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The morning of Saturday 9 August broke in rain and low clouds, so everyone stayed asleep as long as possible. It was really lucky that we’d concluded the Jojo Trail the night before, in fine weather. I got up maybe at around 10.30 PM or something, fixing a simple, cold breakfast of müsli, and then I got my stuff in order to leave. As I got out of the hut, Heine stirred in his tent, and we said goodbye, as I thanked him again for his great support the day before. He stayed a little longer in his tent, and I moved slowly away through Unna Reaiddávággi, shooting some pictures back across the lake, of the Unna Räita hut and Heine’s bright orange tent lighting up the grayness like a candle.
I proceeded up the slow incline to the top of the valley, where after it was a downward slope slowly and gradually to Stuor Reaiddávággi, my most familiar and beloved valley in Lapland, where I turned left/west and continued all the way out to Tjäktjavagge and Sälka. I really only wanted to go home, now that I’d done what I’d set out to do on my second hike for the summer. I was satisfied, only wishing to get out as soon as possible, especially since the mad phenomenon Fjällräven Classic completely destroyed the environment out on Kungsleden.
However, I was still in Stuor Reaiddávággi, the beautiful and barren valley that had made me compose a droning, ambient electronic shamanistic sound work back in 2001, and from which I’d sold a picture for an American John Cage CD cover about the same time.
Out in Tjäktjavagge, around Sälka, hordes of people were swarming. It was utterly mad. It was the result of the insane and indecent competition hosted by Fjällräven. 2100 people had reported to the start in Nikkaluokta on Friday, the same day we had started from Tarfala. This was my first experience of them, and it surely was an unpleasant one; just hundreds of people in a hurry everywhere.
During the evening I socialized with a lady called Sigrid, who came from Malmö, Sweden, where she was an urologist nurse in a private clinic. She had her friend and colleague Lis with her, who originally came from Denmark. We had quite much fun till late in the night. Next day, Sunday 10 August, I went down the 13 kilometers to Singi, where I again socialized with Sigrid. She borrowed my iPod to listen to Bach’s Cello Suites with Heinrich Schiff while she rested in her bunk, and later she came around to me when I rested, and offered me a cup of Gammeldansk hard liquor (Old Danish); a very strong and good tasting fluid, which I last tasted in Finland in 1985 with Sirkka and Sune and Suoma! A fantastic treat to have the urologist nurse Sigrid offer me such a wonderful drink while resting in my comfortable bunk in the renovated Singi hut! I also socialized some with an older crew of pensioners. There are not so few older folks venturing out on the trails, which I think is quite a hopeful thing for the later years. You don’t have to give up and stop your activities because you get older, unless you get ill in some way.
Monday 11 August I took off for Kebnekaise; a routine walk from Singi, in high winds. As soon as Kaipak, the little hill right by the mountain station, became visible in the distance as I rounded Singitjåkka, I tried the mobile phone, and it connected for the first time during the hike. I called the train company and booked a sleeper bunk from Kiruna to Stockholm the next day. I never have a return ticket when I go to Lapland, not to feel stressed about a certain date. I got to Kebnekaise in the afternoon, buying dinner right after I had my wonderful shower. At night I conversed with the older guys I’d gotten to know, and when they realized that it was possible to take the helicopter for just 600 crowns the 19 kilometers from Kebnekaise to Nikkaluokta, they instantly went to the reception and got tickets for the following morning, all very thankful to me for that crucial piece of information. Those 19 kilometers aren’t fun. Everything is over anyway, when you reach Kebnekaise. It’s like downtown Stockholm.
Tuesday 12 August I and the four pensioners took off from Kebnekaise with the helicopter at 9 AM, landing in Nikkaluokta a few minutes later. I bought a book by legendary late Sámi writer, poet and musician Nils-Aslak Valkeapää and a new CD by young Sámi artist Simon Issát Marainen.
The bus left for Kiruna at 12.40, and in the evening the train left for Stockholm – but the train was a couple of hours late from Norway, and got even later during the night, when the engine broke down in the middle of nowhere, and a new locomotive had to be driven to us out in the wilderness. Then more trouble arose as our locomotive had to cut loose from our train and go down the line to move a freight train that had got stuck on an incline because of a wet rail in the rain, blocking our way…
We came to Stockholm about five hours late, and the train company – SJ – will return everything we paid for our tickets. SJ seems to be falling apart all together, mismanaging its business and having to pay back so much ticket money to letdown passengers. The second and last mountain hike for 2008 was definitely over. It had been an important extra hike, which I felt I really had to do, to get past it, sort of. When you’re hiking the mountains you are really doing something; not planning anything or contemplating anything – but DOING. You are THERE. Now is HERE. That is perhaps the main significance of mountain hiking, to arrive at you’re Here, discover your Now.
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