During the spring and summer I continued my normal training in the gym but added some walks with hiking poles in the mornings. Some web sites proposed that you train by walking up downhill skiing slopes, but this sounded extremely boring so I didn’t try it. In the end of July two experienced mountain climbers were hit by a falling boulder on Kebnekaise and died. This made me a little nervous since I for sure wasn’t a mountain climber. (I later learned the accident had happened in an area further east on Kebnekaise, on Storglaciären, and not along the route I was about to take.)
The day came and started out cloudy. I had not slept very well and ate a too large breakfast both surely due to being nervous. The group consisted of 15 hikers plus two mountain guides, Kristian and Peter. We were all outfitted with a day backpack containing a harness with two locking carbines, a helmet, a pair of crampons for the boots, warm hat, gloves, extra sweater, raingear, a water bottle, and two lunches.
Me at the starting point for the hike
Shortly after 8am we started from the refuge at 650 msl. We gradually ascended in good pace toward the Jökel brook. After 25 minutes we had our first five minute rest stop. The next 25 minutes were much steeper. We ascended up a rocky slope slightly in zigzag to decrease the inclination. At the next rest stop four of the hikers decided to turn back because they felt they did not have the stamina to continue. As it happened this made me the only over 40 hiker left in the group. Just before our third rest break I reached the wonderful ‘I can do this for ever feeling’ you get when you exercise really hard. After the break, which also provided our last access to fresh drinking water, the steep ascend continued for another 25+ minutes, rock after rock.
Eventually the incline leveled off and we crossed over a plateau before we reached a boulder field. In the middle of the boulder field we took a well deserved lunch break.
Observe this is where the trail had leveled off!
After lunch the hike continued over the boulder field to the Bjorling glacier. In 1889 the 17 year old Johan Alfred Björling climbed to the south peak using the Western trail. He though he was the first one to reach the top but it later turned out that the Frenchman Charles Rabot had done it already in 1883.
Before starting out across the glacier we put on our harnesses and tied ourselves to a long rope about
There were cracks in the glacier that we stepped over and holes through which running water could be seen, but the surface was neither very wet nor slippery. The most difficult part was to try and keep the rope stretched while walking.
These two pictures are taken on the return from the peak
The last part of the glacier inclined very steeply and formed a ridge. This part of the trail we passed slowly since it was heavy walking and the lead guide did his best to kick footholds into the icy ridge for the rest of the group to use.
Now we had reached the steepest part of the trail. We untied from the rope and donned our helmets. Then we hooked our carbines to a rope going straight up a very steep slope. The biggest problem here was that the slope was covered with rocks and sand on top of melting ice. It quickly was clear that it was impossible to walk up the slope. Instead we had to use the rope to pull our selves up. This was really heavy, but fortunately the distance wasn’t so big, perhaps
The wire was installed in 1991 financed by the memorial fund honoring a mountain guide who had fallen to his death here a few years earlier. I would not have tried to climb the wall if the wire had not been there. There was no trail here instead we followed the wire picking out hand and footholds along the way. The wire was fixed to the cliff with cams. At each cam it was important to move only one crampon at a time to the other side of the cam. This meant that we were always secured with at least one carbine to the wire. The first part was only at a small incline but involved clinging to the wall while traversing the cliff side. After a distance the wire took of more or less straight up the cliff. Kristian reminded me not to grab the wire but look for handholds on the cliff instead.
At places there were fixed black ropes with knots which could be used as help when climbing. At one particularly steep and narrow passage two metal steps had been fixed to the wall to aid the climbers. The group moved forward at a good but slow pace. This part of the hike wasn’t tiring, just really exiting and a lot of fun.
After having climbed some 150 vertical meters we finally could see the south peak. It rose up from the surroundings as a cone of ice and snow dusted in black.
On this picture the peak is hidden behind the cloud to the left of me on the picture
Between us and it remained another boulder field with a moderate incline and then the final ascend to the very top of the mountain. Now when the goal of our efforts was getting so close our steps grew light and we moved rapidly forward. About half way across the boulder field we passed the old Peak mountain hut and the eastern trail merged with the western trail.
The final 40 vertical meters were very slick and required fixing stepping crampons to the boots. A guy I met a few days earlier had told me that he had seen a fellow hiker in gym shoes crawling up to the top using his hiking poles as ice picks. Other people were paying the full days rent to borrow the crampons of someone who had had the foresight to rent them in the refuge before setting out for the hike.
With the scary looking crampons fixed to the boots it was a relatively easy and quick march up to the very tiny and narrow top of the mountain.
It took me a second or two to realize I had reached it. There was a cloud partly obscuring the view, but it didn’t matter. I felt so very proud. One of our guides, Peter, had placed a Swedish flag on the top. There was barely any wind so I held out the flag and got my picture taken.
I could have stayed up top for considerable time, just tasting the sweet savor of achievement. Immediately below my feet to the northwest lay the Rabot glacier, named after the Frenchman who first reached the
On the east side of the narrow rim lay Storglaciären, where the two finish mountain climbers had died on July 17th. South of the rim was the Bjorling glacier which I myself had come across a little earlier.
Unfortunately clouds blocked the far reaching views of other mountain tops. On clear days you are supposed to see all the way to the Norwegian fjords. After some 10 minutes or so on the top I had to go down to give room for others in our group.
After the visit to the top the hike was half way over. Now we returned exactly the same way we had come up.
Our guide is showing us the way down!
Everything went well. The steep rocky hill was hard on the knees, and I thought it was worse going down than it had been coming up.
We reached the Kebnekaise mountain refuge about 17:30 in the afternoon. Our guides told us we had done unusually well, especially climbing the cliff side, and that we all had well earned our diplomas. I felt almost ridiculously happy and proud after having completed the close to 10 hour hike. It was one of the most fun things I have ever done.
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