On 21 May 2026 at 09:40, Cora Quirke stepped off the night train from Stockholm at Abisko station in Swedish Lapland and walked the 200 metres from the station to the trailhead of the Kungsleden, the King's Trail.
The Kungsleden is a 440-kilometre marked walking trail that runs north-south through the mountains of Swedish Lapland from Abisko to Hemavan. It was first marked as a continuous route by the Swedish Tourist Association in 1928 and has been maintained ever since.
Quirke walked the northern 105 kilometres of the trail, from Abisko to Saltoluokta, over five walking days. This is the most popular section and is served by six STF huts at intervals of 12 to 22 kilometres.
Late May is shoulder season on the northern Kungsleden. The huts open for the summer on 25 June and close on 18 September. From October to mid-April they are reserved for ski-tourers; from mid-April to mid-June they are technically open but unstaffed.
Quirke had booked the unstaffed huts through the STF website in March. The fee for an unstaffed bunk in 2026 was 320 Swedish kronor per night, paid in advance.
She carried a 45-litre pack with a sleeping bag rated to minus 8 Celsius, three changes of base layer, a fleece, a Goretex jacket, a sun hat, gaiters, a stove, fuel, four days of dried food, a 1.5-litre water bottle, and a 1:100,000 paper map of the route.
Day one took her from Abisko over the Tjäktja Pass to the Abiskojaure hut, a distance of 14 kilometres on good trail with one wet crossing of a snowmelt stream.
The trail in late May is half snow and half tundra. The lower elevations below 700 metres are mostly clear, with patches of refrozen old snow in the shaded sections. Above 800 metres the snow is continuous and deep enough that gaiters are essential.
Quirke walked in trail-running shoes with light gaiters, which is the standard kit for a competent walker on the Kungsleden in shoulder season. Heavier boots are unnecessary and slow down a walker who has good ankle stability.
Day two took her from Abiskojaure to the Alesjaure hut, 21 kilometres on a long valley path that climbs gradually to 850 metres at its highest point.
Alesjaure is the largest hut on the northern Kungsleden, with bunks for sixty-eight walkers in three buildings, a sauna on the lake shore, and a small shop that is unstaffed but stocked with basic supplies on an honesty-payment system.
Day three was the longest of the trip. Quirke walked from Alesjaure over the high tundra to the Tjäktja Pass at 1,150 metres, the highest point on the Kungsleden, and descended to the Tjäktja hut.
The Tjäktja Pass in late May is fully snow-covered and requires careful route-finding. The trail markers are wooden poles spaced at 50-metre intervals, which is adequate in clear weather and inadequate in fog.
Quirke crossed the pass in clear weather with a moderate easterly wind. She reached the Tjäktja hut at 15:20, having walked 22 kilometres in seven hours and twenty minutes.
Day four took her down the long Tjäktja valley to the Sälka hut, 13 kilometres on a path that descended from 800 metres to 660 metres along a glacial river. The river crossings on this section are the most serious of the northern Kungsleden.
There are three bridges on the official route across major tributaries of the Tjäktjajokk. All three bridges were in place and intact on 24 May 2026, which Quirke confirmed with the STF telephone information service before leaving Stockholm.
Day five was the long walk from Sälka to Singi and then south to Kebnekaise Fjällstation, a working alpine station at the base of Sweden's highest mountain, where Quirke caught a helicopter shuttle out to Nikkaluokta and a bus to Kiruna.
The total distance for the five days was 81 kilometres of trail-walking plus 4 kilometres of the side trail to the Fjällstation. Quirke walked an average of 17 kilometres per day, which is a comfortable shoulder-season pace.
What the northern Kungsleden offers a walker, Quirke said, is the experience of a long, well-marked trail through a working sub-Arctic landscape that has not been engineered for tourism.
The huts are simple, the trail is honest, the weather is unpredictable but not malicious, and the silence above the treeline in late May is the deepest silence she has encountered in twenty years of walking in northern Europe.
The northern Kungsleden in late May is not a beginner's route. The shoulder-season conditions require a walker who can read a map, who can navigate by compass when the visibility drops below 100 metres, and who can cope with a 30-kilometre day on snow if a bridge is out and a detour is required.
Walkers who want the same trail in summer can do it in late July, when the wildflowers are out, the streams are crossable, and the huts are staffed with wardens who sell coffee and dried reindeer for an additional fee.
Quirke prefers the shoulder season. The summer trail is busier, the huts are full, the wardens are friendly but the experience is mediated. In late May the trail is closer to what it was when the Swedish Tourist Association marked it in 1928.
