Ski Tour to Sylarna in Vårvinter

It started with a faceplant.

I’ve been talking up this trip to Jämtlandsfjällen for weeks, so as the weekend after Easter quickly approached, my exclamations to Jacob of “you’re going to love this!” grew to a din.

We parked in Storulvån to ski 16 kilometers up to Sylarna fjällstation, a magical, sprawling complex of cabins nestled in a barren valley on the border of Norway. We’d spend two nights there— mostly because most of the other cabins were already booked, but also because we wanted to relax. As our luck always has it, catastrophe struck on the inaugural ski down the hill from Storulvån.

Jacob lingered behind my mom, Asa, and me as we took off toward red-crossed trail markings that scored the snowy landscape. I turned around to warn Jacob of the iciness of the trail, only to watch in horror as his knees wobbled and ski tips dove into the ground, catapulting him into a full-on face plant and belly flop. He didn’t get up.

But he was ok. Out of breath from accidentally punching himself straight in the gut and shaken, but unhurt. And unhappy for the slog to come.

Jacob told me later that he had expected the ski to be along a pristinely groomed track.

It was not; in fact, it was a lumpy, icy mashup of ski-width peaks and valleys, not aided in the slightest by the gale-force headwind that blasted the entirety of the ski. And it was frigid, so cold, we all kept our mega puffies zipped to the chin. Even Asa was bundled in all his coats. It almost broke him— the constant slipping, despicable weather, and soreness from the fall. We couldn’t see any further than the next red cross at points. Wow, such beautiful mountains.

But the following day cast the landscape in the stunning spring light that I talked up so much. Sparkling crystals abound, we spent our day drinking coffee in the snow, lazying in bed, and hopping in the sauna before eating a scrumptious meal at Sylarna’s restaurant (which will soon close). I convinced Jacob it wasn’t so bad after all.