THE KUAN YIN HIKE 2013

(The Kaskavagge Harmonica Hike) Before Anna and I set out on our Lapland mountain hike of 2013, I asked the oracle Kuan Yin (The Bodhisattva of Compassion; Avalokitesvara) – well known in Asia – about our conditions; first a couple of weeks before the hike, and then just ahead of our departure. These are her answers: - HEAVEN AND EARTH Heaven and Earth in complete harmony. The myriad Beings grow and thrive. Peace and satisfaction prevail for blessings and wisdom are given to all You have sown compassion and reap the harvest of joy and love. What a gift you have been given! Anything you wish to do stands under a lucky star. Grasp the opportunity with both hands, so your many ideas can be developed. You don't have to hurry, for success will come without you exhausting yourself. The soul of sweet delight can never be defiled - Kuan Yin's second answer goes: - CLIMBING THE MOUNTAIN A mountain climber works his way to the peak The sun is setting, a critical situation He prays to the heavens and finds refuge among the rocks The darkest hour before the dawn. Concentrate your insight and shelter in the rewards it brings Although things don't look too rosy at the moment, don't be worried. As soon as you can get to work, the obstacles will vanish. Think over each step carefully, and you won't go wrong. The Wise One is flexible as water and always finds the way - These were wonderful answers to receive, and how great are the chances to get such replies when you want advice on a mountain hike; Heaven and Earth and Climbing the Mountain? Some things Kuan Yin said didn't make sense until the hike developed either, but then the meaning hit like a hammer! I'll get to that when that part of the hike comes up. Anna and I had planned this year's hike a long time. In fact, it was mostly Anna who did the

planning. After the hike of 2012, which got me quite tired, with back cramps towards the end, I had wished to ride a helicopter the next time, and land near Nallú, to get directly to one of the mountains we wanted to climb; Šielmmáčohkka, because I had no problems with climbing, or rising up a steep mountain side with a minor backpack. It was hauling the heavy hiking pack across great distances and a vile topography that got me into a stir. However, riding a chopper proved much too expensive, so that leeway had to be left untrodden No other hike had been so uncertain before the outset as this one. First of all I had an eye problem. That happened many times before, but I usually have got rid of it with the same old solution that I got from my doctor at the eye clinic. This time the illness wouldn't give in so easily. The problem was a soar of the cornea, and it just stayed. Finally I had to take cortisone medicine, but that made the pressure in the eye rise dangerously, so I had to take another drug to fight off the side effects of the necessary initial drug... This treatment was in full swing as the date of departure drew closer. Then, two days before departure, I hurt my left knee. Don't ask me how. It hurt madly, and I couldn't get up the stairs at work. Suddenly all seemed ok again, but later a pain and a feeling of instability returned in the knee. I got to a health store and bought a Back-On-Track knee support, over which I also drew a regular, very sturdy knee support. 19 and 20 July 2013 In this state I got on the plane that flew me north to Luleå, where Anna picked me up at the airport. This was my son Ivan's 29th birthday. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland, and it's been some years since we met. His present age reminds me that some time must have passed. The flight from Stockholm to Luleå always upgrades my sense of existence a few notches. Soaring above the clouds has me contemplating our life on this beautiful marble bowling ball in space, and on landing I know love is waiting in the shape of Anna, like a treasure at the end of the rainbow – with the important difference that I in real life, which is much more mysterious than any fairytale – really reach that vanishing location and find Anna there! I pondered the replies that Kuan Yin had given me, and which were encouraging. I had all the reason in the world to take them to heart and hear them as serious and very real, for all other times I've asked Kuan Yin for advice, the answers have been spot on. When we'd driven the 60 kilometers from Luleå to Anna's farm, I got out of the car and made it for Grip, Torre and Eldur, the three horses, who came forth and blew in my face to greet me, while I did likewise. To travesty Dylan: How are you, they said to me; I said it back to them! The next day, the 20th, we had a large portion of Anna's family over for dinner. (Haha, only on proofreading do I sense the twisted meaning that hides inside that sentence!) Anna's mother from a district of Sweden down south called Småland was already in place when I came from the airport, and she'd been on the farm a few days. She was going to take care of the horses while Anna and I were in the mountains; a chore that Anna's daughter Sara, who lives with her family elsewhere in the dispersed and sparsely populated Northbothnian village would usually fulfill. At the dinner that night were, in addition to Anna and myself, her mother Margareta, her son Niclas and his woman Bettan from Stockholm, her daughter Sara and her husband P-O with

their daughter Isabell, born in November 2011. We didn't stretch the socializing much, because we were ready to get up very early the following morning, to head for the mountains in Anna's car. 21 July 2013. The alarm clock rang at 5 AM, and we got up, leaving the visiting people in the other rooms asleep. Anna let the horses out and fed them, and we got in the car and left. We were going to ride to Nihkkáluokta; a trip that by car would last about five hours. Anna wanted to show me a gravel road right through the wilderness, so we didn't go out to the highway, E 10, which isn't much of a highway anyway, except on the map. We drove across a wasteland called Herkmyran for the longest time, on a straight gravel road that kept taking us through a vanishing but every second returning sameness of meager but dense coniferous forests. In that sense of ever-flowing sameness it reminded me of a ride in a car in 1972 from Damascus to Baghdad with my friend Calle Trygg, when we were going to India, but then we flowed through a desert landscape. We drove 140 km before we met the first car. We took some quick brakes at places, sipping some coffee and tea. With not too far to go to the town of Gällivare we were halted by the appearance of a big yellow helicopter on the road. An ambulance was parked near, and we also saw a police car. First we thought that the police had hunted down a bad guy and shot him, but news soon reached us that somebody – maybe a berry picker from South-East Asia – had fallen suddenly ill in the forest, and had to be taken to hospital. We heard a motor roaring in the distance. It was a tracked vehicle that transported the ill person out to the road. A doctor had been taken out into the forest with the tracked vehicle to begin with, to speed up the examination of the person. It turned out the helicopter was over-kill, so it left, and the person was taken in by the regular ambulance, and we were free to continue. We would encounter the same helicopter much later in our hike. I'll get to that in due time. When we got to Kiruna, we turned out west on the 60 km road to Nihkkáluokta; a beautiful road in that direction, as the gate to the mountains opens with a fantastic scenery of the Giebmegáisi Massif and bordering areas. As we got ever closer to the end of the road at Nihkkáluokta, we also could study our first serious ascent up unto The Čievrraláhku Highlands, in the distance, which I recalled from last year, and which Anna has engaged twice before. We parked the car at the free lot near the Nihkkáluokta Mountain Center, owned by the Sami clan Sarri, who really has a nice and developing business in place there. Our backpacks were heaviest, of course, in the beginning, with all the food still to eat, and our bodies not yet attuned to carrying that weight. I didn't want to weigh my Haglöfs Sumo 95, because I feared the result would discourage me, but in retrospect it must have weighed at least 28 kilos. I had food for ten days, tent, sleepingbag, clothes, medicine and first-aid stuff plus extra gear like crampons. I had not yet made a big deal about getting the lightest gear either. On the basis of last year's tribulations, Anna had come up with a possible solution to my back cramps, through a pad that she put together and fastened low on the inside of the backpack, to get the weight out some from my body, away from the lordosis. It appeared to work well,

better even than expected, so I can probably thank Anna and her ingenuity for this year's hike. I had corresponded quite a bit with Kenn Lottrup Schjödt – an old mountain acquaintance – before this hike. We were starting at almost the same time and place, with maybe a day differing, and we hoped to meet up on the highlands in the beginning, Anna, myself, Kenn and his teenage son Lukas. We began our hike proper at Nihkkáluokta at about noon, which was some hours later than we'd planned. Kenn and Lukas had probably gotten up on The Čievrraláhku Highlands the night before, and as the weather was fine, I wouldn't have expected them to sit tight somewhere up there for no good reason. I expected them to have moved on across the plains to the pass below Darfálčohkka and down into the Tarfala Valley. Anna and I moved slowly up the ascent from the Láddjuvággi Valley about three kilometers from Nihkkáluokta, due west. After a few more kilometers, putting some altitude below us, having enjoyed a couple of breaks up the slope, we got above the timberline, out of the birch brush into the free and fresh air of the open lands, with a free view below, back down to Nihkkáluokta and farther. We still had some exhausting elevation to work before we could enjoy a free view west across the highlands. Since we were quite tired this first day, and Anna felt bad, having had some uncomfortable heart pains, we decided to pitch our tents by the first small lakes we reached up there. That's where I discovered yet another health problem for myself, which really got me paranoid for a while. When I closed my eyes I saw numerous sharp points of light coming and going all over the field of vision. My doctor at the eye clinic had asked me many times if I'd seen such lights, but I hadn't, until this first night of the hike. In the worst case, this could mean a serious retinal condition, but that usually also shows other symptoms, which I didn't have. Anna and I discussed the matter, and I decided I could move on for the time being, trying to fend off the worries, instead taking to heart the very much encouraging words of Kuan Yin. We fell asleep in our tents, waking up now and then from the cold. I curled myself up tight, blew warm air into the bag and managed to get enough sleep. 22 July 2013. The second day of the hike – which in my mind really was the true beginning of the venture – opened in bright sunlight. It was just that kind of blue sky that you always wish for but seldom get in the mountains. The weather forecast for our planned two weeks in Lapland had been cloudy and rainy all through, so our expectations were low, even though the forecast suddenly changed a day or so before we left, for the better. Even Kuan Yin had talked about ”heaven and earth” in a way that might suggest a clear view. Here we were now, with that clear view, ready to engage the wide, rocky plains that we had to pass this second day, to get down into Gaskkasvággi Valley. As we began working the topography due west, we heard the faint but distinct sound of church bells on the wind. It was seriously misplaced up there on the wild plains, but we soon realized it was the sound of the bells down in The Nihkkáluokta Chapel carried on the wind up to us on the plateau. It was like a beautiful greeting, or a farewell sound ringing from civilization's last outpost, before we disappeared into the wild. Somehow it also reminded me

