Hiking in Tyresta National Park

Fall scenery at lake Stensjön. Today we traveled south of Stockholm to Tyresta National Park. A truly magnificent park that promises a great experience for advanced hikers as well as beginners. Tyresta consists of primeval forests and an impressive biotope - there is plenty of wildlife here; martens, deer, owls. Around dusk we encountered several deer families grazing nearby our trail.

View from one of the peaks at Fornborgsslingan. Some steep cliffs leading straight down to the lake. The trail around the lake presented hikers with a spectacular view over the southern part of the national park.

During primeval time, when the water level was higher, this land was part of peninsulas and islets used by early inhabitants of northern Europe.











Pictures from out camp site at lake Stensjön. Tara is keeping warm by the fire. Kim is boiling coffee. It was around 32 degrees Fahrenheit when we set out at 7.50 in the morning. We think it never reached above 40 degrees at noon, so the sunshine was much appreciated. Sunrise at 7.30, sunset at 5.24. Since we did not want to get caught in the middle of the park at nightfall we decided not to head for the coastline but instead come back some other time and try out the other trails. Read our hiking description below!


Map over hiking trails in Tyresta National Park. (Click on image to enlarge.) We hiked the southern path of Bylsjöslingan (white dots) and continued onto the trail marked as "Tyresta by - Stensjödal" on the map. At Stensjödal, just south of the lake system, we sat down by the camp fire and had lunch. After resting for an hour we walked up the hills on Fornborgsslingan (white dots east of the lake Stensjön) and then headed north on the trail marked by yellow-dots: "Stensjön-Årsjön". At the intersection north of Årsjön (which was pretty much located in the middle of a swamp where the trail only consisted of logs to walk on) we headed south on Sörmlandsleden (orange) to come back to our starting point at Tyresta by (read big dot). All-in-all a neat little hike of about 25 km (16 miles). Some of the paths were more difficult than we had expected. In some cases "the trail" was nothing more than a clearing made by a chainsaw. And the elevations in the area around Stensjön were quite demanding.

Recipe for something sweet

Kim is bored beyond belief. Kim wants something fun to do. Kim makes Tara some Swedish treats with a name that has stirred up a heated debate during the past years. A majority of Swedes still call this candy Negro balls. ("Negro" used to be considered a neutral word in Sweden - Read more about the controversy here.)
Recipe
1 1/2 c (0.4 L) quick-cooking oatmeal
1/4 c (59 ml) sugar
6 Tbsp (89 ml) butter, softened
2 Tbsp (30 ml) cocoa powder
1/2 Tbsp (7 ml) vanilla extract
1 Tbsp (15 ml) coffee (cold)
coconut or pearl sugar for rolling in

Combine butter, sugar, oats (mind you don't use the instant packets), cocoa powder, vanilla, and coffee until it makes a perfect dough. Roll into balls about the size of a meatball. For decoration: Roll balls in coconut/oatmeal flakes or pearl sugar. Refrigerate for an hour, or freeze the candy in order to create a harder consistency.

Remembrance of things past

Links to the past. It is rainy today, so Kim is waiting for Tara to come home, while listening to some songs from the past.

Fishtank (click on the song link), by the band This Perfect Day. Wow! I have not heard this song for over a decade! Great pop tune with synthesizer-driven melody! Important fact: Kim's brother once destroyed a sweater after he went to their concert in the mid 90ies, together with Kim. A rock club can easily turn into a sauna if you're wearing warm clothes. The best concert we ever went to was probably The Soundtrack of Our Lives in 1998. The concert ended around 3 AM and I got about two hours of sleep before I had to get up to catch a train to my work in Växjö, 2 hours away by train.

Shoreline, by Broder Daniel It was 1 AM and the band refused to get on stage until they got more booze. Then they trashed the downstairs apartment at the Blekingska Nation. About half an hour later they entered, almost too drunk to know what way was up... It became an interesting concert. Shoreline, however, was not written until several years later. A nice guitar-based riff in the opening, and some basic depressed BD-lyrics. It's such a great classic punk/rock tune! (Kim went to the same school as the singer, a year shy of the same age.) "I'll be gone" and "Whirlwind" are streamed here. Again, the band is using their trademark openings of guitar-chord progressions to create punk/emo-inspired rock. Lovely!