Björnlandet Nationalpark and Lappstaden in Arvidsjaur

While driving back from Sarek we passed Arvidsjaur and stopped quickly at Lappstaden.
A Lappstad is a 'village' containing houses/tents (kåtor) near a church where the Sami people spent the night while visiting. A lappstad can also be referred to as 'Church town'. This one is the biggest and best kept in the world with its 80 houses/tents built in the late 1700s.
From here we drove even further south to a small national park called Björnlandet just outside of Frederika. We spent the night there camping after some shorter hikes, one being to the highest top in that area with an view point over the entire park.
It's a nice little park with very old forest. Some of the trees being over 450 years old. The terrain has lots of high cliffs which makes it rather inaccessible outside the paths. Something else interesting was the clear scars of several large fires in many of the old tree trunks.

Next blog -> Tatra mountain in Polen!
                                                                                                

Sapmi art

Lappstaden in Arvidsjaur

Storehouse, Lappstaden

Lappstaden

Björnlandet NP, A lot of tree lichen

Trace of wood fire

A very big larva, cossus cossus 80-100mm

Björnlandet NP

Evening light at Björnlandet NP

Sarek, europe`s last wilderness.

Hi All
I'm rather behind with the blogging but I'm oddly enough prioritizing adventures :) Although its a 'break' in the travelling for a while so I'm hoping to catch up.
This one actually goes back more then a month to our trip to Sarek, which is also refered to as 'the last wilderness of Europe' and is one of the oldest National Parks in Europe (1910). It is adjacent to two national parks, the 'Stora Sjöfallet' and the 'Padjelanta'. The park includes a total of 8 peaks over 2 000 m. Due to the long trek, the mountains in the district are seldom climbed. It's a very popular area for hikers and mountaineers although beginners are advised to accompany a guide since there are no marked trails or accommodations and only two bridges aside from those in the vicinity of its borders. The area is among those that receives the heaviest rainfall in Sweden, making hiking dependent on weather conditions. It is also intersected by turbulent streams that are hazardous to cross without proper training. Many of them originating from one of approximately 100 glaciers that are in the area.
Our original plan was to do the 'Sarek Express', 100km across the park through its valleys in 4 to 5 days.
Unfortunately we were forced to change the plan as the snow lingering from the spring was still melting causing  high water flows everywhere. So instead we walked from Saltoloukta mountain station -> Rapa Valley, still a hike of almost 80km that took us 3 days. This route follows the border of the Sarek NP and is a part of Kungsleden that eventually leads to Kvikkjokk. The goal was to see the Rapaselet from Skierfe, and wow what a view! Rather intimidating as its a 700m steep cliff.
Another high light was the 4km early morning row across Sitojaure with one of the boats maintained by STF. I was lucky, the lake was calm :) and I was warmed up and ready for the hike.

                                                                                                         

Rapadalen

Rapadalen