of Man’s hope for an explanation of his mysterious existence among the stars of an unfathomable universe, or his longing for enlightenment – or for that matter the certain conviction of belonging in a system including everything; thus reducing the need for fear and worries. As we inserted some distance between our first tenting place and ourselves, we soon began sighting Darfálčohkka Mountain over the distant horizon, and perhaps the more distant Gaskkasčohkka, snowy white against the deep blue Lapland sky out west. We had come up on the true highlands, and began making out the general direction ahead in a swing west to north, to bring us through this vastness, in which a walk of an hour hardly changed the view, making you feel like you were just standing in the same place, not moving one bit. Soon the mighty Wolf's Back (Vargryggen) of the central Giebmegáisi Massif would also be visible in part; a wild sight, a wilderness road in the sky, an electrocardiogram of sharp mountain spikes and cutting edges in between. We continued with the deep ravine to the right of us and the tilting plain up to the left, trying to keep to as level ground as possible. It was comfortable, although our packs were on the heavy side. Feet were still healthy, and no back cramps had set in. The sun shone, the sky was blue, and we could enjoy the sights of plains, mountains, glaciers and snow higher up. It was a pleasure. ”Heaven and Earth”, as Kuan Yin had said! We got down into a deep ravine that we had to cross, with easy fording at the bottom, when we discovered a man crossing some ways below us. It was a lone hiker who said he'd accidentally gotten into the wrong valley, while trying to get to Giebmegáisi. I don't know how this is in any way possible, but this is what he claimed... Later Anna suggested we'd cross the stream to the right of us, coming from Čievrrajávri Lake, since we had only rocks ahead of us on our side, while the right side offered green areas on heavenly grass. We crossed and continued a little higher up on the right side, feeling smart, and wondered why nobody else seemed to have used that possibility. We saw no traces on the ground of people. Čievrrajávri Lake lies at 1123 meters above sea level, plainly showing how elevated these flat highlands are. As we drifted comfortably a little higher up across the green pastures, sprayed with small rocks, we eventually discovered a potential problem with the right side choice. Below us to the left a marshland with wet, mushy ground and a wider stream grew out of the landscape. It was not indicated on the mountain map. This puts the focus on a real problem concerning the modern mountain maps from Lantmäteriet (The Swedish Ordnance Survey): They cannot be trusted fully any longer. You discover this time after time. I first saw it last year, 2012, when one of the central places of Swedish Lapland hikes away from the main trails was mal-indicated on the map, actually putting people in danger. The icy, snowy Pyramid Pass, earlier naming the Knife Glacier (Knivglaciären) was shown as completely bare grass and rock ground, whereas I wouldn't go there without crampons and experience. Now, in 2013, we faced this marshland up on The Čievrraláhku Highlands, which couldn't be traversed with normal gear. I and many others have approached the Ordnance Survey about these serious faults, but have not been met by any understanding, so I advice any Lapland hiker who ventures off the trails not to put too much trust in these maps, but make decisions from what they actually meet out there, and be ready to make correcting notes on their maps when discovering them. There was a time when Swedish cartographers put an honor in being correct, but those are bygone days.

We had to get back to the south-west side to pass the Várdu Mountain on the desired side, the left – west –, across the final north section of The Čievrraláhku Highlands between Várdu Mountain and Darfálčohkka Mountain. We solved this by walking down to the water, then drifting back a little around the wettest areas, finishing off with some easy wading, after which we were home free. Before we left home this time I had had the unrealistic idea of being able to deviate slightly from our line through the landscape to rush up on the summit of Darfálčohkka while Anna had some tea – or something like that. When we actually walked through that area I saw that a climb like that would take half a day, even with a light climbing pack, since approaching the actual mountain across a kilometer of rocks up an incline would suck energy and time, and then, after that, the whole mountain waited, and no small mountain at that, to Swedish standards; 1904 meters. I was already drained from the quite long hike we'd already done this day, from our tenting place # 1 to near the end of The Čievrraláhku Highlands. This brings up another typical parameter about hiking Lapland; your unrealistic and dreamy, under-estimating appreciation of the massive reality of the mountain landscape. Everything is so much more than you can imagine at home, even if you have been to the mountains many times. The land is so enormous, so overwhelming. It is easy to feel overpowered and seriously insignificant in relation to the task you set before yourself. You start questioning yourself and your powers, physical and mental. This can be good in the sense that it might make you more careful, but you shouldn't let it stop you from chasing your dream, whether it is to climb a mountain or complete a trail. Go for it, but do it step by step, in your mind. Never, except when planning in the tent, take in the whole day’s work in one gaze, or a whole climb, but measure it section by section. When a climb gets tough physically, consider it ten meters ahead at a time. My thoughts about sneaking up Darfálčohkka, however, shrunk into a good story in our hollering laughters in place there below the massive hunk, as we continued across the plains, soon reaching the descent down into Gaskkasvággi Valley. I was tired and getting worse, as my mood sank in sync with my draining strength, as it always does under those circumstances, though I, beforehand, try to prevent this from happening, without ever succeeding. We made the last kilometers from one possible tenting place to the next, since my strength was down to a minimum – but we both wanted to get down in the valley below, to pitch our tents at the protected place where we’d tented last year. The longing for this place injected me with the necessary extra strength, even though my knees trembled on he sharp descent, with the heavy backpack trying to push me downwards faster than I wanted. We came down more to the right – east – than last year, for an obvious reason: We were heading down the valley to the east this time, not up and west like in 2012. Therefore we saw our 2012 tenting place off to he left, while the Kaskavagge Shelter was closer to the right, up on the other side of the wild stream – Gaskkasjohka - with its rapids. A shelter is not a mountain hut with a host and all that, but just a tiny, often badly kept small security cabin of the so-called prism type, with two bunks and a wood stove. I've experienced nice overnight stays in the cabins at Unna Räita and Mårma before. Anna and I decided to go see if this cabin was free, so we walked down to the right, to reach the summer bridge to get across. There are summer bridges in a few wild places in the mountains of Lapland. Off-season a helicopter lifts them off the streams to a nearby hooking construction, where the

bridges are kept safe until next season. Someone might ask questions about the spelling of names here, if noticing the many variations on Kaskasavagge. The obvious reason is that there is a Sami spelling (which I try to use as long as it is indicated on the maps), while there often also is a land surveyor spelling, which often is a Swedish makeshift spelling of the Sami name, but then there may also be a Finnish spelling. In the case of the Kaskavagge Shelter, it might be a simple mistake from the beginning, or else the name has some significance that I don’t understand, because I would have thought that it logically would have been called either Kaskasavagge Shelter or Gaskkasvággi Shelter. Now it’s Kaskavagge… We got across the wild torrents and walked back to the Kaskavagge Shelter a few hundred meters to the west. It was empty, but contained just one bunk. Someone had probably burned the other one in the stove some cold winter night without wood. I placed my sleeping pad on the floor, while Anna used the one bunk. Otherwise this shelter was better kept than the Unna Räita and Mårma ones, with good double doors, for example. In addition, someone with a too heavy pack had left three harmonicas by the window. I added them to my pack; couldn't resist. I play the harmonica slightly since youth, so after that point Anna had to put up with many old Dylan tunes during our tent nights in Lapland... These harmonicas also provided me with the traditional sub-title to my story! It was about 11 PM when we installed ourselves in the Kaskavagge Shelter, had something to eat and fell fast asleep, after I tried out the harmonicas! 23 July 2013. We woke to another sunny morning, and all the medical worries I'd had seemed uncalled for, in line with the words I'd received from Kuan Yin before departure. After going some ways off from the cabin to distribute our faeces and hide it under small pieces of rock, we got our backpacks on our worn shoulders and started out east down The Gaskkasvággi Valley. My pack was too heavy for me to swing up on my back. Instead I had to place it on a suiting rock and sneak into the shoulder straps; then releasing the pack from the rock, feeling overwhelmed a second, to stagger off a few meters before getting my balance, gaining my hiking posture and regaining some of my pride. The pack kept being heavy all through the hike, but during the last three days or so I could manage to swing the pack onto my back, though it still, the last day, weighed 22 kilos. Most of the time it was Anna who helped me get the pack on my back, when I couldn't find a fitting rock or other elevation for it. Her pack was heavy too, but not as heavy as mine. She had dried food herself, instead of buying freeze-dried provisions, and her food was lighter than mine. She is a very strong and stubborn girl too, and ten years my junior. Now we slipped into an east-northerly direction along and above the Gaskkasjohka stream for about one and a half kilometer, before turning left up into a steep incline, which, after a sweaty ascent littered with resting pauses, finally landed us up on the highland Njunni below mountain Palkastak. We had a good, extended break as the ground leveled out, looking back down into Gaskkasvággi, unto the beautiful landscape we had engaged, across the wide plateau Čievrraláhku and then deviating into an easterly direction, while we came down the same way last year, albeit turning up in a westerly direction. The mountains we then discovered were now visible from a different angle from higher up; the wonderfully and fairytaly shaped giants of The Gaskkasčohkka Massif. We could now, in addition, watch the

mystical, smaller mountain Várdu between the big, roundish and very high Mount Darfálčohkka and us. We also made out the Kaskavagge Shelter, with some difficulty, in the barren landscape into which it camouflaged. The sun burned hot as a welding flame in the sky, and my sun protection hat was a blessing. According to our maps, we would pass a number of small lakes, one directly accessible from our intended line of approach through the landscape. This lake had however dried up completely, so we left our backpacks on a big rock and eased down across the green pastures to the main lake, about 700 meters or so off, to fill our water flasks. This was a nice, unplanned diversion, familiarizing us with this comparably big lake up on Njunni, where it hid from all eyes moving around in pairs way below. In the distance, across the Njunni Highlands, we saw some kind of commotion. It was difficult to understand what it was, and it was so far off that it was even hard to keep the moving object or objects in view. All we could make out was something reddish that kept moving about madly, and seemingly with great speed. We speculated wildly as we trod the even topography of the highlands; maybe it was someone who'd gone mad, or perhaps it was a reindeer that had gotten someone's raincoat over his horns, or more likely it might be some Sami herders gathering reindeer. When we came closer, though, we saw that it was a kid playing around, and that a family of hikers was temporarily settled up on an elevation to the right of our passage, waving a greeting to us as we passed by. At the far, northern side of the Njunni Highlands we climbed a sharp but short ascent, landing us on a hundred meter wide rim, from which we had the most spectacular view out over the Visttasvággi Valley, and far away across the Mårma Pass that we engaged in 2011. The wide view also extended west along the Visttas Valley, showing all the magic splendor of the high summits in that direction. The view had something ominous and scary about it too, since the slope that we'd have to descend into Visttas Valley was shaped such that it got steeper and steeper farther down, meaning that it disappeared out of sight, deep down ahead. We halted up there in this dizzying view to have lunch. My feet had begun hurting quite a bit, longing to be freed of boots and socks and enjoy some sun and fresh air. After our lunch break we moved over to the edge of the rim, and began following traces of a trail downwards. It got steeper by the minute, and after a while we followed a zigzagging line down the very steep descent. I was tired, and so was Anna. The descent put a lot of exhausting pressure on our knees and toes, and even though we often tried to descend sideways, pain burned in those places. I had to halt ever so often, resting knees and toes. I always get a bit grouchy in those instances, and keep asking myself what the hell I'm doing there, which is no fun for Anna. Finally we sunk below the timberline, into a jungle of birch brush and fat, wet vegetation. It got so tight that our backpacks kept getting stuck in branches, while mosquitoes started penetrating our skin with their nano tubes, injecting their itching anticoagulant. Mood sank quickly and seriously, and I was a cursing old man of the stinking bitter kind trailing a younger woman of a sturdier kind, boots smeared with wet mud and clay. I underline here that this was no fun part for none of us, even if I was the one who voiced complaints most loudly. I hated it, really hated it, and felt it was the worst nature I'd ever forced my tired anatomy

