Back in November I hiked the Tavelsjö Trail, a 33 ish km hike from Tavelsjö to Umeå. I decided to go by myself, partly because I never had before, and partly because most all my friends were gone out of town that weekend. I figured this would be a great trail to attempted solo hiking, as it never strays too far from civilization, and you can get cellphone reception along the whole trail, so in case something happened I would be able to reach help. My adventure began early Saturday morning with a bike ride in the dark into town to catch the 7:20 bus towards Vindeln. To my surprise, there was a familiar face at the bus stop – a random old man who we met on the bus ride to Vindeln when we hiked the Isälvsleden Trail. He remembered me, and kept asking were my friends were, I don’t think he could believe I was actually going by myself.
The bus ride was quite short, and I arrived at the trail just as the sun was coming up. The trail is marked by a massive sign of a lake monster (I think), from what someone may or may not have told me, it is because there is a monster in the lake? (note: I may have made this up in my head). Anyways, that is really not important. Back to my story.
The beginning of the hike is quite nice as it starts with a 
steep uphill slope to the top of a hill. At the top they have shelters, picnic tables and fire pits overlooking a spectacular view of the lake. Further along there was a look out point which was pretty spectacular. When I had climbed up the sun was still rising over the lake, providing lots of beautiful photo opportunities. Interestingly enough, since it was late November, the sun never rose too high in the sky which was kind of cool.
The largest obstacle I had to overcome on this hike was created by my dear friend, Mr. Beaver. The whole path along this lake had several fallen trees that I had to go over/under which is a lot more difficult than you may think with a large pack.
The obstacle course set by the beaver!
For lunch, I stopped on this piece of land between two lakes, which was kind of cool. The rest of the hike on the first day was relatively uneventful until about 3:00 ish, when it was starting to get dark.. I figured according to the map there should be a place near by where there was a shelter and fire pit where I could stop for the night. However, instead I came to a cross roads where the trail markings went in two different directions.. hum..interesting.. while I was standing there staring at the map an elderly man with nordic walking poles came by and said “follow me, I know the way”. so.. I did. He seemed to know what he was talking about.. so we walked, and walked, and walked, and it seemed to go on forever without seeing another trail marker… But he reassured me it was the right way, and he was.
Eventually we came to an intersection and there was another trail marker to the right. At this point the man said that if I went left, behind this house then through some random trail, then to the right (or something along those lines) I would get to the trail again. This went against my better judgment as I could totally see the trail marker to the right. But I turned left like he said then behind the house then as I approached the place were I was supposed to turn right, it looked super sketchy and like I would get lost (as it was getting dark) and die. So I ran back to the intersection and followed the trail markers. As I did this I realized that the way he showed me was totally a million times shorter and I found where it probably came out.
So at this point it’s almost pitch black and I hadn’t seen any decent place to set up my tent. Then I found it! It was a little picnic area/ swimming place. It wasn’t ideal, but it would have to do. There was a fire pit, but no fire wood. If it was light out I probably would have attempted to look in the woods for some, but it wasn’t and as some of you may already know – Canadians are afraid of the dark (How I met your mother reference).
Since it was only 4pm I took my time setting up the tent, and making food, I figured it would take a while… I figured wrong. An hour later I was done. soo…. now what? I crawled into bed and read for a while. Then went to sleep super early. But that’s ok cause I was planning on getting up early to make the most of the next day. It was a cold night, as there was ice on the lake when I got up, but I was nice and warm in my super warm sleeping bag.
The next morning I got up before the sun, ate breakfast and packed up. I started hiking again, just as it was starting to get light. The sky was a rich red and orange like I had never seen. As I was walking I noticed the lake was on my right when the trail map says it should be on my left, which seriously confused me. Eventually I came to another sign and apparently they had changed the trail (which explains the crossroad confusion), yet, the tourist information had the old trail maps. Awesome.
The second half of the trail was not nearly as pretty as the first half, and there really wasn’t a whole lot to see. During the last few km it started to snow. After I had finished the trail, and was walking to my bike in centrum the snow turned to rain… 😦 When I got home I was exhausted, but happy with what I had accomplished.
Story time with Jenn 
Respect Jenn 🙂 Miss you buddy!
Thanks Tom! Miss you too!
I’m proud of you 🙂
Also, this is my favourite part, I could hear you saying it in my head:
“The trail is marked by a massive sign of a lake monster (I think), from what someone may or may not have told me, it is because there is a monster in the lake? (note: I may have made this up in my head). Anyways, that is really not important. Back to my story.”
hehehe.
Miss you! <3!
it’s so true.. I would even say outloud “Note: I may have made this up in my head.”, as I say that on a regular basis as I can never remember where I heard/read/watched whatever random fact I am talking about.