Another day, another adventure. Even though during my teenage years I’d been having some messed up rhythms caused by some late nights, my rhythm had never been this messed up. Sleeping when I felt like I needed it without setting the alarm, so that my body could take all the rest it needed. Yet not feeling tired because the sun was this massive ball of never ending energy, and not wanting to sleep because there’s not time to waste. Then after a few days feeling so exhausted because of that, that you almost sleep a whole day. But nights, regardless of how I felt and how I slept, were meant for adventure. The midnightsun was such a strange phenomenon, I was addicted to it. I’d always felt this obsession with extreme conditions as it made me realize that the nature was the most powerful being, and it made me feel small but grateful, which in my opinion is needed to be accepted by nature.
Today was no exception: I slept somewhere in the late afternoon till when the clock struck midnight, my life was weird and I was loving it. my hostel really was nothing more than this small wooden building on a hill, abandoned from the world. It was accompanied by a few scary looking buildings that probably originated from the time the mining became a true hype and turned out to be the treasure of the city. They were massive, empty, and red. Like abandoned ghost barns, with a very very creepy atmosphere hanging around. Yet as I feel somehow attracted to creepy and gloomy, I walked around here for a bit. I think I spotted 3 houses in this surrounding from my peek-point at the hill, but that was the absolute max. it was so quiet. It was so empty. It was so unreal. The massive plain of Abisko park was all there was around me, with the noisy steam train being the only sound to appear regularly and some cars on the road being the only movements. I allowed my car a few resting days and again took this road to walk towards the beginning of all hikes: the Kingstrail.
Today I was actually going to take this kingstrail, and somehow I felt terrified, as if there wouldn’t be a way back and once started you were cursed to finish it. the whole fact that I was doing it at night without the sight of other people highlighted this excitement. At the thunder sound of the waterfall I started my hike, but once I entered a tunnel, it was as if the waterfall had disappeared. A new sound appeared, pure and deep, touching my heart and freezing my bones. Goosebumps slowly spread over my body as this sound suddenly was all I heard and locked out the silent world around me: Sami. Yolk, is what it’s called, the centuries old Sami song. It is incredibly pure and you can feel how their voice somehow connects with nature as if it’s a tribute, a ritual. The tunnel around me was covered in beautifully painted blue, and I stood here for a few minutes before I allowed the roaring river to interrupt this singing and help me continue my journey.
A small, rocky sandy path appeared, again crawling its way through the birch forests, that because of their minimal effort to block sunlight stood on this carpet of green, created by mosses, plants and leaves. On my right the river continued forever, throwing its silver waters towards the walls of the deathly canyons besides it. it created this chilly, shiny steam of waterdrops, and I put on my waterproof jacket to approach the river and have a little break on top of the canyon. And there it was, one of my favourite views that I now finally got a proper look at: the signature of Abisko. Lapporten was its name, and it was the funniest shaped mountain I’d ever seen. It wasn’t even a mountain really, it was a valley in between 2 of them. But both of these mountain slid down in such an equal kids-slide way that it created this beautiful U-shape, like a saddle designed for giants. They had this pretty orange glow in the golden hours of the night, and it looked so perfect between its neighbours that seemed so peaceful with their flat surfaces, like an ocean of snowy mountains. The midnightsun does not have much power generally, it’s there for the shine alone.
Perhaps the long winters were to blame for the facts that the trees never grew to their full potential and sometimes didn’t even pass my head, but the midnightsun made up for that by allowing them to grow all their leaves, creating an ocean of green around me, all the way up to the mountains that looked like everlasting waves in an ocean of green-yellow, created by the unique fauna growing only in the north. The path now disappeared and was replaced by a little trail of wood, so small that I had to balance my way over. Luckily I wasn’t in a rush, nature is no place for rushing. I really tried to keep my balance as underneath me there was no solid ground, but hobbly-wobbly rocks, tricky quicksand, or peaceful, but still very wet little streams. The forest never left my side, and every now and then the sunshine created something beautiful at the open spots: colourful flowers stretched towards the sunlight and butterflies adventurously followed the little streams. The river never left my side, down by the river we will go, where everybody goes to be alone. I was truly grateful there was no point where I had to cross it, no matter how steady a bridge may look, I have bridge-fear when it comes to crossing wild waters. The wooden trail never ended, but the forest around me did, only for a bit.
The journey now continued trough a valley of green, little bushes and trees and mosses seemed to create this pillow of green around me and I honestly just wanted to lay my head down there. But to hike alone in the midnightsun gives you this feeling of extremity that made me want to keep going, as if a part of me thought I’d be cursed to always stay on the kingstrail. But at the same time I wanted to stay here and have an ever-lasting, lonely picknick. The mountains around me where so beautiful, I hadn’t seen mountains like this before. They were curvy, they were round, they had huge flat surfaces. There were no sharp edges or pointy tops, they were just creating waves in the sky. And due to their strange yellow-green shade, they seemed to be painted against the sky, they looked like kid-friendly bouncing castles. This valley was like entering heaven, a place could hardly be more beautiful. As it was night, no birds were singing and the wind laid low, turning this place into a motionless oasis of silence and green, surrounded by glowing mountains. The pathway ended at a crystal-clear lake that almost made me want to enter, but even the ducks on the lake seemed like dangerous creatures on lakes so deep and strong that they can totally erase you. But I did allow myself to dip my hands into the cold that sent a chill trough my spine, to cool my head. Midnightsun or normal sun, my skin was still dramatically sensitive for its shine and started its yearly burning-process.
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