MDH Hiking Club
It was at the beginning of August 2007, when the plane was already over Sweden
“Perfect!”, I whispered to my self. “I should enjoy this nature as much as I can.”
The first day when we got our keys to our apartments, the fadders dropped us at our accommodations and I got a room in “Park Hotel” which is one of the most popular accommodation for international students and Matthias Schröter became my neighbor.
He is a “tree hugger”. He made a print-set of the maps available on a webpage called: “Bruksleden” that is a 250 KM hiking path which stretches from Västerås up to Malingsbo. It is marked clearly and the risk of getting lost is almost zero. we gathered a group of friendly people from different countries and we started to fika, cook, watch movies and go to monthly hikes together.
Matthias, Jelske, Corinne, Alex, Cornelius and Phil stayed in Västerås for one year but they left the good memories, maps and the thirst for more hikes in Västerås.We did not just go on “Bruksleden” but also on cycle paths, to historical places in “Eskilstuna” or other cities or even did a road trip to “Höga kosten” and also traveled to Kiruna, Abisco and Narvik.
In the beginning of the school year 2008-2009 I started to feel like, “It does not work without going on a hike at least once or twice a month”, but the fact was that I had always been following “Matthias” and I had no idea how to plan a hike, (though a lot of people KNOW that I really can not manage it completely yet! Don’t belive me? Ask them yourselves.)
Any ways, I searched for interested ones among new and old students and I had a wining card in my hand and it was the fact that I was a “fadder”, so I had the opportunity to meet more new students and talk about their interests.
Gradually a group of interested people was formed. There were three guys from Czech Republic called Tomas, David and Petr who used to go trekking, hiking and mountain climbing in their homelands, there was this French girl with red hair called “Constance” and my other friend Melika who was also interested. We started to meet and plan regularly.
We did the first hike in 25th of October 2008. We continued with four more ones in our small group of friends and then the fifth one became a public one that got published on our facebook group (MDH Hiking Club). Here you can find a list of our activities since then with a list of the name of people who came along, the place we went and a picture of the whole group if there has been one.
- 2008 - October – 25; David, Tomas, Petr, Melika, Mahgol, Vojtech and Fabian; Västerås to Surahammar
- 2008 – November – 1; David, Tomas, Petr, Hubert, Mahgol, Vojtech and Adam; Sundbyholm to Eskilstuna
- 2008 – November – 08; Mahgol and David; Björnö Loop
- 2008 - November – 22; Rebecca, Tomas, David, Petr, Mahgol, Constance, Shabnam; Björnö Loop
- 2008 – November – 29; David, Petr, Mahgol, Shabnam, Björn, Rininta, Dorre, Vojtech, Magda and Viktoria; Tido Lindo to Västerås
- 2008 – December – 06; Mahgol, Tomas, Petr, David, Romain, Björn, Constance, Wei and Fabian; Hallstahammar to Surahammar
It was a kind of special hike. Tomas got to swim over a canal since a bever had made a dam over it and the water lever had come up and we could not see the bridge. Tomas started to run to get rid of the water as soon as possible after some meters; he just fell in a canal full of water. It was not warm at all. But we survived.
- 2009 – January – 31; Rookie Hike with 25 (new and old) students, (There is a picture of almost all of them on the lake under the bridge to Björnö, You don’t expect me to know the name of all of them, do you?) – Björnö
- 2009 - February - 12, 13 and 14; Marie, Tomas, Mahgol, David, Petr, Constance, Rebecca and Melika; Västerås, Skultuna, Surahammar, Rämnas. (Valentine/Friday the 13th Hike)
In this three day hike, we stayed in two cottages which are offered free of charge to the hikers. It was cold and not so much space and hard with keeping the fire alive though Tomas was the Fire Guard but it became one of our best life-memories.
And we gave ourselves applause with a very nice dinner in Västerås when we got back.