through, even worse than the shitty parts Petter Agrell and I moved through getting to Visttas from Unna Visttasvággi in 2010. It also felt like we never got out of the shit either, even though the map said it wasn't such a long passage. It didn't make it any better that it was hot like hell in that mosquito jungle. There was absolutely nothing attenuating about that passage. At long last we got out of that maze of haunting sharp branches and mosquito infested hot air, onto open areas in the Visttas Valley, using our last strength to get to a suitable tenting place by one of the small lakes, on level, grassy and comfortable ground. After we had rested some, and I had washed my vital parts, stark naked at one end of the little lake, we discussed the following day's anticipated ordeals. Our original, and still living plan, was to get up into the eastern inlet of Unna Reaiddávággi, rest or even tent below the threshold by the lower lake, to climb the threshold up to the Unna Räita Shelter and leave Unna Reaiddávággi the usual way to the north, to tent next time somewhere above the Nallú Hut, ready for a climb of Šielmmáčohkka; our main feat this hike. After Anna had gone on a reconnaissance walk up towards the summer bridge across Visttasjohka and back, we realized that to get up into Unna Reaiddávággi that way, we first hade to push our way through one kilometer of terrain even more hellish than the brush of earlier up on the slope, without any track or trail at all, and also ford five branches of the river coming down from The Unna Reaiddávággi Valley. After due consideration we decided to scrap the idea, and instead hike the easy way past the Visttas Hut, up towards the vicinity of Nallú. I introduced the idea of rising up the ascent behind Nallú, to get in place for the coming climb of Šielmmáčohkka. Anna favorably received this idea. 24 July 2013 I woke up in anguish at my eye problem, which had returned full force; dots of light dancing in my field of vision. Once again we discussed it, and once again we decided on continuing, but I felt all drained from the anxiety. However, I felt better after a while, and we started out from our beautiful tenting place, reaching for the summer bridge that would take us over Visttasjohka, to its northern side where the trail to The Visttas Hut extended. At the bridge we met two young hikers from Uppsala, Mattias and Gustav, who greeted us with our names and told us they recognized us from our earlier mountain stories. They also said that they'd partly planned their hikes on the information in those stories, and made me happy by telling us that those stories had inspired them to go hiking. This time they were heading for Nallú and then the Unna Räita Shelter; an excellent choice, especially since this was only their second hike. They had come the same way as us this time, over the Čievrraláhku and Njunni Highlands. In fact, they had sunk past us on the descent from Njunni the day before. Anna and I continued west along the trail towards The Visttas hut. It was supposed to be about five kilometers, but it never seemed to end. The weather was hot as hell; the sun blazing and the packs getting heavier on our backs – and we were once again moving through a jungle of sorts, with no views across the landscape; just full force ahead, looking immediately in front of us to manage rocks and roots and the wet clay, and avoid having our packs getting stuck in birch brush. However, there was also a passage through an area that made me think of a South American jungle, with green leaves and a stream that came down in a series of small waterfalls, somewhat alleviating the mental pain of the general hardship.

When we got to the Visttas Hut we were drained. We stayed there for hours. The lady host was very nice, and let us eat inside without paying any fee. I almost panicked at the heat from the sun, which really burned our skin, and I found some shade behind some birch brush and spread my sleeping pad there. A couple of other guys also suffered from the extreme heat and looked for shade. I recognized the hostess, and she recognized me. We'd met in Unna Allagas in 2009, along with that big Dutch family of the psychologist mother and father with six children. We bought some provisions from the hostess, and got ready to leave. Anna tried to construct her own sun protection shield from a seat pad. It made her look somewhat like a Cambodian dancer, but unfortunately it didn't work, because the backpack kept pushing it out of place. We left the Visttas hut and moved in the direction of Nallú up The Stuor Reaiddávággi Valley. Sometimes white, puffy summer clouds shielded us from the burning sun, and it felt so good. For the first time on the hike I started getting back cramps, but I did bring good pain pills; extra strong Alvedon on a doctor's prescription, (with paracetamol) and anti-inflammatory Diklofenak, also on doctor's prescription and I also tried mental exercises, to accept the pain and try to simply let it be, simply ignore it. Sometimes that worked. These cramps were not in any way hitting muscles necessary for walking, just bugging me, so if I could ignore the pain I could just keep on keeping on. We had a nice afternoon break, having some tea and coffee, plus energy bars, at a flat, grassy area close to the stream, where Anna traditionally has rested during her earlier hikes. At the break a light-weight hiker, member of the Featherlight Club, whom we’d already encountered at Visttas, caught up with us. He asked about The Pyramid Pass, and Anna gave him directions and explanations on the map. Shortly after continuing to move, Anna found a small, heart-shaped stone, that she added to her pack, inspite of her heavy load. We came to the stream coming down from Nállojávrrit behind The Nallú Mountain, and we forded it and began, as we had decided the day before, to rise up the grassy ascent on its left (western) side. It was steep enough and tiresome, but it felt nice gaining some altitude and engaging areas untrodden by both of us. A few hundred meters up (not elevation meters) we found a nice place to pitch our tents, below a big, shielding rock, and with the view across Stuor Reaiddávággi, and above us to the west the spectacular Mount Nallú. As the evening progressed and the light slowly shifted, figures emerged when the rays of the sun soared along the coarse surface of the rock face. These figures could only be seen a short while during these exact circumstances, and we’d never seen them there before. Now we had a nice restful evening of socialising, enjoying these sights. It was a great feeling going to sleep in this beautiful landscape, and we were both excited about getting up into the valley behind Nallú the next morning to find a good tenting place to use as a base camp for our intended climb of mighty Šielmmáčohkka. The map seemed to show mostly a barren, very rocky land, so we weren't sure about being able to tent up here.

25 July 2013. We woke around 6 AM in sunlight under a blue sky. I had breakfast straight out of one of the freeze-dried packs, which just required cool water and some light stirring; very convenient. Anna had a somewhat more complicated breakfast, but probably lighter than mine, although mine was light enough too. About an hour and a half after waking we were all set, and began a tough and draining, but fun, ascent up the grassy slope, which finally, after a strong effort on us both, opened the view into the lower part of the valley behind – on the north side of – Nallú. We saw Mount Nallú from a new angle, and it is a mountain that has completely different looks depending how you approach it. Up into the valley we saw the lowest of the three lakes. We got there across rocks and sipped the water, making us un-thirsty. We noted each place where we could possibly raise our tents, and there weren't many of those in this rock desert. We passed the first little lake, and began stumbling and balancing across a serious, tilting rock field that looked – and was – very strenuous. It was one of those rock fields that you mentally have to divide into shorter sections, not to have your mood sink drastically. When we'd covered some distance we left our packs and climbed up a little to the side to be able to see farther, to decide whether we could tent ahead, or had to use one of the possible patches we'd already passed. To our surprise and joy we found that we had fine tenting places waiting by he middle lake, in a perfect position for a base camp. We moved on with light hearts and pitched our tents just above the beautiful middle lake, feeling very lucky – and I thought about Kuan Yin again. We had a meal and got ready for the main feat of our 2013 hike, the climbing of Šielmmáčohkka. I noticed that there was a halo around the sun, which usually means that the weather will change for the worse, so I was eager to get up on the mountain while the weather was clear and nice, tramping nervously in circles while Anna got herself in climbing order. We packed our small climbing backpacks with wind jacket, wind pants (both good for rain, too, of course), two flasks of water each, power bars, climbing gloves and so forth – and set on out. The direction seemed obvious, just below a high end moraine from a glacier up on a part of The Šielmmáčohkka Massif, and then to traverse an ascent to get up to a level where we'd attach to the lowest part of the real mountain and the impressive ascent upwards, upwards, upwards... This lower part before the actual mountain proved the hardest, since the rocks there were the biggest, and a little loose, moving out of place with dark, rocky sounds under our balancing bodies. This part was easier now, though, with the very light daypack we wore. It felt like dancing upwards in Moon gravity! The moving rocks and the sound they made had me recall a CD I have, entitled Lilith/Stone, on the Belgian Sub Rosa label, from 1992, with the sounds of stones. The cover text in part reads: ”This recording is made exclusively with stones: stricken, smashed, grated, granite or clay – all voices are stone” I also, in this context, remember a piece called La Mémoire des Pierres, which won French sound artist Gabriel Poulard the 2e Prix ex-aequo de la Musique Electroacoustique 1988 at

