Yang Lu Photography - Kungsleden Trail, Sweden

We hiked the northern part of famous Kungsleden Trail in Sweden between Aug 25 and Aug 31, 2019. The hike was beautiful and relax. There are many web sites to help people to prepare the trip. I’d like to offer a few tips from my own experience.

We started the hike from Abisko and finished at Kikkaloukta. At Kennekaise we also summitted the peak. The main reason we started from Abisko was the lodge offers free luggage store and it was also convenient to ride the overnight train from Stockholm to Abisko. The train was very comfortable with a nice shower! If you start from Stockholm, I would highly recommend the train.

We carried our own tent and only pitched the tent next to STF huts. This had a few advantages such as we did not need to carry cook ware and fuel, which saved weight. Also if it rains, we can stay in the hut kitchen or somewhere. The hut had sauna, which was a big thing along the trail. Note that Tjaktja and Singi had no sauna though. If you are going to use STF huts, I highly recommend to get the STF membership as you can get a lot of discounts. We figured after 3 night stay, the membership cost would break even. With the membership, you even get discount when you rent crampons at Kennekaise or go to breakfast buffet! We purchased the membership at Abisko lodge.

All the huts on our route accepts credit card. I also confirmed with them that even it was cloudy, the solar panels at the huts can still work. I do not see a reason to bring a lot of cash. I brought about 2000 SEK but never have to use them. Even on the bus from Nikkaloukta people can use credit card. For the bus from Nikkaloukta, if you buy tickets online, it was a little cheaper than paying on the bus.

Water filter was not needed. There was plenty of water along the hike. We got water from streams and never had any problems.

There was a shortcut from Salka to Kebnekaise by skipping Singi. We felt we made a right choice to stay in Singi however.
The view to and from Singi was very nice and definitely worth a stop. As I mentioned, a little downside is Singi has no sauna and probably not selling food either.

The overall trail was very flat. It was nowhere near to Eastern Sierra mountains in US.I would consider the hike was easy. Obviously if you hike longer and skip huts it would become strenuous.

In my opinion, the best camp site at Kennekaise lodge was on top of a small hill when one enters the area from west side. It offered the best view in this area. The side trip to Kennekaise peak was strenuous. But still, it was not as hard as any 14ers in California. We used the west route without guide. It took us exactly 10.5 hours for the round trip. If you want to do this, it is better to start early. The very top of the peak, about 30 meters to the top, was covered by snow. Some people do not carry crampon returned from there. If you really want to stand on the peak, which we did, you need to rent a pair of crampons at the lodge.

My GPX track, Kungsleden North.gpx, can be downloaded from can be downloaded from GPS Tracks Collection.