Winter misery and summer dreaming

This time of year in Sweden is always terrible for hiking.. October till January. Gets dark around 3pm, sun comes up around 8am, rainy, cold and miserable. So my hiking becomes somewhat limited around this time and I start dreaming about better days. You will notice my posts drop substantially as well.. mainly because I don’t go out. 

In any case in my dreams for a better future I dig up old memories, and here is one such wonderful memory. Waking up on on the hill side in the Swedish mountains, my MLD Duomid pitched tightly and my zpacks lying in the foreground….

I long for those hikes in the mountains, 200,300, even 4oo kilometer treks with the sun beating down on my face and body, legs and back sore from all the walking. Sitting down, pulling out my Ti-tri kitchen by a flowing river and cooking up a hot cup of coffee.. The freedom and enjoyment of it all.

Is there anything better than spending a week out in the wild with good friends and amazing nature? That feeling of being feral in a square, domesticated world?

Hell, even the joy of watching other peoples misery with their heavy packs and diaper like pants on – I miss it all.. so now I just stare at old pictures and start dreaming about my next trip. Where to? Iceland maybe? greenland? Perhaps a week in the Alps? or three weeks along John Muir trail?

Who knows, but I can’t forget how enjoyable late January to may is here! the thick snow, and that amazing feeling of being able to go anywhere which is only possible when everything freezes over. I can’t wait for the first snow fall. Right now it’s just rainy, cold and dark.. There are better things to do than go hiking when the weather is like this, namely – sit inside and write books, edit old pictures and fantasize about better times!

With that said, I often wonder if I would be such a hiking fanatic if I lived by the ocean in southern california?