Winter mountaineering/trekking in Sweden

Noangel72

Can anyone give information on winter mountaineering/trekking in Sweden during January or February?

Any information on places, itineraries, accommodation, huts, guides, etc. is welcome!

Thanks:)

Mickeroo

Dont knw much about it to be honest but won't there be a severe lack of daylight around that time of year or no?

Alun

Not directly, no, but I did a dogsledding tour a couple of years ago at the end of January in northern Sweden. We stayed a couple of nights in mountain huts owned by the STF (Svenska Turistföreningen or Swedish Tourist Association), and were very impressed. Well equipped kitchens with fantastic wood burning stoves and separate bedrooms sleeping 4 in bunk beds each with its own individual wood stoves. Ours got so warm we had to open the window even in those temperatures! Getting water was often a bit of an 'adventure' though, usually involving hacking through lots of thick ice to get at streams or boring holes in frozen lakes ... great fun though!

Be aware though that at that time of the year and at higher latitudes you have very little available sunlight, and it can get very cold .. temps of -20 to -40 are not uncommon. Also, assuming a good winter, snow can get very deep, even on the designated snowmobile / dogsledding trails, I'd imagine that if you're going off the trails then snowshoes would be an absolute necessity.

As for terrain, the area we were in, the Vindelfjällens nature reserve, was hilly, but not really mountainous, with very open, fairly barren and windswept plateaus on the hills, and fairly steep descents through forests down to the various lakes and rivers.

Here's a link to the website of the STF to get you started ...

http://www.svenskaturistforeningen.se/en/

.. and one to the area we were in ...

http://www.vindelfjallen.se/default.asp?LID=1

Noangel72

....thanks for the info.....actually we were thinking of including a couple of days of dog sledding….sounds good fun!

....main activity would be trekking (or snowshoeing) from hut to hut in the mountains....

Alun

Mickeroo wrote: »

Dont knw much about it to be honest but won't there be a severe lack of daylight around that time of year or no?

Indeed ... however, once the days start to lengthen in late January / early February they do so at an alarming rate with available daylight increasing by up to 1 hr per week.

I'd say don't go before about the first week of February, but even then you're looking at it only getting light at about 9.00am and dark by about 3.30pm. I've got photos of the sun really low on the horizon, almost being hidden by the trees taken at 2.30 in the afternoon!

Alun

Noangel72 wrote: »

....thanks for the info.....actually we were thinking of including a couple of days of dog sledding….sounds good fun!

....main activity would be trekking (or snowshoeing) from hut to hut in the mountains....

The doglsedding is great craic, I'd heartily recommend it!

Also, depending on the areas you're in, there's more accommodation available than just the mountain huts. We also stayed a night in a guest house that doubles as a fishing centre in the summer in a Sami village, which was good .. great food, including dried smoked reindeer, and had a chance of a shower as well! This was the place ... http://www.ammarnasfishing.com/en/html/boende.htm

I'm sure you'll have a great time, I'm jealous ... Sweden is a great country especially in the winter

Noangel72

....Lapland seems to be the place to see.....we will be going the first or second week of February so daylight should be ok......anyway we would start very early with the dark and plan a route that would bring us to a hut by 3 or 4 pm.........keep the suggestions coming....thanks

Alun

One thing I would suggest is don't try and drive for any distance in northern Sweden at that time of year, the roads are just solid packed snow and ice, and whilst the natives can drive pretty handily on them (with studded tyres), I wouldn't be wanting to drive any distance on them myself. We got a bus from our airport to near where we were starting our tour, and the bus, which was going pretty fast by my estimation, was regularly getting overtaken by articulated double trailer trucks ... Scary!

You can get internal flights to many destinations, and the Swedish rail system is first class and very reliable. We flew to and from an aiport not a stone's throw from the Norwegian border called Hemavan (also a ski resort if you fancy a day or two's skiing thrown into the mix as well!). Check the web site of Arlanda airport for a destination map.

Noangel72

...we are not planning on driving a car....to be honest I do not know much about Sweden beside the fact that they have lots of snow and a bunch of mountains in around 2000m.....if there was an outdoor-oriented centre were we could make our base and then go on tours from there (a bit like a Chamonix in Sweden), that would be ideal; otherwise we could travel around two or three different places, but they would have to be fairly close as we have only two weeks holidays and we want to spend most time in the wilderness...I think the Sarek National Park is well known but it seems there are no huts there, kebnekaise is recommended for ice climbing and mountaineering, apart from that I will have to get me a guide……

Alun

The higher peaks in Sweden are mostly in the far north of Lappland over towards the Norwegian border in a couple of national parks there. The highest peak is Kebnekaise and there's a big STF hostel at the base of it that might be suitable. They do guided tours to the summit, but I imagine there might be other trips available. Whether there'd be any other huts within a days walking from there I don't know. It'd probably be less of a problem a bit nearer civilisation further south I'd imagine.

http://svenskaturistforeningen.se/en/Discover-Sweden/Facilities-and-activities/Lappland/Fjallstationer/STF-Mountain-station-Kebnekaise/