Roger's Walkabout : Kungsleden 01/07/26

Day 1, Abisco to Alesjaure.

It was a beautiful morning when I left Abisco with the sun appearing between the clouds although the high tops were covered. The wind increased during the day and a few light showers made it feel cold in the afternoon as I climbed higher.

Leaving Abisco

There are ski trails, snowmobile trails and walking routes. The walking routes marked by red paint on rocks and trees the winter routes by red crosses on poles.

A taste of things to come

The first section was an easy walk on fairly level ground with board walks anywhere that was a bit wet which meant that I arrived at the end of the section at about lunchtime.There are boardwalks crossing many of the wet bits, narrow ones for the hiking route and wider two and sometimes three track ones for snowmobiles and quad bikes although all the bikes I saw had six wheels. Sex bikes?

Boardwalk for snowmobiles

The first section was an easy walk on fairly level grind with board walks anywhere that was a bit wet which meant that I arrived at the end of the section at about lunchtime.

Boardwalk for walking

There are a number of bridges like this

Amazing scenery

I had planned to start up the next, steep, section and camp by the bridge over the river but although it was a nice sheltered spot I decided to push on.

An easy path

When I got to 800 meters the wind was strong in my face and with an occasional light shower it started to feel quite cold.

Boardwalk through a swampy bit

It wasn't really surprising that it was cold as I was north of the arctic circle at 2500ft! The scenery was superb with stunted birch trees lower down and arctic tundra / Cairngorms landscape higher up.