James' Travels: First Trip

Last week we embarked on our first Discovery trip of the year! We were told almost nothing before the trip started apart from the length. We only learned of our departing time the day of, and even then we didn't know where we were going (not that it mattered). We had five two-man tents and were split up into tent partners and food groups of two or three. Food groups planned suppers together and divided up the weight of the four dinners we would be bringing on the trip, breakfast and lunch were both individual meals.

On Wednesday last week we left Holsby at around 1:00 pm and drove for about forty five minutes to some random back road where we started our trip. It just so happened that moose hunting season started the day before the start of our trip so we were required to strap a goofy orange or yellow vest to the back of packs to avoid being shot by some crazy Swede. Within the first 100 meters of our trip we saw a huge, fresh gut pile. We then assumed that the we would be constantly surrounded by carnage for the next five days but we actually did not see another moose, dead or alive and only ran into a few hunters who were too lazy to get off the road. Anyway, we walked 10 km the first day and camped at a nice little lake in a fairly remote area of southern Sweden. The next day we were woken up before sunrise to the slightly annoyingly peppy voice of our leader, Timo. We went on to walk just over 20km that day and camped on the top of a hill overlooking a small town. The next few days continued in the same manner, we usually walked a bit over 20km each day at differing speeds and camped near various lakes and rivers. It got seriously cold at night and things definitely got interesting as some of the girls brought summer bags that were rated to somewhere around 5 degrees celcius. As the temperature outside was around negative five to ten this posed a serious problem. My own sleeping bag, rated to negative 10 or so was fairly decent but I had cold feet at a few points, the fleece liner will definitely be coming on the next trip. That furry Patagonia sweater I bought was probably the best purchase ever and is so awesome for being warm and furry at the same time. I almost forgot to mention that the weather was almost perfect. Clear skies every day except the last, which started with heavy fog but lifted by mid day and we had sun. By the second or third day we started to realize that we were walking back to Holsby and it was quite interesting to find our way as we had different student leaders every day who worked the map and compass. About three quarters of the trip was done walking on backcountry roads (they are everywhere in Sweden) and the rest was on trail through forest and swamp. We ended up walking 92 Km in just over four full days and getting really sore feet (no blisters though, liner socks are awesome). It was a great first trip and I"m really looking forward to the next one in November. Seeing as we were already cold on our first 'warm' fall trip it will be interesting to see how we fair on our winter trips! Here are a few pictures from the trip. Almost forgot, there was the ice cream truck that taunted us during the second day. We could here its really annoying little anthem thing from way out in the bush and continued to hear it for a while as we made our way to camp, seemingly always where we had just been. Just saying, those Swedish ice cream trucks are just all around awful.