Hiking the Kungsleden: Sweden's King's Trail

The Journey North

The train from Stockholm to Kiruna takes seventeen hours and covers the full length of Sweden from the industrial south to the Arctic north. I took it in late June, watching the birch forests get progressively more sparse through the window, the light getting stranger and more horizontal as we moved north of the Arctic Circle. At Kiruna, I transferred to a bus to Abisko. By the time I stepped out at the trailhead in early afternoon, the sun was at about thirty degrees above the horizon and showed no intention of going anywhere.

The Kungsleden – the King's Trail – begins at Abisko and runs four hundred and forty kilometres south to Hemavan. It passes through four national parks, crosses the Arctic Circle, traverses the watershed between Sweden and Norway, and climbs over high passes that feel, in August, like being on another planet – a planet with good cairn marking and well-maintained plank bridges over the wetter sections.

I walked the northern section: Abisko to Nikkaluokta, about 110 kilometres, over eight days. It contained the most physically demanding and the most visually extraordinary walking I have done anywhere in Europe. This is what it's like.

The Route

The classic northern section runs Abisko → Alesjaure → Tjäktja → Sälka → Singi → Kaitumjaure → Teusajaure → Vakkotavare → Saltoluokta → Kvikkjokk for the full distance. Most hikers stop at Nikkaluokta, which is connected by bus to Kiruna, and cuts the route at Singi – making the northern section about 110 kilometres.

The highest point is Tjäktjapasset, at 1,140 metres. This doesn't sound dramatic, but the surrounding peaks rise to 1,800 metres and the pass sits at treeline, exposed to winds that arrive from Norway with nothing to slow them. On a clear day, the view from the pass is one of the finest in Scandinavia – valley systems stretching in three directions, each one vast and empty and absolutely indifferent to your presence.

Below Tjäktja, the river valleys are filled with dwarf birch, reindeer willow and the vivid green of bog cotton. The soil in the high valleys is thin and wet; the plank walkways the STF maintains over the boggiest sections are the difference between dry feet and what happens otherwise. They deserve more appreciation than they receive.

The Mountain Hut System

The Swedish Tourist Association (STF) operates a network of fjällstugor – mountain huts – spaced ten to twenty kilometres apart along the route. Each hut has sleeping accommodation (bunks, dorms, some private rooms), a kitchen where you cook your own food, a drying room that is deeply appreciated, and a small shop selling basic provisions at prices that accurately reflect the difficulty of getting supplies to 1,000 metres altitude by helicopter.

The huts are not luxurious. They are clean, warm, functional and staffed by young people who have chosen to spend a summer at altitude. The social dynamics of sharing a hut with eight strangers after a ten-hour day are, unexpectedly, one of the better aspects of the walk: you eat together, dry your socks together, compare blister treatments and wildlife sightings and route variations, and in the morning you go your separate ways into the same landscape.

Book hut beds in advance for July and the first two weeks of August. The STF's online booking system opens in spring. Alternatively, carry a lightweight tent – you're always permitted to camp outside the huts, which gives you flexibility if conditions change. On the high passes and in the valleys, there are beautiful wild camping spots that hut-only hikers miss entirely.

Wildlife

Reindeer are the constant. Sami herds graze across the entire route, and you will share trails, river crossings and mountain passes with animals that regard hikers with approximately the same interest they give to rocks. Bulls in late summer carry antlers of surprising size. The smell of a reindeer herd on a warm afternoon is distinctive and slightly sweet and very much not unpleasant.

Golden eagles patrol the high valleys. I saw four in eight days, which felt extraordinary until a local guide told me the northern section of Kungsleden has one of the highest golden eagle densities in Scandinavia. Arctic fox are present at high elevations but rarely seen. Lemmings are present in good years and entirely invisible in bad ones – their population cycles on four-year rhythms that affect the whole trophic chain above them.

Bears live in the forests below the treeline but are extraordinarily rare to see. Wolverines occupy the high terrain and are even rarer. You will almost certainly see neither; you will feel their presence as a quality of attention the landscape requires that flatter, more domesticated terrain does not.

The Kungsleden Season

Late June through mid-September. The snow is off the high passes by late June in most years; some years there are late patches at Tjäktja into July. The river crossings, which are by bridge everywhere on the main route, can be challenging if spring snowmelt is late. July is peak season – book huts far ahead and expect company on the trail. Early August balances good conditions with easing crowds.

The single best time, in my opinion, is the last week of August into the first week of September. The birch forest below the treeline has started turning – deep gold against the grey rock and the pale sky, a colour scheme that is genuinely one of the more beautiful things the natural world produces. Temperatures are cooler, sometimes cold at night. The huts are half empty. The trail is yours to the degree that a public trail can ever be yours. The light, low and golden and raking through the turning birches in early morning, justifies the entire enterprise.

The Kungsleden in Winter

Most visitors hike the Kungsleden in summer, when the huts are open and the trail is navigable without specialist equipment. But the trail in winter — February to April, on skis or snowshoes — is a different experience and, for those with the right skills and kit, arguably a more extraordinary one.

In winter the trail is marked by poles sticking above the snow rather than painted blazes on rocks. The landscape is white and mostly silent. You skin uphill and ski down. The huts are heated by woodstoves and manned by caretakers who serve hot food and strong coffee to anyone who arrives, regardless of booking — the mountain rescue ethic means no one is turned away in bad conditions.

The skills required are not trivial: route-finding in whiteout conditions, avalanche awareness, cold-weather camping technique if huts are full. But for experienced winter walkers the Kungsleden in March — with long bright days, firm snow and the aurora visible at night — is one of the finest mountain experiences in Europe.

Wildlife You Will See on the Trail

The Kungsleden passes through reindeer country for most of its length. The Sámi herders who manage these animals have grazing rights across the mountain plateau, and encounters with reindeer — sometimes large herds of several hundred — are common, particularly in the southern sections. They are not wild animals in the conventional sense and will often stand their ground on the trail and observe you with mild curiosity before moving on.

Above the treeline, ptarmigan are frequent: white in winter, brown in summer, sitting very still and entirely certain that their camouflage is perfect. Lemmings are occasionally visible at the trail edges in good years. Golden eagles are reliably present in the mountain sections. In the forest sections south of Kvikkjokk, elk tracks cross the trail regularly and sightings at dawn are not uncommon.

If you end at Nikkaluokta, a daily bus service connects to Kiruna in around ninety minutes. From Kiruna, trains and flights return to Stockholm. The ICEHOTEL in Jukkasjärvi is twenty minutes from Kiruna and, in the summer months, operates as a boutique hotel without the ice rooms (those are winter-only). It's a satisfying post-trail luxury if your budget extends to it. If it doesn't, the STF hostel in Kiruna is clean, friendly and directly convenient for transport connections.

Kungsleden Sections at a Glance

Mistakes Hikers Make on the Kungsleden

Frequently Asked Questions: Hiking the Kungsleden