Day 22: Rock'n'Rocks

Aksoluoppal to Skojaddejavre

Distance: 30km 

Another early start into a new hiking day. At 4:30h I hit the trail. Crazy? Maybe. But for me, walking in the morning goes so much better than in the evening.

Initially quite flat, the trail the trail then climbs towards Caihnavaggi Hut. From there it's getting really tough. All reports I read in preparation for this trip state it's a hard going section. And they are right. While I don't think it is very steep as some of these reports state, it is extremely rocky. With the rain (which it shouldn't be according to yesterday's forecast), the rocks are slippery as fuck. One wrong step, I would go down like a bag of potatoes - with my heavy backpack there's hardly a chance to save something. I try hard not no imagine what bones could break if I fell. It's a never ending section. The most challenging thing: The sheer length of the rock field, trying not to rush through it, placing one foot in front of the other. With 1200 meters, this is also the highest part of E1 in Scandinavia. Only when in Switzerland, E1 will beat this altitude. Kinda impressive. I celebrate it with a 5 minutes break in the rain and a bit of chocolate (to be honest my knees are feeling like pudding by this time and are it is them screaming for a break) 11km later, it took me a whopping five hours, I cross a dam, follow a gravel road for a wee while before climbing up towards Skojaddejavre. Still rocky but no comparison to what I hiked earlier. 

I pitch my tent shortly after the hut, only to pitch it again an hour later a few meters away as I notice only then that the soil of my first spot is too wet. To my defense, at 1000m the places to pitch a tent are fairly limited. Mostly it is just rocks. My new spot is not exactly sheltered. Fingers crossed it won't be a stormy night.