Day 17 – 18: Hunddalen – Katterat – Riksgränsen – Abisko

Hooray, today the weather is actually more beautiful! We decide to go to Katterat already today, because first of all we don’t know how the weather will be tomorrow and secondly we already get some hut fever here …
The mountains are lightly covered with snow, outside it’s only 3° C. While reading we wait until 9 am – and the thermometer actually climbs to a pleasant 10° C. Let’s go – and let´s take a look back at the hut in this incredibly beautiful landscape.

We take the path back to the house at the dam, then we march 9 kilometers on the gravel road. The path itself is of course not spectacular, but it has two advantages: First, we can walk side by side, which is a real rarity on our hikes. And second: We can talk to each other. 🙂
Of course there are also some nice views while we walk out of the valley and over and over we take a look back.

After a while we catch a glimpse of the rails of the “Ofotbanan” and the Norddalen.

At 2 o’clock we reach Katterat, where the typical red train station immediately catches our eye.

We are checking the possibilities of staying overnight. Option 1: We pitch our tent on a meadow near a student camp (most kids sleep in the house, only a few kids have decided to camp). Option 2: We sleep in the heated waiting hall at the station. Strangely we decide to camp and set up our tent near the house and at a distance from the students’ tents. We eat “Pulled Pork” on the steps to the house, here it is sunny and sheltered from the wind. Then we pack up our Kindle, tea and chocolate, sit down in the heated waiting room and read. It’s nice and warm and quiet here, and we have electric light, but it switches off every few minutes. So we read and wave alternately to signal to the motion detector that we are still awake.
At 10 o’clock we go back to the tent. We lie down to sleep and listen to the celebrating students until midnight. They talk, giggle, laugh, scream, listen to music … and have a lot of fun. Then the teachers call for bed rest and us “seniors” can finally sleep. 😉

At night it has rained lightly and also in the morning it is still drizzling. At 8 o’clock we pack up and chat briefly with a teacher – “Weren’t the kids too loud anyway?” 😉 and we tell briefly about our tour.
We have breakfast in “our” waiting hall, then we start the 12,5 km long way, a part of the Rallarvegen, which will lead us to Riksgränsen. The Rallarvegen is a path that was laid out for the construction of the Ofotbanen in the years 1890 to 1903, then decayed and was restored around 1990 and made accessible to hikers (source: Wikipedia). The Ofotbanen are the Norwegian part of the railway line Luleå to Narvik, which was built for ore mining (Gällivare and Kiruna).
The weather today? Foggy and humid.

The first 6 kilometers run on a very nice path. Due to the rain stones and leaves are a bit slippery, but we make good progress. First we descend in the forest, pass a nice and stable! bridge over the Rombakselva and then take the climb on the opposite side. The weather gets better now.

We pass a NOT hut “Vokterboligen”, which is beautifully situated, but you need a special key to enter the hut. The way now leads us over the tracks, we climb even higher and then walk parallel to the tracks and have a good view into the valley.

After 6 kilometers we pass the first small train station. Now the path is wide, scenically much less varied than the first part. A group of students approaches us and suddenly an excited student shouts in our direction: “Do you remember me”? We need a bit before we recognize the boy from Sitas with whom we had such a good breakfast. What a fortunity!

The way to Björnfjell is well marked. In Björnfjell you have to go through the underpass, then the path continues to the left of the tracks. At the train station we take a short break and warm up. It’s pretty fresh today and the way is so easy that we don’t really get warm when we walk.

Soon we cross the Swedish border and reach Riksgränsen, our planned destination for today. The plan was to have a good dinner here, stay overnight and take the train to Abisko the next day.
That was our plan. But here we are almost alone. Riksgränsen is a winter sports place where almost everything is closed in summer.
We buy ciabatte, sausage, bananas, cola and chocolate at the ICA and look for the waiting room to wait for the train. No way. There is also no waiting room here. So we eat and freeze outside and are happy when the train arrives at 4:02 pm (the night train to Stockholm). We buy the tickets on the train and it even stops in Abisko Tourist and not only in Abisko Östra.
We book a double room for the next three nights and – have a good shower. The dinner menu today consists of a clear wild soup, salmon for me, chicken for Markus and for dessert we get an apple sorbet. Sooo delicious after the sad selection of the last weeks. 🙂
We study the information boards at the reception and are looking for possible adventures for tomorrow and Thursday. Then we fall into our bed, tired and sated./div>