Guides note
Crystal days and Northern light is a tour for you that like to have the comfort of a base camp but still have adventures trips during the day. On this tour we make daytrips from our village Umnäs or we take the car up to Norra Fjällnäs and mush to Tärna Lake lodge where we have our base camp. You spend all the nights in a cosy and warm Swedish house or a cosy and warm mountain lodge at Tärna Lake, both we warm up with wood. It’s also electricity, water and shower in the house in Umnäs. In the mountain lodge it’s no electricity and the water we collect in a fresh mountain stream. In the evening you can take a sauna and bucket shower or a bath in the snow…
On the daytrips you will see beautiful areas in our home mountains Gardmountain or Tärna Mountains.
On all our tours we follow our tracks in the biggest Naturereserve in Europe – Vindelmountain Naturereserve.
December is a beautiful month with normally a lot of Northern Light and the special Arctic light on a cold December day is something you have to experience, we don’t have words for that. The temperature is around -10 to -35 C. Daylight from around 10.00 to 15.00. It’s always something special when the sun go down and we turn on our head torches, it is a lot of fun and an amazing feeling to mush in the stream of light and see all the millions of snow crystals blinking in different colours to you. If the Northern Light is playing in the same time it doesn’t get much better.
Arrival day
When you arrive in Lapland, Hemavan airport, you will go by car the last 80 km to Umnäs. The first thing we will do in Umnäs is to go and say hello to the dogs. After that we have dinner at host home or something lighter like sandwich/lunch depending on what time you arrive. We also take a look on what gear and clothes you need to borrow from us. We talk about your days with the dogs and how to mush the sled.
Day 2 - 5
Daytrips from Umnäs or Tärna Lake lodge. During these amazing days you will see beautiful mountains, fairytale forests, deep valleys and big frozen lakes. You and the dogs in your team will learn to know each other and be friends and the silence and spectacular nature will give you a fantastic good brake in your daily life.
You will be a part of everything, this means that we all work together with the dogs like feeding in the morning and two times after we come back from a tour on the mountain, we also clean after the dogs, carry in wood and bring water from a little lake if we are in the mountain lodge. The guide will cook all the food for you and serve it every day. If we go in the mountain the dogs lay on straw and we put a jacket on them for the night.
Departure day
Breakfast in your house. After breakfast we go out to say goodbye to the dogs. We will eat lunch, write the guest book and mark the maps over your days in the wilderness (if you like).
