Level 2: Quest for the Seven Muskox
There are only seven muskox living in the wild in all of Sweden! Descendants of one flock that crossed the Norwegian border in the 1970s. And they so happen to wander an absolutely stunning landscape for a camping expedition on touring skis.
These Level 2 winter trips have pretty much turned into ticking off all of Thomas's wild ideas for amazing nature experiences. We love our Level 2 concept. How cool is it to get to experience something completely new, all of us, together? A proper expedition in every sense of the word!
"Gaaaaah. I've never been more excited for a tour than this one!!" Granted, Thomas has been called the superlative man, but his enthusiasm is as real as can be.
A maze of lakes nestled by mountains all around.
Alright, enough about Thomas, what is this tour then? We're heading to the Rogen Nature Reserve close to the Norwegian border – a vast frozen lake system surrounded by mountains in all directions. Like so many other amazing places in Sweden, it's shaped by the last ice age.
Nature here has its very own geological term called "Rogen moraine". If you didn't spend middle school in Sweden, you may not have been crammed with ice age terminology. But broadly speaking, moraine, at its most mundane, is materials left behind by a moving glacier.
What's so special about Rogen is that the ridges of moraine have shaped a landscape of hundreds of meandering lakes in a labyrinth. Check out the planned route.
And you guessed it, on skis we're not bound to a trail, we can cross the lakes however and wherever we want. Around us is a barren landscape with boulders left behind by the ice sheet and ancient sparse pine forest.
To top it off, we're surrounded by a glorious view of mountains. Some of which we will skirt around or move across. At heights that are doable and pleasurable on skis, of course. Spotting reindeer in these mountains are a given by the way!
But what about the muskox?
In the wintertime, this particular flock of muskox lives above the tree line on a couple of smaller mountains, about 2 days into our trip. These are big ass animals, 300-400 kilos, in a barren landscape. We're bringing spotting scopes and we will skirt around one of the mountains at tree-less elevation in our hope to see them.
We're not allowed to get within 100 meters, which of course we wouldn't do anyway. The last thing we'd wanna do is disturb this elusive flock of majestic beasts. They are actually protected as a moving nature reserve – the nature reserve moves along with them!
But a peek from a distance through a high-resolution spotting scope, oh my god, it would be so amazing!! They used to be native to Sweden about 30,000 years ago, that's mammoth time! And these days, there are only these seven brave migrants here.
In all the excitement, forgot to mention some practicalities!
Price
The price for the trip is the same as Level 1: 23,200 SEK.
When and where?
It's a weeklong trip, 12-18 January 2025, with pickup and dropoff at Mora train station. We spend the first and last night at a base cabin, the rest is all winter camping! It's about a 3.5 hour drive from Mora to the base cabin, close to the Rogen Nature Reserve.
Tour Itinerary
This is an A to B route, so we'll start and finish in different spots. We'll begin with easy flat skiing across a labyrinth of lakes for the first day. It's nice practice for taking out routes and navigating through a landscape with no man-made landmarks.
Over the next few days, your tent buddy teams of two will take turns in leading the expedition! Level 2 is a learning experience to get one step closer to independence in a wintery landscape after all.
Once we reach the ”muskox mountain”, it'll be a bit uphill – be kinda weird if it wasn't, it being a mountain and all. But we'll take out a route circling the mountain at an elevation that will be challenging, but not too challenging. And of course, we'll take lots of breaks to peer through our spotting scopes in search of the magnificent seven!
We'll continue across reasonably flat lakeland and fell terrain – through a long valley that stretches north with grand mountains towering on each side of us. This is full-on reindeer country and we may pass a couple of herders' huts on the way.
Towards the end of our expedition, we're crossing a mountain ridge, quite steep, but pretty short. And then it's down all the way home. We find the easiest way to go downhill is to just pack our skis onto the sled, saddle up, and ride our sleds down the mountain. It's super fun!
Prerequisites
You are more than welcome to come along if you've completed our Level 1 Winter Adventure in Northern Dalarna, or a similar ski touring trip when you spent a few days on touring skis.
Join us for this Amazing Adventure!
Email Helena if you're interested!