A rather adventurous hiking adventure

On one of the sunny days during the Christmas holidays, we went to Elofsbyn and Lönnskogsbygden for a little hiking trip. What an adventure it was! Right now I'm sitting in front of the fire with a glass of wine and sighing with relief that we escaped with a bloody toe as the only injury. Good to think about before hikes, big and small, is to check a little before, and to be properly equipped. We failed in both of these areas. But at least we had coffee with us!

Elofsbyn is a tiny village in the parish of Långserud with an old campsite for hire and several hiking trails. In addition to beautiful scenery, there is an old gold mine and a charcoal hut to look at. For those with morbid interests, you'll also find the site of the infamous Segolstorp murders. There are enough trails to spend a couple of days here, but we chose a shorter hike towards the gold mine up on Kniphöjden.

The path to Stone's mine first goes through a beautiful and easy to walk forest. Halfway the trail splits and there are two ways to the mine. We chose the one that was not very easy to walk...

As mentioned above, it is good to be properly equipped and well informed before a hike. Henrik's hiking boots had literally fallen apart the day before our trip so he only had a pair of simple trainers and neither the trail nor the season were particularly suited to this footwear. Spoilt for choice with good information on the condition and difficulty of hiking trails, we hadn't checked out the route to the mine and although there is a good leaflet with maps and information down at the campsite, it contained nothing about the condition of the trails. So this is where the adventure began.

A bit into the trail, it started to go uphill. So far the ground was decent if a little wet, but soon we came to what had now become a stream with a large tree fallen over the trail. Here we could have stopped and thought that it might be a bad idea to continue, but since we had planned for a trip up to the mine, we could not just change our minds. No sooner said than done, we crossed the tree and the stream reasonably dry-shod. Now the next challenge awaited us, a ravine full of explosive rocks. On top of each rock was a thin layer of ice covered with damp leaves. This did not stop our adventure either. After the ravine, another slope covered with leaves and moss awaited us, which turned out to be even more slippery than the blasting rock. With our hearts in our throats, we finally reached one of the mine holes, but we hadn't yet reached the rest area and the large mine opening, so we continued. Fools you think, and yes we can both be a bit too stubborn for our own good at times. After struggling upwards for a bit, we finally gave up and realised that this could probably end really badly. We hurtled down to the mine hole again and after the pulse came down to a reasonably normal rhythm, we picked up our little kitchen and cooked ourselves a soup and ate some gingerbread. Order restored, now we just had to get down too. Kicking, slipping and slightly crawling, we made our way back down to the trail, happy to have made it down in one piece.

There was no more luck this day, but soon we will return and then with better shoes and better control! There are several hiking trails to discover and next time we might also take the tent with us and stay a night. The maple forest and Elofsbyn is a scenic area with several nature reserves. The proximity to Glass Forest also means that there is plenty to do for those interested in hiking. In the neighbourhood you will also find Wiksfors mill with many exciting activities such as interior design, design, stone oven-baked pizza and a microbrewery. By the way, the mill won a nice tourist award in the autumn.