A collection of tours made in the Sarek national park and surroundings, 1981-2007.
Sarek is a 1970 square kilometers large national park north of the arctic circle in Sweden. It is said to be Europes last wilderness, though it for centuries has been used as summer pastureland for reindeers. But it is anyway a magnificient untouched alpine area. The area contains several mountains, with peaks around 2000 meters, glaciers, and valleys. The valleys Rapadalen and Tarradalen look almost like a jungle, while the other valleys are above the tree-line. There are no prepared trails, cabins, or places to buy supplies. There are no guides that operate in the park. Visitors must bring everything themselves; tent, food, and cooking equipment, everything what is needed to live. Since it is a national park is it not allowed to fish, or hunt (with a possible exception for mosquitos, which I think it is allowed to kill), it is allowed to make up a fire, using dead wood. But I recommend you not to do it, unless absolutely needed. It leaves ugly black spots, which takes several years for nature to repair. Do not litter, please bring back what you brought with you. Please consult the rules that apply to the park. With the number of visitors (about 2000 visitors per year since 1980) are the most popular places getting weared. At some places have planks been laid out on the ground to protect the ground, e.g. in Rapadalen and the track to Pårek. Mosquitoes can be disturbing in the forest regions, but rarely above the tree line, where it is too windy for them. At Smaila, in the middle of Sarek, is an emergancy phone at the Mikkacabin (the cabin is locked, it is used by the reindeer farmers). The phone is to be used in real emergancy, do not expect to get help unless you are in real danger. There is no coverage for mobile phones. Fording the streams can be dangerous, it happens that people drown. This is anyway very rare, a few per ten years.

This site contain information based on my own experience and knowledge at the time of writing, and a translation of my hiking diary, together with photos that illustrates that particular day. There is also a tour overview map for each year. All small pictures are 'clickable', this gives an enlargement (ca 20-50kbytes) of the picture. I'm also adding descriptions and photo albums of the places I have walked in. Since I am not that interested in walking up and down all mountains, is this not a site for those interested in it. Those times it has been planned have the weather been against it, and it is not worth the effort if you can not see anything. This is often the case, two out of three days are cloudy. It rains a lot and often. It is the place in Sweden with most precipitation. The mountains force the clouds from the Atlantic to rise and give away their content. The information is intended for those like me, who has 7-10 days to spend. This limited time make me not an expert of the area, there are certainly those that spend more time than me in the area.

The surroundings I include are the national parks Padjelanta (1984 km2) and Stora Sjöfallet (1278 km2), and the trail Kungsleden that here pass at the border of Sarek. These parks cover about 1% of the total area of Sweden. The area is part of the world heritage Laponia. Laponia do also include the national park Muddus, and the nature reservs Sjaunja and Stubba. These are mainly lowland plains. In total is the area 9400 km2. I hope the information that I give here is of some interest to somebody.

The number of visitor per year in this area is said to be rather constant since 1980. Difficult to judge oneself. I'm unhappy if my pages inspire too many new visitors, since I hope it will remain an untouched place. I blame those that asked me start these pages about wandering. If you do a visit, be well prepared.

Here are links to my diary of each tour, year by year.
1981 | 1982 | 1985 | 1986 | 1987 | 1990 | 1991 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997 |
2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2007
In 2008 did I not do any hike in Sarek, but visit the two 2008 hikes of Sander de Vries instead.