Vasaloppsleden day 4 – Axisstugan to Eldrisstugan (26 km)

Monday July 15th 2019

It rained a lot that night. I was dreading having to hike in rain and mud the next day, but drove off to dream land in the end. I didn’t set an alarm for the morning, because it turns out I didn’t need it. I had plenty of time, so no need to add unnecessary pressure like that. I got up around 7.45 am and noticed it was dry outside. Nice! After breakfast, I packed up and started hiking around 8.30 am.

I passed Oxberg and Gopshus, and reached Prästskogstugan around noon. I’d originally packed food for about 6 days, but because I was going so much faster than I had anticipated, I was able to treat myself to a nice pasta lunch, nom! The terrain was ok, not the most exciting or varied making it a bit boring. Although it was easy hiking and I made good miles, it also seemed to go on forever because the trail was more or less the same. While the terrain lacked in variation, it was still lovely to be outdoors, enjoying life in the slow lane one step at a time. I also saw more people on this stretch of the trail than on any of the previous days. Mostly mountain bikers and the occasional day hiker. My highlight? A senior citizen, who was out hiking (slowly), greeted me in Swedish and used his best albeit broken English to say how good it was to be outdoors like we were! He wasn’t going fast at all, but he was out there and he brought a big smile to my face. Keep going, sir!

I arrived at Eldris around 4 pm. It was a lot busier around this hut than at previous huts I stayed at. There was quite a bit of traffic around, from mountain bikers stopping there for a rest to a few cars with noisy people. At night a couple opened the hut door, but quickly went back out once they realised there was someone (me, haha) in there and decided to set up their tent instead. So I had the place to myself, which works for me! Well, I wasn’t completely alone, as I was accompanied by several mosquitos having a ball inside the hut. I seriously lost count of the amount of mosquito bites on my body. Itch, itch! I also smashed a couple of the buzzing buggers so at least we were sort of even, though not really, haha.