The Cultures Electroniques competitions in Bourges. On the Šielmmáčohkka ascent the rocks got smaller, and were sometimes no more than pebbles, but a little loose, having you slide down part of your step upwards. You never slid longer stretches, though, but just decimeters, and if you'd slid more seriously, it would have been easy just to sit down, which would have halted your motion. The ascent got very steep, 45 or 50 degrees and sometimes even steeper, so it took some effort to move upwards. Looking up you didn't see the whole distance ahead, since it was so steep and leveled out a little at some places, hiding the next very steep part, and so on. We had the usual long snowfield to the right of us. It’s always there on pictures from many years, so I suppose it’s always there, just shrinking or growing, We tried it out, but the snow was too loose and mushy to provide any relief, so we stayed on the rocks. High up the snowfield split into two parts, and we traversed to the right, climbing the last part up to the saddle between the main summit and The Sielmma Tower (Sielmmatornet) at the right side of the snow. We looked back down many times during the climb, feeling quite surprised at the enormity of the altitude, as it looked, with our tents visible way, way down at the middle lake as two, stingy red dots, and the whole world spread out beyond; Africa’s lively markets, North America’s crammed cities and the parrot hills of New Guinea… Well, it felt like it! When we got up in the saddle between the summit and the so-called Sielmma Tower (Sielmmatornet), it was with a soaring feeling of elation. We looked down and out across the Siehtagas Glacier's uppermost parts, where it just looked like whipped cream snow; fluffy, tasty, before it disappeared down the next precipice, down into The Visttas Valley. To our right, slightly below, stood the sharp and uneven contour of The Cogwheel Ridge (Kugghjulskammen). When we looked back from where we'd come, it was incomprehensible how in the world we'd crawled up that depth, that steepness, out of that void... but way, way below we saw the sharp red signals of our red Hilleberg tents, where we'd sleep in the event we'd ever get down that precipice... However, first we had the summit to deal with. We weren't up yet! We stood down in the saddle between the actual peak, bending in a concave curve high above us to the left (north) when we stood facing the Siehtagas Glacier, and the Sielmma Tower (Sielmmatornet) up to the right. A chilly wind was blowing some in the saddle, so we put on our wind jackets, and the climbing required gloves. The absence of cool winds at that altitude was surprising until then, but I guess we were just lucky. It was the same last year on The Pyramid (Pyramiden) and Nallú, with sunshine and no wind. Now the wind picked up, but it wasn't hard. I imagine it can be like a wind tunnel up there. When we reached the saddle after that long climb from down by our tents somewhere back down in eternity we felt we were already up, but that was just self-deception. The rocks almost all the mighty way up had been of nice, small proportions, easy to tread, albeit on very steep inclines, but the rocks on the concave climb up from the curving saddle to the actual summit were large ones, and not all steady. Suddenly a rock of many thousand kilos would flex under our feet, filling our world with clanging or rumbling sounds from the mineral worlds. This kept us on our toes, haha! We took it slow, nice and careful, as we were treading a ridge, with a precipice down into the

Siehtagas Glacier along our right side of approach, and a steep, but not dangerous, slope on our left side. We couldn't climb straight, on account of the character of the rocks, but had to zigzag between the biggest ones, slowly gaining altitude. It took us forty-five minutes from the saddle up to the Pallin plaque, dated 1914, but when we saw Mr. Pallin we knew we couldn't reach any higher on Šielmmáčohkka, and felt that typical, lofty, airy mountaineer elation. There was more room to move around on the summit than I'd expected, and we shot numerous photographs from up there on this beautiful day, which opened the view across enormous landmasses, all the way to the mountains way over at the Norwegian Atlantic Coast to the west, and farther than I can determine in all other directions. I also shot a 360-degree film. The wind that we'd felt down in the saddle had ceased, and on the summit it was a calm and sunny day of summer. I'd read a story about a man and his grown son who climbed Šielmmáčohkka some years ago, and I recall that man asking himself, as he apparently was 50 years old, how many guys his age would manage this ascent. I could ask the same again if I was so inclined, because I am 64, but I don't, because if you're just in good shape and do some regular kind of exercise (like I do racing biking), and are really interested in the feat, climbing Šielmmáčohkka is not very hard in good weather. It's nice. I think a mistake is to start from The Nallú Hut, because that adds hours of rocky hiking to the actual ascent. Anna and I found the perfect base camp location right by the middle lake in the valley behind (on the north side of) Nallú. We took pictures until we felt satisfied, roamed about for a while, sat in the sun at the summit and just enjoyed the enormity of the place and the moment, and I thought about Kuan Yin and her words: ”Heaven and Earth in complete harmony […] What a gift you have been given” And I felt so thankful. Whether we wanted to or not, eventually we had to start the descent. It was slow, bit-by-bit, rock-by-rock, descent back down the concave brutality to the saddle. There we took some wonderful shadow play pictures of ourselves against the snow on The Siehtagas Glacier, from the very saddle. Then we had an almost unfathomable descent down a depth that curved downwards so sharply that we couldn't see where it went, until we'd slipped and slid some length down, when the whole dizzying magnificence all the way down to our tents – red dots in a brownish, grayish eternity with three blue lakes reflecting the sky – opened in a forever of tiny rocks on a 45 degree or steeper slant, until it leveled out at the very end. Beside us the snowy part lay. We'd heard at The Visttas Hut that two people had been up at Šielmmáčohkka two days before, and that they'd used the snow down, but not up, since it was too soft. We saw their tracks, but we thought it was too steep not to risk us begin to slide, which would speed us up very quickly, perhaps being unable to stop. We didn't want to risk that, or even the feeling of that risk – so we let ourselves down on the rocks, which, as I've already stated, were small and comfortable, although not quite steady. It wears your Achilles tendons out going straight up, and your toes going straight down, on these long ascents/descents. The solution in both cases is to walk sideways, changing sides ever so often. We tried to walk a lot sideways down. Anna had another tendon that pained her,

which she kept at bay by tying a scarf around her leg below the knee. Right before the very last part down to the level of our tents we passed a fascinating section with a stream, around which a kind of miniature topography; a tiny fairytale representation of a landscape seen from the sky, had formed under influence of streaming and spraying water. It was the most beautiful and imaginative land. I tried to take as many pictures as possible of the area, but the totality of it must be experienced in reality to really appreciate. When we finally arrived back at base camp – our two tents! - it came time to tend to feet and have dinner. It had been a really full day, measured from our former tenting place just above Stuor Reaiddávággi behind Nallú, from where we left this morning, rising up the grassy ascent into the valley behind Nallú, and up the rocky parts of that valley, past the low lake up to the middle lake, where we pitched our tents and got in order for the Šielmmáčohkka climb, which we accomplished well, and from which we'd now returned down. 26 July 2013 I got up before Anna, at around 7 AM or something, browsing through camp, shooting some pictures of the sun-drenched surroundings, the lake like a mirror. When Anna woke and we had breakfast we discussed what to do next. The weather being so perfect, we both felt that we had to take a chance on the Western Bossos Glacier and the possible passage across it, down towards Alesjaure, where we wanted to get some provisions. We felt we might well never get such a chance again. For one thing, it’s a rare occasion that all things in life interact in a manner that actually puts you in the area at all, being so distant and away, and to find yourself there in absolutely perfect weather conditions is nothing short of a wonder. We both felt we'd throw away a wonderful gift, if we didn’t go for the glacier. We though about Kuan Yin’s words: ”What a gift you have been given!” I got ready for departure ahead of Anna, and started around the middle lake, by which we'd tented, before her, because I'm slower on big rocks than she is, and the circuitous movement around the lake was very rocky, like all we could perceive of the day's direction appeared very rocky; just the rather big size rocks that make moving a tiresome, tense balancing act, inside which, oftentimes, my worst temper is brewing. This is the case when I have a full hiking pack on my back, because with just a daypack problems are distant or non-existent, and I dance across the rocks. Anyway; I set out around the lake on the southern, Nallú side of it, and found some greener polygon streaks a little higher up, which I followed as long as I could through the storm of rocks that outwitted the topography. Looking diagonally back across the lake, I saw Anna getting her stuff together, until finally all I saw of her was a red dot starting to move around the lake after me. It was her red backpack cover that shone brightly out of the attenuated tonality of the land. Where I was, way around the upper lake; Lake 1235, I had the most fantastic view back east into The Šielmmáčohkka Massif, and looking into our planned line of attack up north, I saw, and felt, the hard resistance we could expect from the rocks, sand and madly steep passages up to the W. Bossos Glacier, which, of course, we saw nothing of from our position in the valley below, but which we knew lay waiting up there as some dangerous and potentially murderous beast of prey, moving slightly in its sleep, sending cracks all down its middle.

Anna caught up with me as I was traversing a large, helpful snowfield, for a while delivering me from the rocks that were of just the wrong size, craving so much concentration and the equilibrium of a circus artist. Anna took the lead, since she is more intelligent at finding lines of transfer through and across tough rock deserts. She danced on ahead of me, and I trailed like a drunkard. I got more and more grouchy inside, as the heavy backpack kept trying to get me out of balance across the rocks, and I got warm, sweaty and tired. Suddenly, with a possible fall of four, five meters to my left, up above the surface of the upper lake, with lots of sharp rocks to receive my body, I almost fell, my backpack leaning a little too much over to my left as I swung like a duck. By sheer luck I managed to straighten up and instead roll over to my right, where I could support myself with my hands on the rocks there – but my cardiovascular system got into a frenzy for a while, and we had a short break. You have to be so much on your toes all the while, when inching across rock fields, and it is hard to be that concentrated for a long time, without ever loosing it. Those sections are not fun in any way, I do declare. Maybe you find some satisfaction looking back at them, but when you're there, it is not enjoyable. I'm sure Anna does not agree, but she dances on rocks; she's a rock dancer. The forgiving and rewarding part of this section were the views that were served all the while, like back across the upper lake, Lake 1235, in the general direction of Nallú, this day with still water and puffy summer clouds in the blue sky. We kept being very weather lucky. I carried water in a flask. Anna tried to get me to dump that water, since she was certain that we would find water for the climb in the small lake that we hoped to see as soon as we got a little higher up across the rock slopes up north above Lake 1235. I'm always a little paranoid about getting into a situation without water, so I'd rather carry some more weight, to ensure access to this reviving liquid, because without it, when you sweat like a heavy weight champion or Louis Armstrong on a heavy hike, you're soon nullified and extinct. We both had two flasks for water, which we filled up when we knew there'd be no water, like on climbs up high mountains. However, when we got across a small elevation in the landscape, we discovered the little lake, by which we rested and filled all our water containers for the serious and uncertain ascent up to The Western Bossos Glacier. It is a very vile, extremely unwelcoming area, which I don't recommend anyone who isn't well trained physically and able to keep his mind under close scrutiny. I noticed the snowfields on the mountainside across the little lake reflecting in the surface. The fields with their reflections looked like stylized wings of a shaman bird, and I suddenly ”recognized” them from somewhere. It soon dawned on me that I'd seen them in a book by the older Lapland guru (older than Claes Grundsten) Tore Abrahamsson. Researching this later, I found that Abrahamsson's black and white photographs of snow wing reflections were found at his Internet site; not in a book, and that they did not come from this little lake below W. Bossos, but from the Tarfala Lake. Out of the guidebooks – especially Claes Grundsten's one – we could sift the necessary information, although it was given for the opposite direction. It talked about snow to lighten the experience, and we could see fields of snow up ahead. It also spoke of steep strings of rocks to tread, and we saw such. There were also steep areas with red sand that probably

