Kungsleden - Day 0
Traveling to Hemavan
Leaving Lyngen Alps
The day I’ve been thinking for about 8 years, and especially for the last 7 weeks, has finally come.
A couple of days ago, we returned from a two-day, extremely hard trail run into the heart of the most remote part of Norway, the wild Finnmarksvidda mountain plateau. It was a real tough test for my injured knee. Despite a 13 kilogram backpack and 116 kilometres covered over those 2 days, it held up very well. So we’ve made the final decision, we will try Kungsleden this year, even despite the lack of training and a knee that is still not fully healed.
The knee held up well during that Finnmarksvidda run, and it gives me confidence that it at least makes sense to risk this quite expensive and time bending thru-hiking experiment. I haven’t been able to train fully for the last 2 months since the injury, which happened on the 22nd of July, 2026 in Slovakia. But I tried to do my best during our stay here in Lyngen, at first hiking and later run-hiking as many mountains and incredible places of this Arctic area as possible.
And today, we are packing the car and heading south. To the start of legendary Kungsleden.
A long journey to Hemavan
Plans ahead
In the late afternoon, we finally reached Hemavan, the start, or for most, the end of Kungsleden. For us, it is the start. The plan now is to do the final packing, eat a good early dinner, and get to bed as early as possible, so we can start the run at 5 in the morning. If that happens, it would be one of the biggest achievements of any of my projects, where I usually don’t sleep properly for 2 to 4 days, starting to run in a brutal, hectic rhythm without proper sleep. Usually, though, these projects last much longer, especially the crossing of Norway, so the first week or two are used to settle into a certain rhythm and improve sleeping patterns along the way. But since Kungsleden is so short, and runnable, I will really need to sleep well and start strong from day one if I want to succeed.
I don’t know if I’m somehow cursed or I just manifested this, having these thoughts, but…
Suddenly a few pieces of unexpected information arrived and instead of a calm evening and a good night’s sleep, we spent the whole night rethinking, planning, and trying to solve the new situation waiting for us after the project. In the end I didn’t sleep even one minute before the start of the run. So typical for the start of any of my projects! Damn it! I thought this one will be different. But okay, I rested for a week quite well. I slept a lot for my standards so I will have to do it somehow today. As always. Uff…
