mile days in the Swiss Alps, Alaska, the Eastern Sierra, Italy & the Dolomites, back in Yosemite, and very regularly here at home in Los Angeles.
This spring, my friends and I bought tickets for this year’s Fjallraven Classic Sweden on August 9-16. I finally felt like I might be ready (or ready to take the last few months to get ready). I was so excited as August drew nearer, going on conditioning night hikes twice a week in Los Angeles with the Sierra Club, and meticulously choosing and weighing each piece of gear I would bring, using the super handy website LighterPack.com to analyze the total weight of my pack. My flight to Stockholm Sweden was booked for Aug 6th.
some things just can’t be prepared for...
August 5th was a very sad day. My cat Lisa died suddenly and unexpectedly at home, while I was out running errands before my trip. He died from complications from an undiagnosed, and very rare congenital diaphragmatic hernia. Over the next 30 hours leading up to my flight to Sweden, I was literally sick with grief— my eyes were puffy and hurt from crying, and I couldn’t eat… even the smell of food made me nauseous and then I would throw up. I doubted whether I even wanted to go through with the trip. Whatever it was I was pursuing by crossing the globe to walk some distance of trail, I knew wouldn’t fulfill me in the way I was empty after losing Lisa. I felt guilty for traveling as much I had in the last few years… I loved my cat so much, and although my boyfriend and two friends who we lived with would keep Lisa company when I traveled, he was always happiest when I was home. Lisa was an Abyssinian cat, and if you are familiar with this breed of cat (or a quick Wiki search will tell you) they are extremely loving, extroverted, “dog-like” cats who require a lot of contact and affection from their owners (which Lisa would give so much of in return).
I may have cancelled my trip if I didn’t already have my friend Alex waiting to meet me in Stockholm. Alex is my longtime travel companion, hiking companion, housemate, and Alex is the how I ever ended up with Lisa in the first place. Alex brought me Lisa as a kitten from Moscow (where she was living at the time), she flew 2-month-old Lisa to Los Angeles in December 2014. Two years later she moved to LA, and we have lived together ever since. If there was a friend who could understand my loss and sadness, and support me on this hike—it would be Alex, and I could not let her down by cancelling my trip.
Usually I’m delighted to go to the airport, (and when there’s no turbulence) I like being on planes. The flight to Stockholm was tough. I just slept, cried, and didn’t manage to eat more than a couple of nuts. When I arrived in Stockholm in the early afternoon, I took the train to our friend Xenia’s flat, where I melted into her couch for the rest of the day and night. The next day the three of us would take an overnight train to Kiruna in the north, where we would meet up with the Fjallraven Classic event and start hiking the following afternoon.
Again, things didn’t quite go as planned. When we got to Stockholm Central Station, the train we were supposed to take was delayed by several hours, and every time the departure got close, the train would again be delayed. This happened probably 5 times, and our 5pm train didn’t end up leaving until 11pm. A train along our route had derailed, and the track was now blocked. Our (already delayed) train would only be able to take us so far, and we would then need to transfer to a bus that would take us the remainder of the journey. That night, my attempt to sleep on the train was frequently interrupted by an urgent need to use the restroom (in the worst kind of way). My digestive system was currently conspiring with my appetite to reject whatever food I attempted to eat. In the morning our train arrived at a small station in the town of Boden. The entire train load of passengers (most of who were also on their way to start the Fjallraven Classic in Kiruna) was instructed to wait 3 hours there for buses, that would eventually drive us another 4 or 5 hours to Kiruna. The station in Boden had ONE single toilet (for a few hundred people) and the only food available was hamburgers and over-seasoned fries. The train company was kind enough to provide us this meal free of charge for the inconvenience, but the one and only option was not the best for a pesce-tarian currently suffering from stress-induced diarrhea.
Waiting for our delayed train at Stockholm Central Station.
When the buses arrived, it was a stressful scene with people pushing and shoving to board first, fearing that there wouldn’t be enough space and they’d be left behind. After 2 hours of driving across Northern Sweden, our bus driver had to make a pit stop in a small town to take a 30 minute break. Alex and I got of the bus and sprinted to a drugstore to find me some anti-diarrhea medicine. If all of these delays had a bright side, it was that our start on the trail was pushed back to the next day, allowing us to find a pharmacy and giving my gastrointestinal issues a little time to subside somewhat.
We arrived in Kiruna at 8pm, wiped out from the last 24 hours of travel, and made it just in time to check in for the Fjallraven Classic before check-in closed for the night. We were given our maps and freeze dried food rations for the next few days. At the campground the weather was cold and drizzly, but there was facilities to take a warm shower, and eat a hot meal indoors. Fjallraven gave us free REAL TURMAT freeze dried meals for the hike, but the thought of stomaching freeze dried food didn’t sound terribly appealing, so I ordered a delicious and very expensive fish dinner from the onsite restaurant. I was successful in eating a good portion of my meal, and I went to sleep at the campground, ready as I was gonna be to wake up and start a 6-day trek.
The train station in Boden, Sweden, where we spent 3 hours waiting for buses to pick us up and drive us the rest of the journey to Kiruna.