This post was written in Danish in September 2017 and later translated into English. Only the language changed.
Trial run in Sweden
As written earlier on the blog, I had planned a trial run in Sweden.
So the other day I took a trip to our neighbouring country, to Åstorp to be precise. Åstorp is about 3 hours from Copenhagen by public transport, and a hiking route called “Ås till Åsleden” starts there. It is around 160 km long, but the plan was to use just part of the route to test the gear I am taking to the USA, and at the same time get some kilometres into my legs and feet.
Åsleden is, incidentally, part of an approximately 1000 km route called Skåneleden that runs through southern Sweden (hence Skåne-leden 🙂 )
Video editing
At the same time I had the chance to shoot some videos and try out what it is like editing them in the evening.
You can watch the videos from my trial run in Sweden here, (if you have not already seen them) and get a small idea of what to expect from my videos once I get to the USA.
They will probably have a bit more action and emotion involved, of course. And I expect to be able to show far more beautiful pictures of the landscape and the people I meet along the way.
I have already realised that I am not going to use a fancy editing program, which is what I had actually assumed. Because if I get too many options I will never finish a video, since I can always juuust tweak the colours, the light, the contrast and so on and so on 🙂
So I will settle for using iMovie, which handles the most basic things. And when all is said and done, it is the content that matters after all! … or that is what I have convinced myself of, anyway.
What I learned from my trial run in Sweden
I have found that my feet and legs can handle at least 20-25 km a day without being “wrecked” the next day. So if I start out at that pace for a couple of weeks, I am convinced 30+ km will be no problem at all. I certainly have no complaints after walking about 50 km over the 2 days in Skåne (give or take)
I have also learned that I need shoes or boots with a thicker or stiffer sole, because the first hiking shoes I bought left my left foot hurting.
Luckily I had worked that out before heading to Sweden, so I managed a quick stop at Eventyrsport) and bought a pair of shoes that have been absolutely fantastic to walk in. No blisters! Perfect.
The wet tent business clearly bothered me a great deal, I can see that in the videos now 🙂 – but I think it is because I am afraid of ruining my gear before I have even properly got going 🙂
My sleeping bag, mat and pillow work perfectly! Well, that is to say: I have the small problem that I cannot sleep on my back, and when I lie on my side on the hard mat my arm starts hurting – so I need to work out what to do about that 😉
The task is figuring out how to spread out as much as possible in a sleeping bag with no room to spread out 😉 and you do want your arms inside the bag, otherwise you get cold.
My trekking poles and I became reasonably good friends during the very first day. Especially up and down hills I can see the advantage, and my arms could feel the difference 🙂 so a fair bit of load really does come off the legs and feet by using poles.
The food surprised me most, though. I expected to have brought far too little, but it turned out I never quite got hungry enough, so I only ate about half of everything I had packed.
All in all it was a good trip – even if I got bored towards the end 🙂