Skierfe
Interesting facts
- One of the most important Sámi sacred offering sites, a sieidi where people from across the region gathered for ceremonies, lay at the foot of Skierfe.
- The Rapa River below is fed by about thirty glaciers and in summer can carry 5,000 to 10,000 tonnes of sediment a day, which tints the delta grey-green.
- Over a year the Rapa River moves roughly 180,000 tonnes of silt, building the Laitaure delta that spreads about 7 by 2 kilometres beneath the cliff.
- The river's flow swings wildly with the seasons, averaging about 100 cubic metres per second in July but only around 4 in winter.
- About 18 km upstream the same river braids into a second delta, Rapaselet, almost 10 km of shifting channels in the heart of the valley.
- Skierfe lies within the Laponian Area, a World Heritage Site of about 9,400 square kilometres listed in 1996 for both its nature and Sámi culture.
- In 1946 Dag Hammarskjöld popularised the description of Sarek as Sweden's last great wilderness, shaping its reputation for decades.
- Lynx roam the forests around Lake Laitaure, and the delta below Skierfe is a haunt of teal, wigeon, scaup and red-breasted merganser.
- Part of the old Aktse homestead at the mountain's foot was sold in 1945 to the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation.
Why it is worth it
From the top of Skierfe the ground simply ends. The mountain's western face drops almost vertically some 700 metres to the floor of the Rapa Valley, and from the edge one looks straight down on the delta where the Rapa River braids itself into dozens of silty channels before entering Lake Laitaure. The glacial meltwater gives the channels a milky, shifting colour, and the view across the delta towards the peaks of Sarek is counted among the best-known landscape views in Sweden.
Skierfe rises to 1,179 metres in the south-eastern corner of Sarek National Park in Jokkmokk Municipality, Swedish Lapland, well north of the Arctic Circle. Sarek, established in 1909, is among the oldest national parks in Europe: a roughly circular wilderness about 50 km across with some 200 summits above 1,800 metres, around a hundred glaciers and no marked trails or huts inside its borders. The Rapa Valley, about 35 km long and lined with steep massifs such as Skårki and Piellorieppe, is its main artery, and Skierfe stands guard at its mouth.
Despite the drama of the cliff, the summit is reached by a comparatively easy path from the east. Its usual starting point is Aktse, an old Sámi homestead and mountain hut on the Kungsleden trail at the northern shore of Laitaure, from where the climb is about 7.5 km with roughly 770 metres of ascent. Aktse itself has a long history: the farmstead was held by the Länta brothers by 1829, and its name, Sámi for "nine", is linked in local tradition to a large boulder where nine bears are said to have been killed over the years.
Getting there
Skierfe lies in remote mountain country with no road to the summit. Hikers reach it from Aktse on the Kungsleden, which crosses Lake Laitaure by boat in summer; an alternative approach starts from the road at the Sitoälven bridge, about 10 km from the lake. The nearest town is Jokkmokk, about 95 km to the south-east in a straight line, and Kiruna lies about 115 km away. The closest airport is Gällivare Lapland Airport (GEV), about 113 km away; Arvidsjaur Airport (AJR) is about 180 km away.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Skierfe is a mountain in the south-eastern parts of Sarek National Park in Sweden. Its western cliff face is almost vertical and goes down to Rapa River and the Laitaure delta. The mountain is 1,179 m (3,868 ft) high.
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