Day 9: Sitas – Skoaddejávri

Eggs sunny side up! Fried bacon! Bread! Coffee! Orange juice! Harald invites us for breakfast – can you imagine how happy we were after a week of muesli and freeze-dried food?

Actually we shouldn’t have started too late today, but we gossip with Harald and the boys for a long time, have a great breakfast and time flies by.

Our today’s stage first goes 7 km along the gravel road along the lake, which is closed to traffic, to a parking place – this road serves only power station purposes and is closed by a barrier. Then it goes on the passable gravel road further 6 – 7 km until one leaves the road to the east and after a short quite flat distance the direct ascent on the high plateau begins. According to the signposts, this turn-off is 14 kilometres away from Sitas, according to my measurements in Basecamp it is 13 kilometres.

Harald also drives back today and has offered us a shuttle over the second part of the road, so that we can partly make up for the cosy morning. We already cleaned our hut before breakfast and start on the blocked road, while Harald and the boys clean up their hut and then follow with the bicycles. We meet again at 12.30 at the parking lot at the barrier – then Harald drives us the rest of the way and drives back to pick up the boys. At this point once again a big thank you for the shuttle service and especially for the great breakfast!

Now this is the real start of our tour day, it is 1 o’clock, we are at about 660 m altitude and there is a wall in front of us. Our destination for the day is 1.000 m altitude, the highest point of the route is 1.060 m. The weather is sunny, 15°C, light wind. The forecast for the next days: bad, really bad. Strong wind to storm, strong precipitation. We get these messages from an oncoming hiker and from Veronika and our parents via the as always reliable SMS service from home (on the road we have mobile phone reception for the first time since the beginning of the tour).

The ideal line is quite well marked, stone males, red dots and big red “T” alternate. The way up is not difficult, still a little bit exhausting and sometimes we need our hands for support.

In a short time we have gained a lot of altitude and the road is already deep below us. A little earlier, when we were already quite high in the wall, Harald drove by honking and we waved with our sticks. 🙂

After the steepest part of the ascent we are already at 900 m altitude and from now on we continue uphill over several terrain levels, but much flatter.

Today we woke up in Norway. After a few minutes on the gravel road we crossed the border to Sweden. During the short drive with Harald we had a border crossing to Norway, a short time later a border crossing to Sweden and then again a border crossing to Norway, where our ascent started. The way on the high plateau runs very close to the border, but completely on Norwegian territory, but at the border stone Rr 256 we made a short trip to Sweden and shot a selfie. 🙂

The landscape is now rocky and barren with smaller lakes and swamps with flowering wool grass swaying in the wind. The wind is much stronger up here. In a small sheltered valley we eat salamella with fresh bread Harald gave us.

The Skoaddejávri lies somewhat lower and is therefore relatively late to see, the huts can be seen even later.

At 6:30 we reach the Skoaddejávrihytta. The distance since the road was about 8 kilometers. All huts are locked, we are again the only guests. The following pictures show the big and the small hut.

We decide for the super cozy two person hut, fire up the small stove and warm up some water for washing. We wash ourselves on the small terrace in the ice-cold wind as fast as possible and wash a few baselayers. Afterwards we eat in the warm hut, drink hot chocolate and discuss our options in view of the weather forecasts, while the wind outside becomes more and more stormy.

Actually we wanted to go to the Gautelisvatnet tomorrow (or a bit further) and only the next day to Caihnavagge. Since the weather forecasts are so bad, we plan to go directly to Caihnavagge tomorrow.

In the nightfall two young Norwegians arrive. I briefly go out into the cold to greet them and as always curiously ask them about their tour plans and they tell me that they want to go to Kebnekaise. ? Yes, I looked exactly the same! It’s their first tour day, they started at Gautelisvatnet and took the wrong ascent. After all, they noticed it about 2/3 of the distance and since it was already too late to turn around then, they just went here and go down again tomorrow.

We spend the rest of the evening talking and reading, enjoying the view of Skoaddejávri and Elisabeth writes our tour diary.