August 17 - We hiked over the highest pass on the trail today, so it's all downhill from here.

The first 3 days were hiking up a long valley and now we'll be hiking down another one until we turn east and climb up a small pass into a different valley. At least the Swedes didn't throw in a bunch of PUDs on this trail.

Another day of on and off rain. We took refuge for 90 minutes in a mountain station to have our lunch and warm up. We meet a guy from Denmark, 2 Swedes, and two sisters from Belgium who are hiking the entire trail. It is over 400km, we're only hiking about 100km.

Just as we were arriving at the mountain station, a helicopter landed and took a woman out of the mountains. The station host said there was no injury, just some crazy argument between two hiking partners and they decided they were done and wanted a ride out. It supposedly cost them over 10,000 euros! That's the story we were told anyway.

The many boardwalks gave way to a few miles of very rocky trail, especially over the pass. We did see a dozen reindeer in the morning on the hillside quite far away.

With rain threatening, we found ourselves approaching Salka Fjallstuga (Salka mountain station). Rather than pressing on and searching for a flat spot, we are talking advantage of a huge area of free camp sites and pit toilets. And, since we stopped it has been raining occasionally so we're dry in our tent.

We hiked about 12.5 miles today.