Cave Expedition in southern Lapland

The backpacker Josef Arnfjell and team member in mountain leader 17 take us on a Cave Expedition in southern Lapland. We started our cave expedition in Kataviken, wich is a very small village along the road E12 in the north of Sweden not far from the Norwegian border.

Cave Expedition in southern Lapland

We started our cave expedition in Kataviken, wich is a very small village along the road E12 in the north of Sweden.

Our guides informed us about the rules and gave us overalls, helmets and headlamps.

The way up to the caves offers a great scenery.

Forshallarna (The Hall of  Streames) have a great opening but are getting so small further inside that only the water can continue. The calcerous mountain layers have slowly solved in the running water and created this caves.

At the bottom of this picture where the stream is braking the water surface, the water disappear down in the ground. Similar situationes, where small streames all of a sudden went under the ground surface, could appear after heavy cloudburst. A new cloudburst could fill up the hole in the ground again and force the stream back to it’s old furrow.

Jordbacksgrottan (The cave of  Mudd Stream) containes both narrow passages, bad if you´re a claustrofobian, and big halls where climbing equippment would have been great.

The different calcium layers have different colour and hardness, depending on what mineral has been mixed whith the calcium.

Between the caves a magnificiant lanscape opened up. Sunset over Miesehke.

In Jordbacksgrottan (The cave of Mudd Stream) there was a risk for landslide in a certain area of the cave, a proof that the cave was “still alive”. We had to stick to the safe side and our guide pointed out the the large  stone block that had moved since the last time he visited the cave.

Beautiful and sharp layers in the calcium rock. In reality there were only our headlamps that gave us light down there. Without the cameraflash you get a better feeling of the darkness in the cave.

Gloves in neoprene is recomended unless you want your hands to look like frozen blueberrys after the tour.

You have an excellent view on the mountain above Kataviken. Sunset over Oxtindarna.

Text and Photo Josef Arnfjell (Mountain Leader)