A couple of weeks ago I felt the call of the wild. Maybe not completely wild – hard to find unexplored wilderness these days – but I thought I would do my best. The most remote nature accessible within a reasonable bus ride from Lund is the beautiful Söderåsen national park. So follow along on our expedition or get inspired to do one of your own.
The first step to any good trip is appropriate packing (obvious to anyone who has heard about the explorer André and his hot balloon trip). We brought the basics: tent, sleeping pad, sleeping bag, sitting pad, first aid kit, gridiron, plates, utensils, firestarters, saw, and axe. But maybe, more importantly, food and liquor. It is the most important factor in having a pleasant camping experience and should be treated with utmost respect. We brought whiskey, apples, hashbrowns, falukorv, thick-cut bacon, tortillas, and sriracha mayo.
So bags packed, boots on we got on our way. Getting to Söderåsen looks easy on a map, being only 40 km away, but taking public transport makes it somewhat difficult. From Centralen we took a pågatåg to Stehag station. There we waited about 20 minutes to take the bus to Röstånga, a bus station by the southern entrance of the national park. A total of one hour and 40 minutes later we saw the park for the first time. Overwhelmed by the mass of leaves we started our walk through the park.
Söderåsen is a fairly small national park with clearly marked hiking routes, campsites, and wonderful nature. The forest is dominated by beech trees with massive trunks and high canopies and since we came two weeks after the leaves fell off, there was no shortage of leaves. This softens the sounds making the forest incredibly quiet. A nice change of pace from the somewhat bustling Lund.
In Sweden, we have this thing called Allemansrätt, it’s a wonderful law that allows anyone to hike and camp basically anywhere. In a national park, however, there can be different rules. In Söderåsen you are allowed to hike anywhere, but you can only pitch your tent in certain campsites. There you find shelters, outhouses, wells, and firewood (though the wood in Liagården was very wet and close to unusable). There are also maps showing where you are and what trails to take.
The hike on the first day was stunning and felt remote since we met more animals (three fallow deer and two boar) than we met people (four). After some hours hiking (this could have been shortened significantly, had my friend been in charge of the map), we found a perfect place to set up our tent, unbeknownst to us committing a crime in the process since we did not camp on a campsite. Enjoying what I think is the best part of camping, sitting around the fire (turns out that was also illegal outside of campsites). We cooked a feast consisting of hashbrowns, falukorv, tortillas, and sriracha mayo. As always, food in the forest tastes better, especially when accompanied by a drink.
In my opinion, food is what makes or breaks a camping trip. No one wants to eat some meal ready to eat after a long day of hiking, so what to do instead? My tip is generally that anything that can be cooked in a frying pan works over the fire. We brought a gridiron which makes the cooking much easier since you simply flip the gridiron and not everything in it. Hashbrowns have been a recent camping food idea of mine and I think they might be the best carb to eat while camping. They cook quickly over fire and become crispier than one can imagine, they work just as well for dinner as for breakfast and are simply delicious.
Day two had an interesting start. I heard animals rustling around outside and came out to see a smaller herd of fallow deer, maybe 10-15 walking some 50 meters in front of the tent, and while we were brushing our teeth 30 minutes later six boar passed by along the same path.
Packing up camp and heading north we were going to the viewpoint of Kopparhatten. The views on the second-day hike were even better than the first. We walked through a deep canyon, 300 meters wide and 90 meters deep with a stream in the middle. As we walked closer to the viewpoint we saw more and more people but the nature was as stunning as ever. After a very steep path, we were out of the canyon and could finally see the extent of the valley carving its path through the terrain. The view stretches out all the way to the southern parts of Småland and I can imagine this place being incredible in autumn when the leaves show their colors.
