Korpijaakko

In July I spent (again) a week on Kebnekaise area, this time combining two trips into a one-week tour. Both were traverses of a sort, the first including a traverse of the Kebnekaise summits and the second traversing the whole massif. This post is about the first one involving crampons but no packrafts.

The go-to summer-holiday kit in and around the go-to backpack.

The first part of the tour was a three-day glacier travel and climbing trip with Ankarat avotunturit guides. The idea being training and exchanging knowledge and skills – and of course climbing the mountain, should the weather permit.

After a long  drive and short sleep our group of three (me, Nina and Thomas) woke up to a blue skies and sunshine in our tent near Nikkaluokta, drove the final kilometers and met the rest of the group at the heliport.

We had chosen to fly in instead of walking to make out most of the limited time. My HMG Porter pack felt heavy and when the scale showed 33kg, I wasn’t too surprised. This wans’t an UL trip. Even though most of my kit was light, I had my share of the heavy “workhorse” climbing kit, heavyish packrafting kit and some fresh food as we were flying in anyway…

After a very short flight (instead of a day’s walk) we landed on the Storgläcieren, pitched base camp, had early lunch – which was very welcome, as I had missed breakfast. Then we roped up and headed on the slopes to train some individual and rope-team techniques. It was a beautiful sunny day on the glacier ending with a hearty pasta dinner and red wine. Somehow climbing and red wine go well together…

The next morning was equally beautiful and seemed good for climbing the mountain. The snow is always slushy under the 24-hour Arctic summer sun so instead of an alpine start we headed out around 9.00 after a proper breakfast including coffee, fruits, fresh bread, scrambeled eggs and so on. Flying in has it’s advantages.

First we crossed the glacier and then climbed up the steep snow slope leading to the Halspasset pass. The sun was hammering us on the climb but we could see clouds speeding thru the pass from the West promising a change in the weather. After a break, sheltered behind some rock to get out from the wind, we continued up towards the Nordtoppen scrambling and climbing some easy rock. There were old pitons for protection but they required quite a bit of hammering to feel somewhat secure. As the climb was easy we used them as running protection to make climbing faster and easier.

Towards the top the weather closed in: cloudy, windy and cold. No views. But after a short walk over some snow and rocks we reached the Nordtoppen! 2096,8 meters of rock, soon to be the highest peak in Sweden. On the top we roped up again for the ridge-walk to the Sydtoppen. The ridge is quite narrow and airy but without seeing the drop on left and right, it didn’t feel too special. Soon we reached the Sydtoppen (2097,5m) which still is the highest peak in Sweden, but will likely loose its status as the snow melts as the climate warms.

There are some huts near the summit (and apparently they were building new huts even closer to the summit?) where we had our second lunch-break before descenting down the via ferrata style Östraleden. As usual, the weather was bad only near the summit and on the way down we started to see the views again: the surrounding mountains and the tempting curves of the river we would be packrafting a few days later… The Östraleden was very nice climb/scramble with via ferrata style safety making going fast, safe and easy. Down on the glacier we roped up again and reached our camp about 12 hours after the start.

After securing a near run-away TNF VE25, more pasta and red wine was on the menu. (It was a windy day! And the tent was pitched with three parachute-style deadman anchors and was flapping sideways in the wind only one left when we arrived…)

The third and final day was again sunny and warm. We spent the first half of the day training crevasse rescue techniques, then broke camp and headed down. As the wine, beer and fresh food were mostly gone my pack didn’t weight 33kg anymore but it still felt heavy with 50 meters of wet rope making up the difference in food weight.

Once we got down from the glacier and moraine me, Nina and Thomas set camp to the valley and went through our gear once more as we would continue for our packrafting trip. But before heading further, we would lighten our loads by taking all the unnecessary climbing (and comfort) gear down to the Fjällstation to be flown out on the sheduled daily helicopter flights. The Fjällstation was in opposite direction but lighter packs would be worth the walk. And there would be beer too…

The 7km downhill walk on the trail took around two hours and a duffel of gear was paid and handed over fast but somehow the beers and soft sofas allured us to stay little longer. You know, it’s only one beer… And maybe second. Oh, you brought a third? Well, why not.

The second trip, a packrafting tour around Kebnekaise massif, would start from here.