[Swenglish]

Swenglish on December 21, 2019 at 3:55 am · in reply to: Advice on best plan for 12 week, hut-hut plan #34761

Jan,
Thanks for all the great suggestions! I didn’t realize there is transport from Vakkotavare but that sounds like a great option. Last time I was up there it was painful to turn east at Singi towards Nikkaluokta, all I really wanted to do was keep heading south to Kaitumjuare but the rest of my party was on a tight schedule. The valley south from Singi looks spectactular.

5kg/25 liters sounds quite light, I don’t depend on the huts as much as I could so last time I think my 40L pack was about 15kg with food and water. I plan to bring my basic bivy gear just in case, sleeping bag, etc. We actually ran into a crazy storm last year coming down Tjäkta pass, barely made it to the hut before it was a 24-hour complete white-out wind and snow storm. We later met a group of guys at Nikkaluokta who got caught in the storm, only 2 km from a hut and had to bivy in place for the night. After that they were pretty shook up , think they had to get emergency transport as a couple guys had some pretty bad exposure. They were older guys who had been skiing up there for 30+ years. Made me feel glad that we had adequate supplies for a bivy.

[Swenglish]

Swenglish on December 17, 2019 at 3:57 am · in reply to: Advice on best plan for 12 week, hut-hut plan #34504

Hi Jan,

Thanks for the reply! I am definitely hoping to avoid overtraining but at the same time the guys I’m going with will be in quite good shape and wanting to make good pace so I want to make sure I can keep up and enjoy myself. We haven’t set our planned route yet but most likely we will be going from Abisko to Kaitumjaurestugorna then to Nikkaluokta. We did a similar route a few years back during mid-february as soon as the huts opened and it was quite excellent but this year as we will be going in early-mid March I am hoping that the huts won’t be too crowded? I may plan an alternate route just in case.
Last time we went from Abikso to Nikkaluokta in about 4.5 days, I think most people plan 6 or more days according to online bogs and such.

Sarek sounds nice, would love to check that area out, in fact after seeing your post I had to get out my topo map of that area and spend some time starting at it last night!

[Swenglish]

Swenglish on December 15, 2019 at 10:28 am · in reply to: Advice on best plan for 12 week, hut-hut plan #34385

Hello Scott,
Thank you for the prompt reply and encouragement. With your recommendation I have gone ahead and purchased the grand traverse plan and look forward to getting started tomorrow! I do not have a heart rate monitor so will need to wait until I make it into the big city to get one so I will likely have to wait until week 2 to do the aerobic threshold test, I do however look forward to getting into the habit of using one. After reading your book it made me realize how much over training I did back in my late 20’s when I was swimming a lot and never listening to my body and giving myself adequate rest, glad to now know how to train smarter!

After reviewing the plan I have one additional question, As I have not had time to go through a proper transition training period as outlined in Training for the New Alpinism, do you think I should consider scaling back the duration of the training sessions listed in the grand traverse plan based on my estimated annual training volume, which is probably 250 hours(active student/climber). Or should I just get the HR monitor and stick to the planned aerobic times and just go as slow as necessary to keep my heart rate in the correct zone? The thought of substituting a 6 hour ski training session with running is at this point quite daunting so I’m guessing I will likely need to instead substitute those longer sessions with hikes carrying weight.

Thanks for making all your hard earned information available!