Level 2 & 3 Winter Expedition
Summer is easy right, with pretty limited skills you can go kayaking, hiking or cycling all over the world. What if you could have as much freedom in the winter? A whole new season of endless adventures!
Our idea all along was for the Winter Adventure in Northern Dalarna to be the first level out of three. Each tour is a fantastic holiday in its own right, no need whatsoever to plan for completing all three. But we do have a sneaking suspicion that you'll get a taste for more once you've experienced the wonders of wintertime in the wild.
In each level, we're incorporating a learning curve towards achieving the knowledge, independence and confidence to eventually go it alone without guides. We're not talking skiing hut to hut along tracks, we're talking a winter expedition in untouched terrain!
Level 2: Winter expedition in Dalarna or Jämtland
We stay the first and last night of this 7-day tour at our base cabin, and the rest it's all winter camping! We choose a new location each trip. As new to us as it is to you! It will be in the mountains and it will be stunning, that much we can guarantee. Not gonna ramble on more about how wonderful the trip will be, it'll be amazing. Instead we gonna delve deeper into what you'll learn.
Your tent buddy is your compadre
You know the basics of staying active, dry and fed already. You can set up a winter camp. We'll continue to build on those skills of course. But now it's also very much about taking part in the planning, learning how to be independent throughout the tour, and even leading the group.
You and your tent buddy are a team within the team. No communal yurt for this one, won't be lugging luxuries like that along. You and your buddy cook your own meals and melt your own snow in the roomy vestibule of the Hilleberg Keron 3GT tent (for you gear nerds out there).
But moreover than practicalities like that, you'll learn how to navigate a completely new snowy terrain and assess safety. We take turns and each duo gets a chance to "lead" the expedition during one day (with helpful advice of course). That means checking the map, especially gradients to take out a good route, figuring out a spot that will likely be good for camping, triangulating compass bearings, assessing energy levels of the team, and taking weather conditions into account.
Tweaking the plan
But as us in the winter biz like to say: "A plan is nothing, but planning is everything." What does that paradox actually mean then? Planning is crucial. But once we set off, we gotta be ready to change the plan and make decisions on the fly. We'll both learn as we go along, and discuss potential scenarios in theory.
A few examples:
- An obvious one, weather is a biggie. Maybe the weather changes and we're not able to get as far as we planned. Or maybe we actually need to push on to get to a place with enough shelter to camp if it's windy.
- Snowed a tonne last night? Breaking trail through deep snow is strenuous as hell. It can be hard to do pulling a sled, and we'll need to repack to make it easier for the person in the front.
- What are the energy levels of the group? Maybe we need to adapt the route or repack to make it easier for some.
Join us for our next level tour!
It's all about diving deeper into the joy of comfortably and safely experiencing the wild in wintertime!
Dates: 12-18 January 2025
Send us an email if you're interested! Prerequisites are either our Winter Adventure, or if you've spent some time ski touring and winter camping before.
Level 3: Winter expedition in the Arctic Circle
This tour doesn't really exist yet. We gotta wait for some of y'all to complete the first two levels first. But it's coming!
After this trip, you should feel confident enough to plan and execute your own independent winter adventures without a guide! We go further north for this one, into the Arctic Circle. And we spend a full week camping. Perhaps we'll take our skis and leave our camp behind one day and hike up to one of the peaks.
The adventure starts long before you actually arrive in Sweden. We decide on a location as a team and plan every part of the expedition together. How do we get there? What conditions can we expect? What do we eat? What gear do we need? What are the tent buddy teams? Who's responsible for what days? What's a likely route we'll take? What can go wrong?
The different tent buddy teams take turns leading the expedition. Although your guides of course are there to assist, this is about independence! Unless you're really off the rails, what you decide on pretty much goes.
With a full week in Arctic conditions, you'll get to put everything you've learnt into practice. You can be sure to run into some pretty severe weather at times. There will be instances when you need to adapt the plan and make decisions on the fly. Handling team morale and fluctuating levels of energy is another biggie during a long and exhausting trip.
The goal for level 3 😉, your tent buddy is falling apart