A long days hike along Sörmlandsleden

What was initially meant to be a nice walk in the woods split up with dinner by campfire and a cold beer, ended up being a 28kilometer walk and sore feet. My thought was that I needed to get in the woods and have some “me” time. Which is usually the case when I’m feeling the winter blues. Or for the most part, I get down whenever I don’t venture off into the woods with my gear on my back. However, once I got out in the woods I found in my soul what I really needed was a long brutal walk…  And that was exactly what I got. 

I walked for a solid 8 hours with only a 30 minute break to eat a snickers and drink some coffee.. didn’t even bother with dinner, that’s how badly I needed to walk. I brought my full winter gear which put me at about 10 kilos in my pack (just a day out so not much food). Five hours in I reached my planned campsite only to realize it was pitch black at 17.00 in the evening and my body was full of energy.. So I did what any like minded backpacker would do; I ate a snickers bar, drank a cup of coffee, put my headlamp on and headed to the woods for some wonderful pitch black hiking. It was lovely.

What made this hike slightly more brutal than normal was the ice sheet. At times I was slipping backwards down steep hills.. I didn’t bother bringing snowshoes simply because there was no snow.. atleast not out in the woods, instead everything was ice.

Just before the dark hit.. around one of the many lakes along the trail.. I was so caught up in my thoughts and the hike itself that I didn’t really bother taking too many pictures. These are the only pictures I took along the trail.

Horses along the trail.. This is my first time out with my Sony RX 100 that I bought for 100USD. Somebody was selling it really cheap and I decided to go for it. I can say this much: It’s very light, has a decent sensor and lens, from what I can tell it takes good pictures and like all Sony cameras, it’s boring as hell to use.

No matter how many times I hike Sörmlandsleden I never get bored of it. It is constantly changning and it has a character all it’s own. While sitting at home I thought what I needed was a cold beer by a campfire sorrounded by darkness and quite; what the woods showed me was that what I really needed was an eight hour meditation.