I have been planning to do skiing trips to the mountains all winter, but it just hasn’t come off until now. The weather forecast wasn’t the best possible, but I wasn’t going to let even that depress me. I can deal with overcast skies but not with warm temperatures, so it was now or never!

I drove to Vemdalsskalet, I’ve never been there before other than just drive through a few times. I spent about 20 mins trying to find the trailhead for my shortcut to the top, didn’t find it and decided to take the snowcat instead. Which was a good deal, all it took was to hang on to the rope and enjoy the 4 km ride to Jaktstugan on top above the treeline. From there on I was on my own, and enjoyed that, too.

The Vemdalsfjällen mountains are not very high, a few peaks just above 1000 m, and they are quite barren. In the summer time you can see the peaks covered with rocks and even now in the exposed areas you could see some of the rocks stick through the snow cover. My chosen trail took me down to the big valley between the ranges and I was skiing in the mountain forest. I was having a great time, until I came across some snowmobiles who had ignored the ”no snowmobiles” sign and used the ski trail, messing up the tracks, and now they were revving up on the marsh and the noise was horrible. As I was looking on, they finally moved to the marked snowmobile trail running parallel to the ski trail and disappeared. Good riddance. I have been trying to cut down on my use of swearwords, but I couldn’t help but think about something beginning with ”f” and ending with ”moron”. My mood improved quickly though after I had a break for lunch and then took a little used trail that circles one of the smaller peaks. Now I was completely alone – I could see that the trail had been used earlier today or yesterday, but there was certainly nobody else now.

The problem with going up is that you also have to come down. When the trail got down among the trees, I was getting decidedly nervous about letting the skis run, I mean I’m not confident in high speed even when there’s no obstructions around. I had the great idea of skiing in the deep snow instead, it slows you down quite nicely and I thought I could manage it. It’s just that the snow is very deep – I sank in twice (read: I fell) and the second time I had to dig my skis from under half a meter of snow. No harm done… snow is soft!

When I was skiing back to Jaktstugan, I had head wind and it had even started snowing. Not a lot, just those small icy crystals that stick like needles on your face. But when I was past the cabin and on the way down to the parking, it suddenly started snowing for real – big fluffy flakes! Who I am to pass up the opportunity, so I was delighted to get some real snowfall images. It was the icing on the cake of a great day!

When I was back in the car, I checked the GPS reading. 17.8 km (not including the first 4 km with the snowcat) – I was glad I had taken the snowcat up, because that is just about the most I can manage. I have nothing but respect for the people who will ski the 90 km of Vasaloppet tomorrow!