I’m off to a four day camping trip to Sylarna! I have been wanting to do this for years, because Sylarna is unlike any other mountain here in the southern part of the Swedish mountain range. Even the mighty Helags is rather boring in comparison. It’s just big, with one pyramid-like peak. Sylarna on the other hand offer many sharp peaks and looking at the map, it was a good bet that the photographic opportunities were endless.
There are two options to get to Sylarna in one day – the most popular route is from Storulvån in the north (it’s also part of the Jämtlangstriangel hiking route that I did some years ago) and second trail comes from Nedalshytta on the Norwegian side. As Nedalshytta is much closer to me than Storulvån, then it was a no-brainer to go that way, in addition the trail itself looked to be a lot more interesting than from Storulvån (which I found to be a very low on photo ops back then).
I got a bit of a shock when I got to Nedalshytta though, or rather, 3 km from it. There was a running event today (running to the top of Storsylen!) and they were using overflow parking lots so I had no option but to leave my car here. Today I was able to use their bus transfer though so I decided to shake off this little wrinkle in my plan and just enjoy the beautiful day.
The trail sure is nice, you start getting great views as soon as you get up from the birch forest which happens very quickly from Nedalshytta. The trail is also easy going, it goes up but so gently that you don’t really think about it. The only complications on the first half of the trail are the multiple brooks and creeks you have to cross, most of them were quite easy so you can either step on rocks and go over with dry feet, or then dip your boots in the water and splash through. I’m starting to love my Haglöfs Grym boots, they have finally formed themselves around my foot so they don’t chafe any more, and they are completely waterproof so these shallow fords are not an issue. But… then there were a few creeks which were deeper and wider. ”Deep” being a relative term – I’m only talking about deep enough for my boots to submerge. The biggest one of these creeks almost gave me a headache, I think I spent about 15 minutes going up and down, trying to figure out where to get across. If only the waterbed was covered in sand, it would have been easy, but it was all rocky so you can’t just put your foot down anywhere at all because if your foot slips or the rock moves, then you’re in trouble. But yeah I guess I made it more difficult than it really was, lack of experience and a big dose of my natural carefulness playing in.
One thing I have wanted to see since many many years back is the Ekorrdörren U-valley. I’ve sometimes even planned to do a day hike here, but now that I got to see it as part of the trail to Sylarna, I’m glad I never bothered with the day hike because it’s really nothing special once you’re in it. You hardly even realise it’s a U-valley at all! When you get to the wind shelter in the valley, you’ve gone 10 km from Nedalshytta and you have 8 km left to the Sylarna mountain station. And this is also where the hard work begins – now you have to climb up over 300 m to get to Ekorrpasset, from where it’s gently down all the way to the mountain station. Or I guess ”gently” is being generous… the land is extremely rocky so you have keep your eyes at your feet to see what you’re stepping on. The views are magnificent but can only be enjoyed when stopping, definitely not while walking!
I got to the mountain station just after 7 pm, but I’m camping and I decided to put up my tent on the other side of the Sylälven creek, instead of using the designated campsite which was already full. The mountain station is also full, I had tried to book a room last week but it was hopeless. All the people I spoke with who did have rooms, had made their bookings in February! But camping was ok, all it meant is that I had to make some compromises with my camera gear. I had the Sony A7 with two lenses, no tripod. At first I was only going to have the superzoom but then I decided that I could buy food at the station so I could trade the food for the wideangle in my pack. I hate heavy packs, I will never be able to do a multi-day wilderness hike!