would prove impossible to rise up. You would sink as much as you rose. Anna had met Lapland guru Claes Grundsten, legendary nature photographer and the author of many mountain guide books and other literature about Lapland and, in fact, nature all over the planet, at a book signing event in Stockholm in May. When she told him about our plans to approach The Western Bossos Glacier from the Nallú direction, he had gazed curiously at her and mentioned that it was quite steep. I guess he felt that anyone wouldn't be up to it – but what he wasn't aware of was that Anna for sure wasn't ”anyone”, but a distinct power package in the shell of a nice middle-aged lady! After resting and letting our feet out of our boots and socks to breath, we continued. A mishap at this stage went unnoticed for a while, but was discovered a little later. Anna had – like I’ve described before - constructed a pad of sorts and fastened it on my backpack, to rest against my lordosis, to make cramps of my back less likely. This construction was made so that it could have varied thicknesses, provided you withdrew or added some cloth or something to the pad construction. At one point I needed it to be fatter. The only thing we found to stick in there was Anna's rain pants, which were folded up in a plastic bag. At this rest stop by the lake or perhaps a break not long before that, these pants had fallen out and gotten lost in some crack between the rocks. This was quite unlucky, because being without your rain pants in the mountains could turn really vile, if the weather got bad. There was, however, nothing to be done about it there and then. We continued. If any reader – against all odds, I might say – finds these rain pants; please make contact! As we got closer to the ascent proper, we saw that we indeed could use one of the larger snowfields to gain some altitude without having to hop rocks. We came close to the rock wall up ahead, but there we could turn left up the final part of he snow, to step up on a rocky incline, which wasn't very difficult technically to engage, but which began draining us right from the start, as it gradually increased its steepness, and we had to haul our full packs. After a while, which included breaks, we got to a part that was extremely steep, with rather loose small rocks and stones that kept gliding back down under us as we strived upwards. We began to locate rocks that seemed better anchored than others, and tried to step only on them. This method helped, and to the degree we succeeded in this hopscotch climbing, we gained the corresponding altitude. Now we came to the section that I suppose Claes Grundsten had in mind when he warned Anna about the steepness of the area. We looked up, and the ascent sort of disappeared into heaven. There we stood, leaning into the incline with our heavy backpacks pressing down, trying to maintain our postures as we bent our necks backwards and stared up. There was no way of determining how long the section was, but from what we'd seen before, from way down and away, we knew it couldn't be very far until it got better; perhaps a hundred meters or even less. I felt that to get past this crazy section, I had to use a gear I seldom engage; one that I’m not sure I have until it kicks in. It can't be utilized very long, but it might get me through serious trouble when I need it the most. Now I evoked it; it kicked in, and I made a rush up the wall, forgetting completely about the heavy backpack. Before I knew it I was past the steepest part, sinking down in a sweaty hump to rest as the land leveled out some, although it was still, by any standards, steep. Anna rose up behind and below me, and it wasn't long until she too was past the hardest part. I had the impression that it would be easy as Tony Curtis the ”last” part up to the glacier rim;

a simple, diagonal stretch upwards to the right – a glacier rim that of course consists of a moraine, in this case a side moraine -, but that proved a vain expectancy. For one thing, that rush up the steepest part had worn me out good, and the ”last” part, on introduction, could well be split up in several sections of various difficulty, some of which consisted of rocks big as Volkswagens, but with edges sharp as scythes, while other sections were laid out with rocks the size of armchairs, which wouldn't stay in place when you balanced your body and pack on them. If you could take all this stress, the view back down was formidable. Finally we reached the highest spot on this climb, and we expected to see the nice, flat Western Bossos Glacier laid out before our weary eyes... but all we saw was some kind of enormous, dirty hump of matter that curved down towards us, emitting an intense chill, like a blown-out-of-proportion Mårra from the Moomin Valley. This was the edge of The Western Bossos Glacier at the section where we hit it, curving down from Mountain 1884 towards us in the pass. Simultaneously the rocks of the side moraine, which we now stood at the top of, lived down to all bad things that can be said about the rocks of moraines; that they're the loosest and most untrustworthy rocks of Lapland – so we felt insecure and disappointed, and I felt my mood swing low. I simply was too tired for any more tribulations. I felt Anna's mood harden into ice colder than that dirty ice of W. Bossos right by and stronger than the rocks of the side moraine below us, as she toughened herself to get us by this shit. I'd seen that before. She is a kind of person that would fit very well on a true expedition with very real threats, because the more strenuous and tough or even dangerous a situation gets, the tougher and more determined she gets. I'm very impressed by this character of hers, and I know I can never get into the same excellence, even though I know I can refine whatever good tendencies I harbor. However, to get close to Anna’s excellence in tough situations, I need a couple of more lifetimes to practice! We could not determine at all how the extension of the glacier looked in the direction we had to go, since more moraines and big rocks blocked our vision. It all looked a mess to us, of jagged moraine edges and enormous, sculptured hunks of ice that either had cracked loose from the glacier or were the remains of snow from last winter, molten into these white sculptures. We had approached the glacier a little too high up to the left on the side moraine. We saw from our place of contact that we would have won a lot coming in lower to our right, but now we had to climb down this moraine on its inside, facing the monster of a glacier, which stood there curving down towards us, dirty and angry, letting melting water rush down all over its black and white face in numerous streams, with occasional rocks falling off, bouncing down in front of it. No wise person would ever get up close to the dirty, sweaty face of Western Bossos. The area had a hellish impression on us; a cold, dirty, shapeless kind of Hades. Then, moving cautiously down the inside of the unsteady moraine, I fell backwards, just like that. Luckily, my big backpack, which was the one that had gotten me off balance, was the one that saved me, since it got in between the sharp rocks and me. Anna rushed over and helped me up. This had scared her more than it scared me, and for sure, I could have hit my head on a stone, and that would've been the end of that. I was ok, but even more out of balance, psychically. I simply felt that, completely out of it, as I was, both physically and mentally, I wouldn't be able to get out of that situation. I would

have to pull out my sleepingbag and sleeping pad and stay the night in this hellish place; I couldn't move an inch. I sat down. Anna, with this strong character of hers kicking in full force, began giving the necessary orders: Take off your back pack, go down to that big flat rock, wait there for me... and so on. I did as she said, so tired I could hardly see. I called out: ”Oh God”, and felt I actually had to leave my life in the hands of a higher power at this time, since there was practically nothing left of me, as I knew myself. The sun was sinking and the shadows were long; The Bossos monster kept us in its chilly aura. Anna came down with me, left her backpack down at the big flat rock, and then went back up a hundred meters through the rocky mess just by the dirty Bossos and brought back my backpack! When all our belongings were with us at that flat rock, in a sort of crevasse between the glacier and several different moraines and all those ice sculptures, we had an invigorating dinner. Later, as I re-read what Kuan Yin had told me about this hike before we left, I suddenly recognized the meaning of some of her words, which had seemed strange to me before: ”A mountain climber works his way to the peak The sun is setting, a critical situation He prays to the heavens and finds refuge among the rocks The darkest hour before the dawn. Concentrate your insight and shelter in the rewards it brings Although things don't look too rosy at the moment, don't be worried. As soon as you can get to work, the obstacles will vanish. Think over each step carefully, and you won't go wrong. The Wise One is flexible as water and always finds the way” These particular words suddenly got their definite meaning: ”The sun is setting, a critical situation He prays to the heavens and finds refuge among the rocks” After dinner we set out again. We felt we had to get past the glacier before nightfall, to find a proper tenting place. We worked our way up on another side moraine, to get a view ahead. What we saw didn't exactly make things any clearer. It was impossible to see exactly where the glacier ended at the side, below Mountain 1792, because where ever that was, snow still there from the winter connected seamlessly. The snow ended too high up on the sharp steepness of the mountain, so it was impossible to get up there and walk on the rocks. Right below the side moraine where we stood at the moment, the ice looked blue or green, running along the length of the glacier, and appeared to have a glacier stream flowing below. I threw rocks there to find out how strong the surface was. It was strong enough, so we got our crampons on and stepped across that blue ice a few meters out on the glacier proper. We walked slowly and cautiously down along the glacier for a little while, mixing the feelings

of sudden freedom and open spaces with the fear of the glacier. We are not knowledgeable glaciologists, and we weren't many enough for a glacier passage, and we didn't have glacier equipment; just crampons. We knew that the middle of Western Bossos is supposed to be as secure as you can hope for, with no cracks or crevasses, and that it is recommended to pass the ice diagonally at its midst. The safety of this can be determined if the snow is all molten off, but what we saw could only mean that much, but not all, of the snow was molten away, thus leaving doubts about cracks. We had also read from the story of an earlier hiker that a big crack, caused by flowing glacier water leaving a makeshift canyon-like impression in the ice, ran down the middle of the glacier. That hiker had jumped that meter-wide crack, but I doubt we would do that. We didn't feel all comfortable walking like we did, either, sensing that perhaps we challenged W. Bossos with this elating feeling of freedom of movement that we suddenly experienced, walking down the length of the glacier, close to its edge. It still was glacier ground, and had to be considered as such. Consequently, we moved off the glacier and a little up the tilting side above it, under Mountain 1792, where snow and fallen rocks mixed, and with secure crampon grips we walked down along the glacier, suddenly putting some distance between us and the spot where we'd entered W. Bossos. I started feeling explosively good now, in a violent contrast to the death realm sensations I'd had an hour before. We could overlook great distances, across Bossosvággi (the valley has no name on the map, but logically it would be called Bossosvággi), unto Mountains 1702 and 1682 and the highlands there, connecting these summits, plus the very mighty Bossosčohkka (1935) but we couldn't yet look into the Bossosvággi Valley, since the ice before us curved so much down ahead of us. We had some concerns about the depth that lay ahead, but when we could look down there, we saw that W. Bossos just petered out below. Further down was brown clay and even further down lay the bottom of the valley, with Bossosjohka River carrying the melting water of two mighty glaciers; Eastern and Western Bossos. Mountain 1792 above sported iron rich rocks, with rusty, reddish colors. These colors, with the whiteness of the snow and the summer clouds on the blue sky made for a beautiful scenery, like pictures that probes on other planets might collect for our hungry eyes and minds. We felt lucky and delivered when we finally stepped off the monster W. Bossos, and began traversing the quicksand sections there below. The sediments that are transported by glaciers are delivered just below them, and although the ground may look dry and steady enough, this is valid only for a very thin crust. When you step there your boots are sucked down one, two or three decimeters; it's an incredible feeling, as if the ground is playing some trick of illusion on you. After fording some streams coming directly out of the glacier above, we discovered a perfect tenting place below, in a depression in an old side moraine, overlooking the whole valley east towards The Eastern Bossos Glacier and the mighty black western wall of Šielmmáčohkka. The tenting place was prepared with stones to secure the lines, but when I lifted the stones I saw that they hadn't been used in years, so maybe Anna and I were the first tenters there in a long time. It was getting late, the sun was setting. It was about 10:30 PM, and we were home; our tents stood there triumphantly, and we could eat and rest. It had been a long day with many extreme feelings.

