After yesterday’s ordeal we slept like a log. When we woke up the other 6 hikers had already left. All of them hiked from North to South.
We made our favorite breakfast, knäckebröd with fish spread and hot chocolate…

The weather was better than expected. We had a chat with the warden. He said yesterday he simply told 4 of the hikers they could not go to SIngi due to conditions. He was shocked when he saw 2 crazy Dutch students walk in at 19h looking like they had been run over by a tank. Therefore, he said with a big smile, he used “soft pressure” to make us rest for a day.
We told him about our preparations and choices for the wading, about the rest we took in a our tent-shelter and he seemed to change his mind on us, while still considering it a very bad decision to go that day. These wardens are not simply hut supervisors, they are trekking and survival experts, their advice can save your life, they should be highly appreciated, as we found out later that day.

We did a walk around the hut and made pictures of flowers and herd of reindeer in the distance. After lunch a new thunderstorm came in.
I counted 37 mosquito bites on my body, a souvenir of walking in t-shirt and shorts. Arctic mosquitoes are bad, big and aggressive.

Hypothermia !

New hikers arrived, first a Swedish family, lovely people, we corresponded with them for years. But 2 hours later the door opened and 4 distressed hikers stumbled in. One was a girl who had to be supported, walked like a zombie and looked like a ghost. Her trousers were soaked. It appeared that an hour ago she slipped at one of the narrow plankbridges and fell in the stream. The others managed to pull her out and went for the hut. Outside it was 4 degrees and windy. She suffered hypothermia. The warden jumped into emergency mode, gently took her clothes off, dried her, took her temperature, put a warm towel around her neck, wrapped her in a bunch of blankets and put her in bed. He radioed Kiruna, but was told the helicopter could not fly because of the weather. We all feared for her life. Fortunately after a few hours she got some colour again and could drink something warm. Lesson learned, do not underestimate the dangers of this beautiful trekking tour.

To be honest I was shocked she was still wearing those wet trousers when they arrived and did not change to something dry. Because it can be very confusion, the victim seems ok at first but the body will keep losing warmth, especially in wet clothes and wind, the so called afterdrop, which can be very dangerous. But it appears that if you undress someone in that situation the body exposure to wind and cold may quickly worsen things so the advise is to first find shelter and then start the clothes changing, so the others handled correctly, lesson learned, as I first thought they were mad. The warden clearly knew exactly what he was doing, he may well have saved her life.