Backcountry Ski Adventure 

Learn to cross country ski over fresh untracked snow!

Spend a night winter camping on a mountain plateau on a self-sufficient expedition in true alpine conditions.

Snowshoe under the moonlight through frozen forests.

See the Northern lights dancing in the night sky - if the conditions are right!

Backcountry nordic skiing is hiking with skis on! It is the most amazing way to get out into the wide open, snowy backcountry under your own steam. It’s great exercise too because it works your whole body, improves balance, proprioception, cardiovascular and muscle condition.

You don’t need any previous ski experience to join this adventure! This beautiful low altitude area is the ideal location for your first steps on cross-country skis.

The pinnacle of our achievement on this tour - once we have practised and developed our ski skills - will be to head up the Fulufjället mountain plateau for one night of winter camping! After the initial ascent, an expansive plateau of wind-swept snowy plains awaits. These are true  alpine conditions, white as far as the eye can see, no trees and an amazing vista of the lowlands spreading out below.

Each of us will pull a sled with everything we need to stay warm while winter camping. We will use a lightweight yurt as a sheltered place to cook, hang out and be merry in the evenings. We may also dig a bivouac for those who are keen to spend the night in a cosy little hut made of packed snow, instead of a tent. 

Will you see the northern lights? We can’t guarantee it but you’ll be in the right place, with little to no light pollution! We’ll be keeping everything crossed that mother nature delivers!

Will you see the northern lights? We can’t guarantee it but you’ll be in the right place, with little to no light pollution! We’ll be keeping everything crossed that mother nature delivers!

Your adventure will begin with us when you arrive at Mora station.

Take an early flight to Stockholm Arlanda, and then hop on a train to Mora. From there we will drive to the wilderness lodge, enjoy our first dinner together, discuss what will happen over the next week and get a good night’s sleep in preparation for our wilderness adventures!

After equipment fitting, we will fill up our thermoses and head half an hour away to Rännkölen. It’s a stunning open landscape of snow-covered frozen mires and sparse trees, surrounded by deep boreal forests with tall ancient pines. It’s an ideal area for our first steps on touring skis with small variations in altitude and actual prepared tracks to follow.

We will find somewhere along the tracks to build a fire to grill sandwiches and have a warming cup of soup.

Down in the valley after our skiing trip, we will take a stroll around the Ribbåsen “Fäbodar”. These are small log houses, where farmers used to bring their cattle for grazing. Farmhands would stay in these little cottages all summer long, and most of them date back to the 1700s.

A whole culture emerged from this way of life with cooking traditions, superstitions and folk music. This region is famous for these idyllic settings and their cultural heritage.

Today we ski on untouched snow right on our door step, across the lake and through the forest along the shores. We learn how to put up a tent with our skis on, pull a sled and go into more depth about all the skills we need for our upcoming winter camping expedition.

By late afternoon, we give our skis a rest and strap on snowshoes instead. We hike up the tall hill behind the cabin, through a forest of gigantic snow-clad spruce trees, to a tipi. We spend the evening relaxing on sheep skins around the fire and cook up a traditional Sami inspired dinner, before heading back down to our lakeside abode.

Today we will get back onto our skis for a shorter trip! This time we start right on our doorstep and practice making our own tracks through the forest, over untouched snow.

Back at the lodge, we will cook up a lakeside lunch over the fire using a traditional Murikka. This is a huge wok-like pan that’s amazing for cooking for many on an open fire.

We will spend the rest of the day relaxing and enjoying our wonderful spot in the wilderness. But we will also make a hole in the ice, fire up the sauna, and those who are keen can take the ice plunge!

In the evening we will cosy up in front of the fireplace, enjoy each other’s company and plan for tomorrow’s exciting expedition.

This is what we’ve been working towards! Fulufjället national park, close to the Norwegian border, is a mountain plateau of flat snowy expanses.

First, we will strap on our skis and sleds with everything we need to stay warm, fed and happy during our winter camping expedition. The skis have built-in ‘skins’, which gives them a good grip when going uphill. This makes it surprisingly in terms of technique, but strenuous in terms of terrain! After a 3km ascent, the expansive plateau awaits. The solitude up here and the sounds of the wind sweeping across the plains is hard to describe in words. Here, we will experience true peace and tranquility.

Darkness falls early this time of year, and by late afternoon we will start setting up our camp. Staying warm while alpine camping is all about equipment and knowledge.

We will be sleeping in absolutely top-of-the line tents, sleeping bags and on inflatable mattresses, all of which are designed for way colder temperatures than you will experience on this trip.

You may have heard of a yurt, a circular tent traditionally used by nomadic people on the steppes on Central Asia. We’ll use a modern-style yurt, where we can all hang out and cook dinner in the evening, protected from the elements.

One of the many amazing properties of snow is that you can dig and form your own structures. We will start by digging a canal for our legs, and voilà, we will make ourselves a couch and a table! We’ll light up some lanterns and candles, put down some sheep skins and we will create a cosy living room, right there on the snowy wind-swept plateau.

A well-deserved sleep-in this morning, it’s so nice to stay a little longer in our ultra warm sleeping bags. As the sun slowly rises, the sky often turns all kinds of pretty pastel colours. It’s quite a sight to behold, seeing the surrounding landscape and our tent village in daylight for the first time.

We leave our camp behind and head out for a day trip. As we move through the landscape, we come across and identify all kinds of animal tracks. It’s fun to follow a track, seeing where this particular wolverine or stout have spent their day.

We'll head back to our cabin for our final sauna and dinner together.

This will be our last morning in our winter wonderland. We enjoy a last breakfast together and head back to Mora. No doubt we’ll leave northern Dalarna with new friends - and full of inspiration and ideas of what we each will conquer next!