It’s time for another mountain break! Late winter’s days don’t get any better than this, so the perfect place to start is Sånfjället which was one of the inspirations behind my decision to buy skis. The snowshoe tour last year was memorable and I had no doubts that a skiing trip on the same mountain would provide another bunch of keepers. I drove to Nysätern, parked the car and climbed the first half a km on foot as the trail was too icy and narrow to manage on skis. After that, the trail became skiable but it was naturally steady uphill for quite a while. The snow was windswept and hard and I found that my skis have a bad tendency to slip sideways, it’s frustrating but tolerable. After all, the boots weren’t chafing!

When I got up to the tree line, the photo ops started to present themselves. I had been on a lookout for a lonely birch, but finding one with sky as background was especially satisfying. I would like to point out that the picture is not leaning, whatever it may look like. It’s a mountain side with a windswept birch – everything else is tilted, but not the camera! And as you can see in the picture, I was not kidding about the weather. I was definitely overdressed in the scorching sun, but I did remember the sun lotion this time.

Those of you familiar with Swedish mountains may recognise the distinct profile of Sånfjället when you see it. But something that is not immediately obvious about the mountain is that it hides a beautiful ravine and valley between its peaks. The slopes might look gentle in this image, but I promise you that when you approach the valley on skis, it’s anything but. I had to carefully zigzag down and it still was almost too fast for me. Yes… still having balance problems… but I made it down in one piece. There’s a small cabin – or a shelter – in the valley so it was a good opportunity to enjoy lunch in the sunshine and build up a bit of energy to tackle the way back up. Skiing was out of the question for me, maybe it would’ve been within my powers otherwise but not when the skis slip sideways. Sideways, in a steep uphill, translates to ”down”… and that was not the direction I wanted! So I attached the skis to my backback (which has slots for carrying skis, even if I normally use them for carrying the tripod) and walked up.

After the 1 km up from the valley, it was all downhill back to the parking. Again, I had to stop every once in a while to consider my choices to get down without building up too much speed. A bit of zigzagging and soft snow where I could find it and it was fine.

I was right – it was a fabulous day out. Sånfjället has given me two memorable days and the best sceneries imaginable!

P.S. Bloody snowmobiles. Sånfjället is a national park and snowmobiling is forbidden, but there were snowmobile tracks everywhere.