So how does it work with food supplies and water on Berglagsleden?
Food! The trail is routed to avoid towns and keep you in the countryside. This is great for that 'in the wild' feeling but is not so convenient for re-supply. There are no supermarkets or grocery stores on the trail. For the day or weekend hiker this is not a big problem but to through hike the trail you need to be able to re-supply somewhere (or hike longer each day to finish the trail quicker).
So what are the options and how did it turn out? The first choice for many is to send a food parcel for collection along the way (at e.g. Ånnaboda) - or meet up with someone you know to hand over your new provisions. I wasn't so organised and didn't have anyone to lean on so I took the other option. Buy as I go.
There are a number of places where there are supermarkets near the trail. Near here means between 1.2 and 3.5km off route- so between a 2.4 and 7km round trip to stock up. The three most interesting for me were in Kopparberg ('Lådan' 1.2km) , Nora (ICA ~2km) and Laxå (Laxå Food Supermarket ~3.5km). Other alternatives could be Vedlunds in Närkes Kil, ICA Trivselköp and ICA Nära in Mulhytte - but there are no that close to the trail.
There are some spots along the way with a 'kiosk' - a small shop. The ones I recall are in Uskavi and Ånnaboda. These had a very limited supply of staples like muesli, pasta and soup. Uskavi also had a some frozen foods, but not really targeting the hiker. Both were spots to stock up on snacks though.
My plan A was to pack food for six days and then resupply on day seven in Nora, and then again in Laxå. When we re-planned in the first week it meant an extra day to reach Nora so we detoured into Kopparberg on stage 2 to buy food for an extra couple of days. The shop there - Lådan - is on Google as a pound shop but in fact had a good selection of groceries.
Nora has a normal supermarket a couple of km from the trail. Plenty of choice, but the walk is in part by a busy road. During the first part of the hike I ended up carrying around 2/3 of our food (for an equitable weight split) - so 5 days of dinner and breakfast for two, plus lunches and snacks for two for 3 days. With that experience in mind I decided to skip the stop in Laxå and buy for the rest of the trip in Nora (eleven days) - everything except for snacks. In planning I'd never even considered carrying eleven days of food.... but it worked OK. I was probably a bit under provisioned to be honest, but there was enough to not go hungry.
It's an interesting experience shopping at a normal supermarket for trail food. You don't want to buy a kilo of this and a kilo of that and portion sized packages are hard to come by. I ended up with a lot of noodles and instant mash, with thing to throw in to make them more interesting - plus muesli, bread, cheese, salami, biscuits and other things for lunch and breakfast. And of course, plenty of nuts and chocolate.
Food on the trail was happily complemented by being able to buy a proper lunch at a handful of places along the way. Well, three in practice - in Pershyttan near Nora at the Tågkafé, in Mogetorp at the wärdshus, and in Ramundeboda at Café Sockerstugan. All three made a great break from the hike.
But... there were other places that didn't deliver. Both the resort at Gillersklack and the cafe at Stjärnfors have closed down. On my overnight stop at Ånnaboda the bistro was fully booked - so no served meal there, and at STF Tivedstorp the whole place was closed for 3 days for a wedding. As a Swedish Tourist Association (Svenska Turistförening) member that latter one was particularly disappointing.
Finally an honourable mention to the restaurant at Stenkällegården. In the shoulder season they are not open every day, but they were open when I arrived at the end of the trail for a delicious 3 course waffle buffet. Stenkällegården also has a good small shop .. and beer ;)
So that was food - how about water? If you check the details for the trail there is a water source identified on each of the legs, normally at the stage ends. Often this is tap water but there are some places where it's a spring. At the wind shelter they also flag for many that the lake water is drinkable after boiling - the same can be true of the spring water as well. In general the info was good and water was readily available - but we never found the water source at Stjärnfors (stage2/3) -probably because the cafe there has closed down. There was water at Gillersklack even though the tourist resort was shut - and the tap at Sixtorp recommended boiling, even though it was from a tap.
Mostly if the carry was not too long I/we would stock up on tap water and carry it for camp. We did use lake or stream water several times though - finding running water wherever possible. I was stingy on using fuel so I took a different approach than boiling to making it potable - filtering water and adding micropur water purification tablets. Filtering takes out solids in suspension and small organisms, but doesn't remove e.g. all the iron colouration in the water and on its own doesn't take out viruses (but should filter bactieria). More on the pros and cons of different methods here.
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