The Social Backpacking Network

Five hours, 15 minutes to start

On the morning of the first day of the Fjällräven Classic backpacking event in northern Sweden, I was so excited to get on the trail, my body woke me before the sun—and in early August in Kiruna, one of the country’s northernmost cities, the sun rises at four a.m. That gave me two hours until breakfast at Camp Ripan, where I was renting a cabin, and I spent the time watching a robo-mower cruise around the property, drinking multiple coffees from my camp stove, and repacking my backpack yet again. You know that saying about how a job expands to fill the time you have for it? It’s kind of the same thing about checking your kit: If you have time, you will do it again. Or, at least, I will.

The forecast for this wedge of the north was higher-than-normal temperatures and an ever-present chance of rain. All due respect to meteorologists, when