After last year's success with the hiking trip to Lake Grövelsjön we decided to take a trip to Sälen. We have always jokingly talked about how lucky we have been with the weather on our travels, at some point it will turn around, we said. Hiking in Sweden in October is always a bit of a gamble, but as I said, we are usually lucky with the weather...
Sälen is actually a traditional winter sports resort, but in recent years has started to profile itself as a good travel destination also in summer. This way in October, you are a bit in between the two seasons, so much was closed. However, if the purpose of the trip is hiking, it doesn't really matter, the mountain is always open.
We lived on Old farm, a year-round hotel a few kilometers from Högfjällshotellet. The two hotels belong together, but Gammelgården is smaller and cozier. Furthermore, it is known for its good food and has been nominated for game restaurant of the year for several years.
So what can you find in Sälen in October?
First, don't let a little rain get you down. With good rain gear and a certain amount of baldness you get really far. In addition, there are often both drying cabinets for wet clothes and saunas for wet hikers available.
Unfortunately, the trips were not as long as we had planned. We were ready for full-day trips and had a pack full of picnic food and snacks, but we changed our minds and opted for slightly shorter trips instead.
One of the days we tried the Östfjällsturen, which is part of the Södra Kungsleden. The trip is 9 km long and partly asphalted, which is certainly comfortable but at the same time a bit boring. Up on the mountain the view is supposed to be amazing but due to the bad weather the reward was not quite what we had hoped for. When you go for a round, you clearly notice the difference when you have the wind at your back and when you turn home, it was much nicer on the way up. This is certainly a nice round otherwise and cozy with a wind shelter at the top, but I simply think we will have to come back one day with better weather.
Instead, we recharged and looked forward to the last day of our trip, when SMHI had promised a break and a bit of sun. Now we would go the slightly longer Hemfjällsturen, which is about 16 km. Both the Östfjällsturen and the Hemfjällsturen start from Gammelgården and Högfjällshotellet, which is nice, then you just have to go out.
The day started with a bit of sun and we strolled away, happy in the heat. After a while, however, the rain came, then the wind came and then even more rain came. We pushed on, SMHI had actually said it would be nice, we passed the Lindvallen ski area and then reached Hemfjällsstugan. The restaurant itself was closed for the season but there was a small rest house where we could go in to warm up and make some lunch and coffee. Strengthened by the food, we set out again, the weather had not improved, and we decided to take the short way home. They usually say that shortcuts are slow paths, and maybe that was the case in this case. The short road turned out to be a snowmobile trail that had turned into a small rapid. Good hiking shoes are always important on the mountain, but now we would have actually had more use for a canoe. After just under a kilometer, I had so much water in my shoes that it splashed a long way when I walked. Luckily it wasn't that cold outside anyway and guess what, the sauna was nice then. 🙂
What else did we do then, apart from walking in the rain? We do as Rendahls always do, we eat and look for goodies.
The first evening in Sälen we had booked a table at a fantastic Italian restaurant which is just across the road from Gammelgården. Restaurant Appetite serves a real Italian menu with several dishes and which is also served with an explanation of why the Italian meal is structured the way it is. Extra fun is also that the Italian is given a Swedish touch, both lingonberry and reindeer had a place on the menu.
Unfortunately, the restaurant is not open every day, but we also managed to get a good lunch after our first wet hiking tour. Don't miss Appetito if you visit Sälen.
Just outside Sälen are also some sports outlets where you can kill a couple of hours, or why not visit Experium? Most things at Experium are closed like this during the mid-season, but there is at least an adventure pool, spa and cinema as well as a nice little interior design shop. During high season, the restaurants are also open.
Most of you may have heard of Åre Choklad, but we also found Seal Chocolate and Sälen's coffee roastery. I didn't know that Sälen also had a chocolate factory and this was the place for us. Here we could both get a cup of coffee and some chocolates and some chocolate to take home. A very nice chocolatier worked in the factory and shop who told us about the chocolate making and the roastery.
During our Sälenresa, cinnamon bun day fell, this was to be celebrated! Due to our wet adventure earlier in the day, we arrived far too late Bunlan's bakery and therefore had to content ourselves with sharing the last poor bun they had left. As compensation for the missing bun, we each treated ourselves to a giant cookie instead. However, Henrik had agonized long and hard about the choice between cookie and giant meringue, which is why it also became a to-go meringue. You don't want to risk starving to death either.
So what did we think of a hiking weekend in Sälen in October? Well, apart from the fact that it was terribly wet, it was still pretty cosy. We enjoyed ourselves very much at Gammelgården but considering that so much else was closed and that the weather was so bad, it might have been better to rent a cottage this time of year. If you have a cottage, you can be "at home" more and, for example, cook or curl up in front of the fire with a good book on rainy days. At the same time, it's not bad at all to sit down at a set table after a day out. Anyway, I feel pretty sure that we will go back to Sälen and make another attempt at hiking, maybe in the summer though.
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