Plan A had been to take the northern trail around Sylarna back to Nedalshytta, but I had become increasingly insecure about that option. I spoke with the guys at the reception and they told me that almost nobody uses that trail so I would almost certainly be alone there. There are also some creeks that you need to ford, but nobody had any information about how much water there are in these creeks – maybe they are like those I already did on Saturday, or maybe they are worse. All of this started to spook me (again, I am a careful person, you know that!) so I decided to take the same trail back, which in the end was a good decision anyway because now I got better use the morning light, which was very quickly disappearing behind clouds. Plus that it’s one km shorter!
It was also very windy. It was a south-western wind, which meant that I was walking more or less in head wind all the way from the station to Nedalshytta (and those extra 3 km to my car). The wind was so bad that when I wanted to take a picture, I had to sit down on a rock and steady my elbows on my knees. And still my body was swaying in the wind.
By the time I reached Ekorrpasset, the light was all gone. From there it was really just a matter of putting one foot in front of the other and getting from A to B, no need to make any photo stops. I reached Nedalshytta at 3.55 pm so I had five minutes to spare – they close the waffle serving at 4 pm!
At the Nedalshytta parking, I saw a couple of fellow hikers pack their gear in the car. I considered asking them if I could get a ride to my car, but then the Finnish Sisu reared its ugly head and I decided to finish with honours and walked. So that makes it 21 km today… not bad!
Overall, it was a fabulous trip. Sure I could complain about the light, but it’s so completely useless to do that I won’t. I had expected Sylarna to be great, and I had found it to be so much better. There is no doubt in my mind that I will be coming back, and I think I will do a day trip already in September to check out that other trail that I didn’t take today. The interesting part of the trail is what is north from Nedalshytta anyway, there’s no need to go all the way around to the Sylarna mountain station. Even if that’s exactly what I will do, next year maybe?
