About
About Vintersarek.se
As you probably have recognized Vintersarek.se is written all in Swedish, but we have understood we do have visitors not reading Swedish, who find our page in their search for information about Sarek. Therefore we have made this page to give you a short brief about our project and, hopefully, some useful links. You are also very welcome to contact us if you have questions about Sarek.
Sarek national park
First of all you might be asking, what is Sarek? Well, in short it is a national park in Swedish Lappland and also a part of the world heritage of Laponia. Its also one of the most alpine and remote areas in Sweden.
Background
The background of the project is first of all that we wanted a big personal challenge and experience and secondly to solve “the problem” about the lack of information about winter tours (especially with focus on summits and downhill skiing) in Sarek.
What is Vintersarek.se?
Vintersarek.se is a page about our 90 days long trip in Sarek national park between the 19th February and 19th May in 2010. The page also describes the process around this trip and our project connected to it, Vintersarek (probably translated as “wintertime in Sarek”).
The project
Besides the trip, one of the main goals with theVintersarek project is to produce a guide book for winter tours in the area. We also have an idea to inspire people to go ski mountaineering and back country skiing in what we refer to as the most spectacular area in the Swedish mountain range.
An international problem as well 😉
The lack of cohesive information is also a problem for those not speaking Swedish, and maybe some day we will do a Vintersarek.se in English. In the meantime we will give you some useful links further down on the page. But first some thoughts we want to share about Sarek and safety.
Dangerous Sarek?
A common claim about the northern area of Sweden and Sarek in particular is how dangerous it is and how extreme you must be to go there. This is something we don’t really agree to. You do of course need to have basic skills and equipment for being outdoors in winter, but apart from this, winter tours in Sarek is not to be considered as more difficult than any other winter tour.
What you should keep in mind is the fact that you are relatively far away and that your cellular phone does not work, either you cant count on meeting a lot of people. The key to a safe time in Sarek is therefore to know your own (and your groups) limitations and take height in what risks you choose to take. With other words, avoid to put yourself in situations you cant solve on your own!
Another big issue for being safe in Sarek is time, or more specific, enough time. Always plan for some extra days, so you don’t put yourself in a situation where you have to stress up a summit or ski back to the bus when you in fact needs a day of rest or actually would have chosen to stay still due to bad weather.
Links
Please contact us at info@vintersarek.se if you know about any great webpage not listed below.
A private page with a lot of useful information.
Summitpost.org is a large database of mountains around the world, unfortunately the Swedish section is not that well developed but some information is to be found.
The mountain region of Norrbotten – information from the County Administration Board of Norrbotten.
Tourist information about Lapland.
The official web page for the world heritage of Laponia.
What wikipedia says.