September 30

Kit List – Fast packing on Kungsleden

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Here is what I packed to run Kungsleden late September, a 440km trail in the Swedish mountains of Lapland. I feel it represents a good guide of what to take if you want to travel reasonably light and fast. This list may look slightly different if you choose to do this adventure earlier in the summer, and will certainly look a lot difference if you go in the winter. And, some items will not apply if you are a man! 🙂 Read the blog about Kungsleden here. Choice of material is extremely important due to the weather conditions. My choices were dominated by merino wool, light weight fast drying Polartec fleece, and Gore-Tex. Because the specific requirements for this environment, not all items were available from my existing sponsors. I was very happy with all choices, so unless there is a comment against anything I would take it again. The total starting weight including food was in the region of 6kg. As we bought food along the way, the weight probably stayed around this for the entire trip.

Shoes
Sleeping
Backpack
Clothes
Electronics
  • Head Torch Petzl Actik Core with 2 x Core rechargeable batteries (option to put in AAA batteries which could be purchased along the way if required)
  • iPhone 7 (water resistant) with protective cover
  • Wikiloc app in the phone with Sweden offline maps to have detailed too maps available if required
  • Telia SIM card
  • Garmin Fenix 5 with gpx route loaded
  • Charger KASE 8000mAh (smaller would have sufficed)
  • Charge cables and 1 x wall plug with USB socket
Personal care and various other items
Food

We brought two days worth of food to start out with and purchased the rest along the way. Mostly this can be done in the STF huts which stock freeze dried and tinned meals, but we also passed one supermarket, one general store, and four restaurants of which we ate in two.
I had two Chicken Tikka from LYOFOOD (there are one of my favourite freeze dried meals), and two breakfasts consisting of Nature Valley oat breakfast bars and Ultra Fuel. In hindsight this was way too sweet for me and I should have opted for something else. I also had a mix of bars and sweets for the long days on the trails, amounting to about two or three day’s worth. I also had instant coffee as I can’t start a morning without it and I had Berocca, one per day. It cheers me up in the morning 🙂
My food was repackaged into plastic bags to save some weight and the reason I brought the MSR titan kettle was so that I could prepare food in it if needed. In reality I never had to do this as the huts have equipped self-serviced kitchens, but we used it to heat water once or twice so it came to some use.

Additional notes

Sondre carried a light weight tent, a lighter / matches and a satellite tracker. These served us both.
I would consider opting for a lighter sleeping bag and a bivi as an emergency overnight solution. I would also consider not taking a sleeping mat or an even smaller one. These considerations are for saving weight, assuming I would sleep in huts and with compromise on comfort should it be necessary to sleep outside.
I would also consider bringing a pair of very light flip flops. The shoes get soaked every day and if you walk anywhere at night it can be nice to have something else touching into while your shoes are drying out.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


Tags

fast and light, fast packing, fast packing gear, fastpacking, Kit list, Kungsleden, kungsleden sweden, running, Ultra Kit List, Ultra running, Ultra-Trail


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