Sunday 4 July 2010

Scandinavia End-to-End



Many years ago I spent a rather wet summer hiking south to north through Norway and Sweden. I never wrote much about this walk - just one magazine article as far as I remember - as there was little interest in it despite it passing through some of the wildest and most spectacular landscapes in Western Europe. Nowhere else in our crowded continent can you walk 2200 kilometres in roughly a straight line and be in wild country most of the time. Publishers however did not find Scandinavia interesting and where the Yukon was seen as romantic and the Munros as popular, and so my long walks in both worth books, Norway and Sweden were seen as unknown and dull. I had thought the walk long forgotten until a Swedish backpacking acquaintance, Jörgen Johansson, contacted me to say he'd mentioned it to members of the Nordic Lightpacking group on a recent meet and they were interested to know more about my trip. An interview followed and can be found on Jörgen's site here. The Nordic Lightpackers know now that this was not a lightweight trip!

Photo info: the walk took place long before digital cameras and I've never scanned any of the slides I took so I have no digital images. Instead here's a winter picture of the Hardangerjøkulen, an ice cap in southern Norway that I walked below and which I have skied up on several occasions. Canon 300D, 18-55mm lens @45mm, 1/125@f8, ISO 100, raw file processed in Lightroom 3.

3 comments:

  1. Hi Chris,
    Well I would be interested in reading about your walk in Sweden and Norway. The wildlife you encountered, the landscape, what you did each day, what was on your mind and so on. Will you keep a diary of your pending walk (North Pacific Trail) and will you write about it in a book or magazine. Best wishes, Alastair

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  2. Thanks Alastair. I will be keeping a journal on the PNT, as I do on every walk. I'll be writing about it in TGO, including sending in reports during the walk, and posting on this blog (which is linked to Twitter and Facebook) when there is internet access. I hope there will be a book but I haven't found a publisher yet.

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  3. Chris - of all the long distance walks in the world this is the one I would most like to emulate. Thank you for doing the interview on Nordic Lightpacking, I know we spent a long time discussing your trip on our trip to Vålådalen. I hope you find a publisher, I'm sure there are many more people who would be interested in your adventure.

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