Skäckerfjällen in the northwest corner of Jämtland has long been on my to-do list. This area, which also constitutes a large nature reserve, is often treated as more remote than it actually is (including by tours truly), and is therefore very infrequently visited. Certain characteristics of it are sometimes also compared to the much more celebrated Sarek National Park up north, but on a much smaller scale.

Part of the feeling of remoteness lies in the challenge of actually getting there, and to put together a tour which works from a practical standpoint. This, however, is also a bit of an overstatement, as there is a regular bus service, although it comes with some caveats – especially in summer. I had started drawing up a number of different alternatives for a late-summer tour in Skäckerfjällen, basing them on said bus schedules, and then waited for a suitable weather window to appear to see which one would work best.

One such window did present itself just after the middle of August, and even though I had, after many an iteration, arrived at a plan that would work with the bus, I actually ended up getting a ride by car from Östersund at the outset. This in turn enabled a late change of said plan to include a start from the south, closer to Anjan, which would otherwise have been out of reach on the Friday I was to commence the tour as the bus only goes there on Wednesdays. This had been the main focus of an earlier version of the plan, so it felt rather good that it was back on.

My packing list was as follows:

Plus the 510-g birch walking stick and some water in the flask.

As recounted in the Pältsa report, my boots had suffered severe damage to their soles. I had since repaired them more thoroughly than in the field then, but as I still considered the result more on the makeshift side of things I was loth to subject them to too much strain, which was why I had centered on the shorter Skäckerfjällen tour rather than a longer one further up north (another reason for this was that the trains have been a veritable disaster this year, which put up more resistance to the latter idea). But would they hold up?

Here, then, is the full account of what transpired during the subsequent four days. Each section has a header consisting of a short overview of the stage in question, complete with a map showing the route travelled. A ring marks the starting point, a square the lunch break location (if any), and a star the destination. Vertical distances have been calculated from the map and have an accuracy of 10 m. All breakfasts consisted of oatmeal porridge, tea and a sandwich, and all lunches of two cups of instant soup and a sandwich.