With our sight fixed towards Sarek National Park we drove our fully loaded dogsleds west from Saltoluokta. This year Siergas Sami group had almost no reindeers in the area and we were relatively free to choose the route without interfering in their work with the reindeers.
On this year’s Explore Sarek tour we had two men, Tommy and Krister both from Sweden. Both of them have great experience of outdoor life and travels in the mountains. Unfortunately Krister fell with his sled already the first day and hit his already week knee pretty bad. More bad than he first wanted to realize. Me and Tommy who works as a nurse wrapped his knee and continued the tour in to Sarek, Bielavalta in the upper part of the Rapavalley (Swedish:Rapadalen) also called Predators market and the heart of Sarek National Park where we spent our second night. The day after we continued down through the valley. The leader dogs made an impressive work and found an old snow-covered snowmobile trail.
The third night Kristers knee gave up. It didn’t work at all. We stayed in the camp for an extra 24 hours and talked to a doctor via the satellite phone and were thinking about different options. Finally the mountain rescue was our only solution and the day after Lasse, Leif, Bobbo and Janne came with snow mobiles from Kvikkjokk. They got Krister and some of his equipment. And there we stood Tommy and me with 22 sled dogs. Tommy got a powerful 8 dog team and I had 14 huskies in front of my sled. We drove down along the mountain rescuers trail and reached the cabin in Aktse in the evening. The rest of the tour went well with exciting dog sledding and finished in Saltoluokta.
We met Krister again in Saltoluokta. He had been very well taken care of by the mountain rescue guys. All three of us agreed that Sweden is a fantastic country where we have such a good rescue system.
Another exciting and eventful week has passed!
/Matti
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