However, in retrospect, with all facts covered and the ordeal behind me, I see that I wouldn’t have had to be that worried – but that is because I’ve done the passage now, and know it throughout. If you can keep from getting so drained, perhaps by carrying a lighter pack, and after collecting all the necessary information about the climb and the following glacier passage, you should be able to do it without unnecessary cares, if you’re in good shape and well trained. It’s hardly a hike you do unpacked, though, so whatever the weight of your full pack is, that is what you have to haul up and down. It’s a matter of getting it light to begin with, and that is an art form! (After this experience I have began gathering lighter gear, like the tent Ringstind Superlight from Norwegian Helsport that weighs just 940 gram, a new sleepingbag from Mountain Hardware that weighs 1180 gram though it is synthetic to stand humidity and is recommended down to -9 C, and as an experiment a Jam 70-liter backpack from American GoLite at 880 gram, plus a gas stove at 48 gram, screwed directly onto a gas tube. This means that all the above will in fact weight less than just my old, but admittedly very sturdy backpack from Haglöfs; a Sumo 95) 27 July 2013 We were used to it by now. The morning woke us with sunshine. The long spider fingers of the star residing eight minutes away lightly touched the summits, then slowly moved on down the slopes, until they suddenly struck a karate blow into the canvas of our tents, lighting up the interior in shockwaves of brightness and an incredibly fast rise in temperature. After breakfast we started down the valley in the direction of Alisvággi Valley, to begin with passing below a big side moraine from W. Bossos, continuing down the left (south) side of Bossosjohka. We already saw the presumed fording place, where the stream spread out into numerous beds, widening and getting shallower. When we got down there we changed into the fording footwear we’d brought; some kind of rubbery sandals, very light, designed for summer use in the garden and very cheap, which have become popular among hikers, for wading. We loosened the backpack straps not to get pulled under if we’d fall, and we tied our boots in their straps around our necks, letting them hang down our breasts. Then we set out, I first. The water was really shallow, although too deep for our regular boots. We had no other problem than our feet numbing in the cold water. It took some time across the many streams, and when we thought we’d covered them all, we sat down, had a break, dried our feet and put our socks and boots back on. I first tended to my toes, which had started to become quite ugly, blood under the nails, telling me about all the nails I’d eventually lose – not because of fording, which feels very nice for hurting feet, but because of too much weight on my back, and the toes getting pressure inside the boots because of this and from walking down steep and long descents. We continued all across to the right (north) side of the valley, but then discovered that a quite big stream lay hidden there behind rocks that had muffled its sound. We didn’t want to go through the same procedure again for this one stream, so we looked until we found a possible place to jump across on rocks in the water. Anna filmed my hesitating approach across, and I just barely made it. Then we immediately continued down the valley on its north side. Here the land opened majestically, and the white clouds of summer helped the perspectives far and wide; the gaze like a long, rushing breath.

Our goal this day was a planned tenting place somewhere inside the mouth of The Unna Visttasvággi Valley, above Alisvággi, and far enough inside Unna Visttasvággi to give us a good starting point for the climbing of Bossosčohkka Mountain the next day. We rounded Mountain 1678; the lowest summit of The Bossosčohkka Massif, coming out of Bossosvággi Valley, touching upon Alisvággi Valley, turning up into Unna Visttasvággi Valley. On the far side of Alisvággi a summer storm was brewing, thunderclouds building, black and threatening, but as the hours passed, so did the clouds, staying on the Norwegian side of things. It was hot, and I got tired. Anna moved a little ahead of me, and found a good tenting place not far from the first lake you encounter coming into Unna Visttasvággi, just by a little stream. It was a little too exposed to possible winds, but otherwise it was a very good spot. Our tents were ready at 3 PM. We had dinner. At around 4:30 PM we set out to walk the few kilometers down to The Alesjaure Huts. Before we got there – actually just a few hundred meters before we got there – it started to rain lightly from the outskirts of the Norwegian thunderstorm, but nothing much came of it. At Alesjaure we met the hostess Inger-Lise, whom I’d spoken with many times, when passing by, or staying at Alesjaure, over the years. She told us that this would be her last season as a hostess. She said she felt it was time to do something else now. She has meant a lot to my mountain experience, rendering my memories of the mountains and valleys of Lapland a sound, inspiring and kind atmosphere, and I will miss her, even though we meet very seldom, just because now I know that she won’t be in the mountains, beyond the next ridge, or up the next valley. Anna and I looked in the box with forgotten items, to see if there were any rain pants for Anna. There weren’t, but she found a partly torn raincover for backpacks, that came in handy later, when we had to wait for a thunderstorm to pass. I found a white T-shirt. We sensed, when we sat down in the hall of the main building, that we smelled pretty bad. I contemplated this when a mountaineer, on hearing that Anna and I planned to climb Bossosčohkka, came over and gave us some inspired recommendations on his map, leaning in close. We finally left Alesjaure to head back to our tents up in Unna Visttasvággi, while a thunderstorm began to amass in our direction. When we passed a pingo that we had as a turn-off-the-trail mark, and started rising up the slope to the valley, the thunderstorm got noisy, so we sat down in a protected area, not to stick out of the ground too much, and waited for the thunder to move off and calm down. During this time a beautiful rainbow showed itself. Where I stood to take a photo of it, Anna appeared to sit at one of its ends – and for sure she is a worthy treasure! We began moving further on up after a while, and finally saw our red Hilleberg tents, feeling that we were comfortably home. Since the weather seemed to be turning into a kind of end-of-high-pressure system, when the morning starts clear and sunny, only to change into a cloudier and thunderstorm active afternoon, I suggested that we’d get up early, at 5 AM, the next morning, to set out for the climb of Bossosčohkka in nice weather. We withdrew rather early to get some needed sleep before we had to get up again to face the mountain.

28 July 2013. I woke up early to pee. My alarm clock had broken – or so I thought; it didn’t work, but later regained consciousness – so I called out to Anna in the other tent and asked what time it was. She replied that it was 4:30 AM, and we decided to get up and have breakfast. It was a clear, blue morning, and the sun shone in the places where it reached in over the mountains, but left large parts of the valley in shade. We decided to follow the right – south – side of The Unna Visttasvággi valley east, above the lakes, since we were on that side, and since we would climb up south along the stream to the lake up behind (on the east side of) Mountain 1678; the lowest of the Bossosčohkka mountains, from where we would start the climb proper of the Bossosčohkka main summit (1935). Our decision perhaps wasn’t the most practical, though, because it meant walking across lots and lots of rocks that came at us in wave after wave, which we would have avoided, had we instead stepped down into the middle of the valley, allowing for some loss of altitude that we’d have to regain – but now we instead got the excitement of fording a somewhat wild torrent half way up, under some beautiful snow tunnels where the water from the lake came rushing. I had some serious pain in my wounded toes, and it wouldn’t cease although I’d taken the maximum dosage of one kind of the two pain killers I’d brought; Alvedon with a modified release (paracetamol), so I added one Diklofenak (diklofenaknatrium), to avoid having to return to my tent. It worked, and I rose with Anna up the rocks until we came to the upper lake, where we filled our water flasks and drank as much as we could. We assumed we wouldn’t find any more water on the way up, but later we did find some tiny streams on high. I constructed a little waterfall up there to be able to refill one of my flasks, patiently crouching while the whole mountain concentrated to give me all the precious liquid it could deliver. I was in a grouchy mood to begin with, because I felt the rocks were a little too tough for us to be able to take hour after hour all the way up to the summit, but then again we didn’t have to, because they got much better, which in this case meant smaller and flatter. We hiked in a half circle above the lake, rising up steep and endless – it seemed – ascents. We couldn’t really overlook the walls rising upwards, to determine the best line of attack, so we climbed unnecessarily steeply. Higher up I rose in maybe fifty meters wide slings back and forth in a zigzagging pattern, while Anna mostly worked straight up like a rocket. It didn’t take too long to gain a wonderful view down back below, with the lake where we’d began the actual climb sunken back into a distant past. We worked on up and on up, resting briefly in places, drinking some water and munching a power bar. When we started getting closer to the summit we disappeared from each other’s view for a while, as we worked ourselves up around what proved to be the summit proper. It felt awfully lonely being by yourself up there for a while. I can only imagine how Michael Collins felt on the other side of the Moon as he circled the celestial body when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were down on the surface… When we arrived at the top we found two cairns. Anna put a white rock on top of the main

