We’ve uploaded the first batch of expedition photos which can be viewed in our gallery. More photos and some video clips to follow soon!

Short vid showing preparation, packing, and moving off across the frozen lake from Akkastugan.

Watch out for Paul’s man-boobs and you may just get a glimpse of Santa in there (aka Bjorn the Warden who was voted best hut warden in the universe 2009 by me).

The huts in the area remind me of the Youth Hostels of yesterday year. Beautifully made and laid out. Woodburning stove for warmth. Gas stove for cooking. Water from the stream meltwater or a hole in the lake. Beautiful locations. You could make a great tour between the huts (the remoter ones are better). Places you can really chill out in.

2 exceptions:

• Singi Hut has been ‘renovated’ using very high quality furniture from Ikea. It’s dreadful.
• Kebnekaise Fjallstation is best avoided. They are trying to turn the place into a hotel. Expensive. Restaurant food does not match the mountain/winter sport environment i.e. its celeb chef crap. All the staff are great but the management need a good hard look at what they are doing.

All rants in this post are solely the opinions of myself alone.

Whisks

Swedes have a problem. Whisks. Now to you and me non-swedes a whisk is something that you may have one of in your kitchen draw that comes out once a year on Pancake day (briefly until you throw in the sink reaching for the electric whisk which is lets face it a whole deal better). Now to the Swedes a whisk is an institution. All of the mountain huts had drawers full of the things. Heaps of them. Mounds and mounds of whisks. Flat whisks, tall whisks, thin whisks and selling for lots of cash in the Kebnekaise Fjallstation the 6″ Travel Whisk no less.

Questioned about it, its the porridge alledgedly. Must be whisked to obtain the perfect consistancy. As any sound and rational porridge officinardo will tell you – perfect porridge can only be made using a wooden spoon.

“Some say porridge should only be stirred in a clock wise direction using the right hand so you don’t evoke the ‘Devil’. The stirring is done with a straight wooden spoon /stick without a moulded or flat end and known is Scotland as a ‘Spurtle’ or ‘Theevil’. “

Taken from http://www.goldenspurtle.com/ the Porridge Making World Championship no less!  

Oh yes and just before the Swedish Porridge Whisk Society hate-mail starts – if you Swedes want to argue then please first start using birch twig whisks (which have got to be real difficult to clean): http://swedishwhiskcompany.com/ And remember clockwise unless you want to evoke the devil!

Also (until Tarfala) not a single tea-spoon was to be found among the whisk mountain. (Swede’s call them ‘coffee’-spoons – as if any civilised person would admit to drinking coffee). So similar to Tools for Africa I am thinking of setting up Spoons for Sweden where people donate their unwanted wooden & tea-spoons in return the Swedes send their whisks to the great melting pot in the sky.

Wolverines

Is there anything in nature more scary than a beast the Swedish call “The Murderer”. Yes the savage wolverine can take down a reindeer by merely staring at them, can terrify bears with its body odour, and can chase of wolves to the equator if one dares look at Mrs Wolverine in slightly the wrong way.

Yet of the same Swedes who proclaim such a vicious name, not a single one had ever seen one. What kind a strange beast is this which walks on 3 legs, kills reindeer for fun, can skim over snow drifts and is invisible. Well using the latest in technology in scanning laser infra-refractometry the expedition managed to take the worlds first image of the illusive wolverine.

Don’t get me wrong; I wouldn’t want to share my sleeping bag with one (well not until it had shaved and washed). 

White

Its not that I dislike white. Its a great colour just kind of boring. I just think snow would be nicer if it was multicoloured (but not yellow).