Rautasälven

With an eye on the next winter/spring season (and basically for every future hike not taking place in summer), I had finally bought a new solo tent some weeks back and it finally arrived here on Friday - perfect timing for a weekend hike! Or so I thought.. dense fog all over the area kept me from even starting. Instead, the weather forecast promised nice weather (at least nice compared to the last month) on Monday and Tuesday, and fittingly I didn't have lectures on these days.

Since the buses to Nikkaluokta and Narvik stopped running a few days before and going to Abisko by train seemed too much of a hassle for just two days, I opted for taking a bus to Kurravaara, a small village about 15 kilometers north of Kiruna. From there I wanted to simply walk westwards along the Rautasälven river and then south back home, approximately 20 kilometers overall distance. The first bus leaving only shortly after noon, this plan promised a few hours of relaxed walking and hopefully some nice camping spots along the river.

Monday came, and the weeklong dense fog went - perfect conditions. When I started off, the sun was shining and the temperatures had risen to a whopping 15 degrees, and that at the end of September! Needless to say I enjoyed every second of the hike, even though I had to cover some distance on gravel tracks. At the end of the tracks I passed a few lonely huts and caravans hidden in the forest, and soon I arrived at the rushing river. Along the riverbank, the path kept getting muddy every now and then, at some points it disappeared and I had to find my way through the high scrubs. Hard to lose the way though, as I just wanted to follow the river.

Upon hitting on the track leading south towards Kiruna, I found a perfect campsite near the river with lots of flat ground, a big campfire spot and quite some dead wood. So after setting up the tent I gathered branches for a nice fire, but somehow most of the branches or fallen trees I found were too big to break by hand. Just when I decided to go with a small fire to avoid the annoying search for more reasonable branches, I remembered the wire saw I had carried with me on every hike. I had never used it and now was the perfect time for testing it, with a big dry pine branch just lying around here. Worked unexpectedly well, I found a new favorite tool :D

Then next morning started off foggy, but I could see some clouds and blue sky. Made hope for better weather to come, but it only got more foggy during the day...
My tent was obviously quite wet outside as well as inside, nothing else to expect with such a high humidity. Still, I feel like some more vents wouldn't be too wrong. Anyway, I just packed it up in its wet state (no false hopes of ever getting it dry in these conditions) and walked home. The track was seemingly made for quads and bikes respectively snowmobiles and therefore quite nice to walk. The muddy sections usually had makeshift bridges, so I could walk all the way to Kiruna nearly keeping my feet dry.