I hope you enjoyed my Instagram reels covering the Kungsleden hike from Nikkaluokta to Abisko in 1983.
Let me talk about this adventure, while in a next post I will go into detail how I restored my old colour slides.

What an adventure this hike was. To start, it was 1983. There was no internet, no mobile phones, no electricity in most huts. The moment you passed the trailhead you were out of reach, only to reappear after 10 days. If things went wrong good chance nobody was coming to help you, hut wardens could radio Kiruna to get emergency help, but that was it. Some had a small shop that was restocked by helicopter.  In Salka the warden cooked pork chops for us when we arrived after a gruelling day. He had a supply stacked in a hole in the ground filled with ice.

It was a true wilderness hike, we had 3 or 4 real bridges on the entire track, other than that you had to hope that the dozens of plank bridges across streams and moors were still there, which on our day 5 was not the case after a horrendous thunderstorm. Wading through some rivers was absurdly dangerous,  I’ll put out a separate post on that. Mosquitoes were a total horror, especially around Alesjaure.  Food…. If anyone offers us a slice of knackebrod I hope they can outrun Ingrid, and she is fast. That stuff with the inedible fish-pate from a tube really wakes you up in the morning , uugghh.

But, what we got in return was a life-time experience, 10 days of fascinating nature, a lesson in understanding your own limits. The absolute best we had out of it was our relation. If you go through what we experienced together and still smile at each other, that creates a life-time bond.

Things have changed a lot, Salka now has 8 huts or so, 6 more. Abiskojaure was rebuilt and now has all sorts of facilities. Many huts have sauna, in our time they not even had a toilet. The hike was made easier thanks to many bridges, they started building in 1983 would you believe…
But don’t get fooled, you still need to cover the 110 km and the terrain is as rough as it was then, not to mention the fast changing weather.

If you are able to do it, go for it, it is an experience you will never forget.