cairn, and so did I. The weather kept sunny and warm, but summer clouds began forming, white and puffy, boiling up. The time was around 10:30 AM. Thunderclouds usually form in the afternoon, so we felt we had ample time left. Anna walked over to an edge of the summit, and called out from surprise, overwhelmed by what she saw. I walked over, and looked. The view was fantastic. 1200 meters below was the Visttas Valley with the meandering river and the grassy ascent we’d fought our way up last year, rising into Unna Visttasvággi, an abyss below. It was breathtaking. We kept shooting pictures; then just looked and took in the unbelievable angles, and then shot more pictures. We also walked around the summit to best view the surroundings stretching out for how ever long, to white summits on the far horizons, especially north, west and south, while the eastern horizon disappeared in a blue mist of lowlands. We sat down just below the summit to eat and drink a little, and contemplate our position. We were very happy, having completed the three main goals for our 2013 hike; Šielmmáčohkka, The Western Bossos Glacier and Bossosčohkka. My thoughts kept going back to the Kuan Yin oracle and her words for me, which had proven absolutely correct. Time came to descend, and we though we could do that more cleverly than we’d come up. We began by walking back down the long, rounded ridge that we should have come up, which also gave us the opportunity to walk over to the edge towards The Unna Visttasvággi Valley to view part of Unna Visttasjávri Lake, where we’d hiked past last year, down along the lake. I saw three white dots move fast on the water, but after a while I realized they were three gulls flying above the surface, 900 meters below. In this area Anna found a flat, round Yin and Yang patterned stone, which she picked up to show me, and which I added to my pack and now keeps in the vicinity of the computer. Later we had to tread steeper descents, but the rocks were small, flat and pleasant, and this way we could lose altitude faster than expected, and at times we could enjoy the comfort of mossy and soily stretches. The weather, however, began deteriorating fast. The white, puffy summer clouds began to boil feverishly, growing into pre-thunder clouds that turned big and high, rising like ominous anvils across the sky, soon darkening our prospects. We felt we had to get down fast, to get out of the way of possible lightning storms, and we retreated down into the ravine where the stream from the extremely steep glacier below Summit 1702 – The middle Bossosčohkka summit – flowed. Not far above the lake below Summit 1678 we sat down to have dinner. We had brought cooking utensils on the climb, since we’d expected the endeavor to last all day, which it did. When we ate the weather thickened into black thunderclouds all around the summits above us, and it got almost dark. Lightning began crisscrossing the sky, and thunderclaps echoed between the walls. Everything had changed very fast. It struck me, that if my alarm clock hadn’t malfunctioned in the night, we would have started half an hour later, meaning that either we wouldn’t have had enough time on the mountain, or else we would still have been way up on high when the storm struck. This, of course, is especially remarkable, since the clock worked fine thereafter! We felt we had to get home to our tents in a hurry, to possibly escape the rain that was imminent, but we didn’t stand a chance. Hurrying across the rocks along the upper lake was indeed uncomfortable. We had to make sure we didn’t hurt ourselves, too, which is hard even if you’re not in a hurry. Then the rain began to fall, although quite thinly to begin with. Still,

it got slippery on the rocks. We managed to get past the lake while the thunder kept banging, and we descended on the rocks along the stream below the lake. After we’d forded the stream and arrived on the western side of it, the weather got so bad that we decided just to sit down right there on the slope down towards the stream and wait it out. The thunder got loud and close, and a peculiar rain shower stood still about fifty meters from us, on the eastern side of the stream, letting all its water out violently and loudly, while it didn’t rain at all where we sat, for the most part, except a little bit now and then. Since Anna had lost her rain pants coming up to The Western Bossos Glacier a few days earlier, she had no protection. I had my legs, with my rain pants, across her legs, and that way we managed to keep her decently dry. We sat like that for maybe 45 minutes or something, while the storm clouds moved ever so slowly, opening up some clear sky in the east. The clear part grew little by little, and finally we felt secure enough to get on our feet and descend all the way down into The Unna Visttas Valley, moving along the southern side of the second lake, across to the northern side of the first lake and up around it, where we caught sight of our wonderful red tents. We were seriously tired after the day on the mountain, and fell asleep inside our tents. Not until late at night did we wake, stepping out to have dinner. However, Anna, on proofreading this text, informs me that she woke up at one time from my harmonica playing, which leaked from my Hilleberg to hers, telling me it was a nice, dreamy sensation. 29 July 2013. I woke at around 6 AM, had a pee and a shit at some distance from the tents, downstream… and shot some photographs of Anna’s Hilleberg Akto and the thin layer of mist that drifted briskly from inside The Unna Visttas Valley, out into Alisvággi Valley. At 7:30 AM we were ready to sink into Alisvággi, planning to drift diagonally down to The King’s Trail (Kungsleden) and follow it, to begin with, to the Tjäktja Hut, where we’d have lunch before eventually continuing a bit further. Our extended plan was to pass the next hut, Sälka, and to supplement our provisions for yet about three days. I had brought food for ten days, with the plan to get more stuff at either Alesjaure or Sälka, and with the final result at hand, I wish I had taken my chances in Alesjaure. Our plan for hiking the last days was to get up into Siŋŋivággi Valley, sleep one night on the Shangri-La pastures between those majestic summits of Guobirčohkka, Siŋŋibákti and Siŋŋičohkka, before hiking the rocky inclines of the Coffee Valley, and finally climbing the back of Duolbagorni, up to the summit above the famous cauldron, before sleeping one night in The Kettle Valley (Kitteldalen), to finish the hike one last night somewhere between Giebmegáisi and Nihkkáluokta. We definitely did not want to stay at Giebmegáisi Mountain Station, which gives the impression of a busy downtown Stockholm. However, all these plans had to be abandoned, but I’ll get to that later. Besides, we had already done the most important, main things we had hoped to accomplish, and it was quite a wonder that we had been blessed with such wonderful weather conditions. That was much, much more than we ever could have hoped for, and my thoughts continually goes to Kuan Yin, who had assured us before we left that we would have the wonderful hike that we also had. As we sunk down the slopes towards the King’s Trail down in the middle of the valley, we

got parted for a while, and right then I happened to intrude on a bird family, probably a grouse group, and one poor fledgling got parted from the others, chirping in anxiety. The grown bird, I suppose the mother, attacked me without any hesitation what so ever. It flew up in my face, flapping its wings and screaming. I was caught off guard, and had to use one of my walking sticks to defend myself, while I tried to get the hell out of there. The mother saw that she had the upper hand, and retorted to the regular method, pretending to be wounded, running off at a suiting speed with one of her wings tugging behind, and to get things back to normal I followed her long enough for her to regain her calm, and then we parted without fuzz. I looked around for Anna, and saw her a couple of hundred meters off to one side. We got together again, and had some tea and coffee, resting after my post-dinosaur ordeal. We arrived at The Tjäktja Hut at 3 PM, as the weather began getting rainy. We paid our day fee, to be able to use the utensils and burners etcetera inside, and also have lunch inside. As the weather kept getting worse, we decided to pitch our tents at an area not far from the hut, meaning we could use the hut for a while at night, to eat, and also the following morning, so we also paid the tenting fee, getting a reduction for the day fee. The rain was beating the windows, and it felt ok to be inside a house for a while. It felt strange, though, when more and more people came off the trail, deciding to use the hut since it was getting rainy. We had hardly met anyone at all for our whole hike, so getting crowded like this was uncomfortable. Of course, The King’s Trail is always pretty crowded in July and August, and we keep off it for that reason, but also because we’ve seen enough of it, and because Lapland is so crammed with interesting valleys and mountains well off all the trails. The King’s Trail is perfect, though, for beginners, since it runs through a fantastic landscape in a safe way. For anyone who doesn’t want to, or can’t, carry heavy loads, it’s a way to still get out there, sleep in the huts and buy your food along the way. In that case you won’t have to stuff much in your backpack. I remember Acht-Kilo Stefan – Stefan Jerling – who hiked like that, and only carried eight kilos, although he brought a clarinet and a tent (Hilleberg Akto) and a sleeping bag! 30 July 2013 We were ready to leave at around 9 AM, floating off towards The Tjäktja Pass. It’s only a small incline up to the pass leaving Alisvággi, but on the other side, down into the lush, green Čeakčavággi, the descent is a few hundred meters, and the view into the valley wide and wondrous. We had a nice break at the shelter on top of The Tjäktja Pass, before we descended down in Čeakčavággi. We were over-crowded there on the slope for a while, with at least five, six people within shouting distance; not nice… Down through the lush Čeakčavággi Valley we kept arguing about the distance left to the Sälka huts. You don’t see the buildings on their little hill until you’re almost there. I well remember the first time I came this way, in 1995, happily struck by instant surprise when the huts suddenly fell within view. I thought we had longer left than we did, while Anna had a more realistic impression. She recognized the little mountain that kind of guards the entrance to Stuor Reaiddávággi from Čeakčavággi at Sälka; Mount 1398, although it shows none of its typical features from where we came. It felt nice getting to the little collection of houses on top their small hill, because we were going to rest a while, eat some, and buy all the provisions we had to supplement our food storage with.

We made dinner on the bench outside the provisions hut, and had a well-deserved meal. However, we were greatly disappointed at the goods for sale at Sälka. This is one of the most important mountain hut centers in all of Lapland, if not the most important, with several trails connecting, and the main one, The King’s Trail (Kungsleden) sweeping right through. These huts are run by STF, The Swedish Tourist Association, which historically has done a great job to make the wilderness accessible in part to the general public along the trails, and also make development possible for the ones that get more seriously interested in venturing into the less accessible, trail-less areas. We couldn’t find any of the foodstuffs we’d expected to get. It was no exclusive stuff, but just the regular dried food in bags and power bars. They had not one sample of those. The lady said they’d run out of it. I asked how the busiest place in Lapland could ”run out” of food during high season, without keeping a good stock of provisions coming in. She said that STF hadn’t sent any out to them, and she asked me to show STF that we were displeased with this. Her opinion was that something was going wrong with the organization, and other people who work in STF has told us the same. It has to do with some guys at the top, who are destroying the formerly so capable organization. Anna and I were left with our food problem for the three days ahead, since we’d counted on buying food at Sälka. Had we known the state of Sälka, we’d gotten our stuff already at Alesjaure, where Anna looked and found a bag of dried food for the climb up Bossosčohkka. We were forced to get some provisions that weren’t to our liking, and much heavier, too, than the food we would have normally bought. We left at around 6 PM, after I’d taken some photographs of more human excrement than I’d ever thought I’d see in one place. The old outhouse at Sälka had been replaced by a newly constructed one close by, and the old one had been de-constructed, torn down – but all the shit had been left where people had dropped it for years. These faeces also contained regular culture layers of various kinds of toilet paper and other stuff sticking out at different places. I circled the shit like a housefly, documenting it from all angles. You don’t get a chance like that more than once in lifetime! With some longing we gazed into Stuor Reaiddávággi, as we walked briskly down the trail. This was without doubt the easiest passage we’d done during our hike, along a trail on hard clay through meadows of grass, admittedly sprayed with half-buried rocks at times. We kept walking until about 9 PM, when we’d reached Guobirjohka River’s outlet into Čeakčavággi. We had wanted to put as much ground behind us as possible this night, to put us in a favorable position to start our hike up into Siŋŋivággi Valley the following morning. We fetched some water out of Guobirjohka, albeit with some hesitation. Much of that water comes from Rabot’s Glacier, which collected the fuel that the Norwegian Hercules plane spread over the area when it crashed head-on into Giebmegáisi between its North and South summits at 500 km/h on 15 March 2012, instantly killing the four in the crew, also spreading them in microscopic pieces of tissue that would also leave traces in the Guobirjohka River. Samples are taken regularly, and some fuel contamination has been verified of late, but extremely low. The tissue contamination is more theoretical. Still… 31 July 2013 During the night the weather closed in on us. The wind began blowing hard, tearing at our Hillebergs, and rain hammered the tents at times. The wind got gradually harder, and I would

