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The 20th of July dawned on us, though it had never gotten dark. We’d put up the curtain, though, to sleep easier. I had told Hildegard to wake me up when she got up, at around 6 AM, and she did. She was going to climb Kebnekaise’s South Summit via the Western Route, the one you can do yourself, without a guide.
We said our goodbyes, and Hildegard left, but after five minutes she was back in the room, having to tend to her feet, where symmetrical wounds had appeared on both her big toes, from her boots. She was going to apply some simple tape, but I had lots of Compeed, so I convinced her to use a couple of those, and when she left I was confident that those would ease her through the day on her long hike up and down.
I met a guy in a park in Kiruna, who said he'd seen me last year on the trail! He was Stelios from Cyprus, married to a Swedish wife. They were thinking about moving to Sweden. Stelios works in computer software. He'd been on some adventurous hikes this year, and he showed me how light his pack was. I was envious.
The train in Kiruna was several hours late from Narvik, and I got into a conversation with a 66-year young, slender guy who also came from the mountains and was headed back. He had had some high position in the economical administration of a company, and then worked his own consulting business, but since last year he had retired himself, with some remorse. He was a member of the Swedish Mountain Club (Svenska Fjällklubben) and urged me to enroll myself there. He was a biker like myself too, and he had been painting since young years, in oil. We also talked quite a bit on the train, when it finally came.
I shared the couchette coach with a mother and two daughters in their twenties from Montreal, Canada – French-speaking, although we conversed in English. There was a couple from Germany in there, too.
On the 21st of July I was back in Stockholm, taking to my traditional ways, walking through the city to Herman’s Vegetarian Restaurant, and then to Multi Kulti, where I bought a 6-CD-box with didgeridoo played by famous Aboriginal artist Richard Walley, to round things off...
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