I set out to Sarek National Park in Augut 2025 with my partner, for a 11-day self-supported trek. This beautiful piece of Earth in the Swedish Lapland, has no trails, no shelters and a lot of water.
The marsh I am crossing leads nowhere. My feet are drenched and deep in the earthy water. I take another step, sinking deep and and the marsh’s fingers encircle my boots, and the sky – swirling acrylic greys – is closing in, a bird shoots through the underbrush ahead, where the marsh ends and I move to where it came from, the land – quagmire, still more similar to land than this swamp I am in. My thoughts, muddled by my drenched gear, are two: to get out of here. And yet, the rawness and jarring beauty of Sarek — vivid, alive, utterly indifferent to me — that make me want to stay here forever.
Even though there is no way around getting wet and cold in Sarek, in rain and many river and marsh crossings, I already feel a pull to go back. Next time, with hiking wellington boots.