guess that the mean wind speed was a fresh gale, with storm power in the gusts. The tents rattled like flags in the wind, and the sound was deafening. It was hard to get any decent sleep. I kept waking ever so often, worrying that the tent wouldn’t hold up. The wind kept up as the day broke. It showed no tendency to cease, and the gusts got more violent. We stayed in our tents. It wasn’t possible to cook food on the burners, so we ate what ever we had in our packs that didn’t need preparing or heating, like some chocolate bars from Sälka that we had had to buy instead of the food they didn’t have. Some people passed our tents in spite of the weather. I must admit I don’t understand them. I would never go out hiking in weather like that, if I weren’t forced to for some reason. It’s just so uncomfortable. I’d rather lie on my back in the tent, listening to the canvas rattle around me, letting time pass, letting my thoughts build fairytale castles inside my mind. Suddenly, unexpectedly, at about 3 PM, in almost no visibility, I heard the loud noise of a helicopter sweeping low along the trail, passing our tents, adding rotor winds to the gale. I peeped out. It was a yellow ambulance helicopter, most probably the same one we’d encountered on the road south of Gällivare, because they can hardly have many of those expensive machines in the area. This helicopter kept moving low across the topography, apparently looking for someone. After some time it landed somewhere on the other side of The Kuoperjåkka Shelter some ways off south along the trail. It stayed grounded for maybe half an hour, and we could see personnel in yellow jackets move around. Later we heard that a person had broken his leg and contracted a bad fracture that demanded treatment, so someone must have hurried down to The Singi hut to call for help on the radio – because cell phones don’t work in these parts. I admire the pilot and his medics who challenged the hazards of flying their big chopper in this vile weather to help the unlucky hiker. We saw the helicopter lift off and sweep away just a few meters above the ground through the poor visibility and the violent and gusty winds, disappearing in a southerly direction. At 6:30 PM we decided we could pack up and leave. We’d skipped our original plans of climbing up into Siŋŋivággi, on account of the weather, and instead resolved to just go down to Singi and perhaps even get a place inside the hut for the night, since it felt cold and wet and uncomfortable. We came to the conclusion that our hike was finished, and that all we had to do now was get out of there, back to Nihkkáluokta. This didn’t in fact put us down. We had reached that point. We had done what we set out to do, sometimes with attached fears and worries, and in many ways we had overcome ourselves. We had seen fantastic, impossible places from angles we could never have imagined, and we’d been happy and proud on the summits of Šielmmáčohkka and Bossosčohkka, and felt incredibly relieved when we stepped off The Western Bossos Glacier. We stepped over the hanging bridge at Guobirjohka. The water had risen remarkably from all the raining in the stormy weather, looking muddy, and it had partly flooded the flat lands. The grey, wildly rushing waters brought on a scary feeling. I recalled films of floods in Pakistan, and I remembered the peculiar anti-bridges of Persia when Calle Trygg and I drove a car across the desolate areas of that large land in 1972. Instead of bridges they had walled concrete passages down into the riverbeds, across and up the other side. We were warned that a wall of water could come rushing at any time; the result of storms below the horizon, just as anonymous and silent as the walls of pack ice outside Antarctica on Scott’s last expedition. Anna has encountered the same kind of river passage at Vuollerim, Lapland, where there is a

big water hydroelectric power plant and remains of the oldest stonage settlement in Lapland, 6000 years old. Our feeling of risk, danger and doom didn’t decrease when we got to The Kuoperjåkka Shelter half a kilometer on the other side of the hanging bridge. A young French couple sat outside the building, apparently avoiding to step inside, and when Anna and I got in we realized why. Most of the little space was occupied by a gang of young German guys and one girl, and it felt like they were inhabiting an entirely private German sphere in there. The discomfort their appearances brought was thick and indisputable, and it was amplified by one of the guy’s sick pleasure in playing with a big knife that he held in front of himself, with the point addressing the room. The uneasiness was further established by the lack of personalities that the boys showed. I could not have separated the one from the other. They felt like German robots, made in just one mould, and with no life showing in their eyes. Killer robots that spoke German inside their enclosure. Anna and I had something to eat and rested, but all the while I pondered what item I would use if I had to defend Anna and myself from the killer robots at Kuoperjåkka. Luckily, it didn’t come to that – but we didn’t prolong our rest stop. We continued our hike, and arrived at Singi by 9:15 PM or thereabout. It is usually very nice to arrive at the mountain huts, where you are welcomed by the host or the hosts – but this was absolutely not the case at Singi. We had planned to perhaps sleep inside, because of the humid weather and the tiredness after the storm, and to be able to make our food and eat inside too. We were met by the hosts – an older couple – outside the huts. They seemed worried and told us that all places were taken; all bunks occupied. I sensed their uneasiness and simply told them to fix us up with a mattress then, the way they are obliged to do if the beds are all occupied. They can never deny anyone a place inside. Then they told us that we’d in that case get mattresses in different rooms; not by each other. That’s when we decided to tent after all. We paid our tenting fee and thus were able to make our food inside one of the huts, but they told us we had to be out of there by 10 PM. I’ve never met such impolite hosts before at any mountain hut. These old fogies for sure weren’t suited to have anything with people to do. I think it must be true, like various initiated people have informed us on this hike, that STF has deteriorated. By 10:30 PM we went to bed in our Hillebergs down below the huts, in an area with many scattered tents. 1 August 2013. The next morning the sun was shining again. At around 8:30 AM we were on our way. I didn’t expect anything from our hike any longer, of course, because the moment we’d come down to the King’s Trail the day we got to Tjäktja, the hike per se was over. This doesn’t mean that the landscape wasn’t interesting or beautiful, or that compelling things might not happen, but… it was over anyway. In the Láddjuvággi Valley just an hour before we got to Giebmegáisi Mountain Station, with the South Summit (Sydtoppen) of Giebmegáisi in full view, we suddenly saw a paraglider who had just thrown himself off the summit to sail slowly down into the valley, eventually to touch ground by the station. At around 4 PM we arrived at Giebmegáisi Mountain Station; a horrible place for the most part, busy like Downtown Stockholm, and a place you must keep away from if you want to

enjoy the atmosphere of the mountains and the wilderness. As soon as we got in there, we bought tickets for the helicopter to Nihkkáluokta, where we had our car since Day 1. We were incredibly lucky to get seats in a chopper just about one and a half hour later. We just sat down in the main drawing room of the mountain station, and had a tall beer. I immediately had another, and then it was time to leave for the helicopter, which would pick us up a few hundred meters down along the trail, to the east. There was a footbridge leading all the way, but since the two tall beers had seriously affected me, I simply fell off the footbridge and landed ass first in a shallow stream, wetting myself hopelessly. I cracked up in wild laughter down in the stream, while Anna helped me up! I tried to get myself in order, not to be denied the flight… Two choppers arrived; one for four passengers and one for seven. Anna and I got front seats in the big one, and soon we took off and swept across the land, finding ourselves back in Nihkkáluokta in a few minutes, whereas it would have taken us five hours to walk. At the Nihkkáluokta Mountain Center we inquired about a cabin for the night, and we got a perfect one some ways of into the birch brush, close to the water body Paittasjärvi, with two beds, a kitchen part and so on, simply all you could ask for. The furniture and the design were straight out of the 1950s. We got ourselves in order, and then went over to the Mountain Center and had dinner, some delicious charr, before going to sleep early, exhausted after our weeks in the mountains. 2 August 2013 I went up and out before Anna, browsing the lakeside, enjoying the stillness, taking some pictures. At around 9 AM we were ready to leave, but first we went over to the Nihkkáluokta Mountain Center and handed them back the cabin key, and I chatted for a while with a young Sami girl who worked the store there. I saw some Sami CDs and asked her opinion. She had lots to say, and was passionate about it, so I enjoyed the conversation very much. I really appreciate people who are seriously interested in what they do, and feel happy to transmit their enthusiasm when they see it’s well received. I have been interested in Sami music and yoik for decades, so it wasn’t that I couldn’t converse with her on level ground, like some southerner with a sudden flair of romantic feel for the north - but she had news about some musicians and singers I wasn’t aware of, so I got CDs by Krister Stoor (”Moivi) and Berit Margrethe Oskal (”Fargga”). I also got a couple pf books; ”Mitt liv som renskötare” (”My Life As A Reindeer Herder”) by Apmut Ivar Kuoljok, and ”Ren och varg; samer berättar” (”Reindeer and Wolf, Sami Stories”) by Yngve Ryd. At around 2 PM we got off the main road and paid a visit to the town of Överkalix, which is supposed to be equivalent to the wildest Wild West of the States or to some forlorn village of distant Siberia overflowing with moonshine Vodka, and it sure felt like the locals sitting on benches outside the stores on Main Street had us under close surveillance… Before too long we were back home on the farm in Niemisel, greeting the horses, Grip, Torre and Eldur. We both felt a genuine thankfulness for the great hike we’d been on, and for the luck with the weather. I recalled what the oracle Kuan Yin had said before we left:

- HEAVEN AND EARTH Heaven and Earth in complete harmony. The myriad Beings grow and thrive. Peace and satisfaction prevail for blessings and wisdom are given to all You have sown compassion and reap the harvest of joy and love. What a gift you have been given! Anything you wish to do stands under a lucky star. Grasp the opportunity with both hands, so your many ideas can be developed. You don't have to hurry, for success will come without you exhausting yourself. The soul of sweet delight can never be defiled - Kuan Yin's second answer goes: - CLIMBING THE MOUNTAIN A mountain climber works his way to the peak The sun is setting, a critical situation He prays to the heavens and finds refuge among the rocks The darkest hour before the dawn. Concentrate your insight and shelter in the rewards it brings Although things don't look too rosy at the moment, don't be worried. As soon as you can get to work, the obstacles will vanish. Think over each step carefully, and you won't go wrong. The Wise One is flexible as water and always finds the way -