- 2009 – February – 22; Snow Sledding with help and guide of Hubert the International Committee’s president, Unfortunately I have no pictures from this activity since I was not there; They chose the slope behind Lidl near the harbor.
- 2009 – March – 09; Mahgol, George, Ben, Andreas, Corinne, Barbara and Wei; Sundbyholm to Eskilstuna
- 2009 - March – 14; Jackie, Adam, Mahgol, Lu, and Teddy; Hallstahammar to Västerås
- 2009 – March – 21; Romain, Burak and Mahgol; Hallstahammar – Surahammar
- 2009 – March – 28; Mahgol and Constance; Skultuna – Västerås
This hike turned out like this: I had forgotten to change my clock to summer time and missed the meeting time, though Barbara, Constance and Corina had come to the station on time. Then, I and Constance who had been waiting for me one hour decided to go to Björnö instead and ask for forgiveness from God of fire and do our BBQ.
- 2009 – April – 04; Jackie, Mahgol, Sanaei, Wei, Melika, Björn, Romain and Teddy; Skultuna to Västerås
- 2009 – April- 11, Mahgol, Romain, Lorena, Linus, Kathryn, Michael and Kelly, Björnö (unfortunately there are some people missing since I know that we were 11 people on this hike based on the report we have from the hike but there are no pictures on it)
- 2009 – April- 18, Moein and Mahgol, Kvicksund - Torshälla
17. 2009 – May – 16; Constance, Jakub, Ashish, Barbara, Andres, Konstantinos and Corina; Surahammar Loop
- 2009 – September – 13, Mahgol, Constance, Clover, Villius, Zeeshan, Giedrius, Mc Antony, Shan, Aniko and Zafar, Björnö (Rookie Hike)
- 2009 – September – 19, Mahgol, Tobias, Tomas, Constance, Shahab, , Canoeing on Mälaren, Meeting point: Björngård
- 2009 – October- 10, Bjorn, Melika, Constance, Eva, Marion, Maja, Anna and Mahgol, Skultuna – Västerås
- 2009 – October – 17, Constance, Tobias, Tomas, (some other ones whose names are missing due to lack of picture from this hike) Västerås – Hallstahammar
- 2009 – October – 24; Constance, Mahgol, Tobias, Tomas, Jackie and Teddy; Hallstahammar – Surahammar
- 2009 – October – 31, (no reports or pictures are available on this hike), Björno Loop
- 2009 – November – 07, Mahgol, Melika, Björn, Tobias, Skltuna – Västerås (not on Bruksleden from beginning)
- 2009 – November – 13, Melika, Mahgol, Björn, Ice skating in Rocklunda- JMHallen
- 2009 – November – 29 and 30, Mahgol, Batu, Larissa, Anna, Melika, Björn, Tobias, Constance, Fagersta (one night in a cottage in the middle of woods)
Tobias, Mahgol and Constance stayed the night in a cottage, had some fun with Tobias Camera and long exposure shooting. The day after they walked back to the car and got back to Västerås.
- 2009 – December – 05; Mahgol, Melika, Björn; Ice skating in Rocklunda
2010 – January – 21; During the mingle evening, we got a table to spread some information about ourselves and make a making list of those new students who were interested to our activities. Later the mailing list was mainly used to send out our blog address.
- 2010 – January- 30; We were 21 people and I did not get to know every body by name. Björnö (Rookie Hike)
It was such a cold day and we all froze while making fire and BBQing our foods, finally we all escaped inside the Björnögård.
- 2010 – February – 06; Mahgol, Constance, Ruben, Diego, Jackie, Markus, Merve, Ayse, Mahgol, Clover and Teddy; Skultuna
- 2010 – Feb- 12 and 13, Mahgol, Constance, Melika, Björn, Tomas, Anna, Batu, Ayse, Tobias, Yigit, Clover, Gurcan, Efe, Christoph and Merve, Valentine Hike in Fläckebo, (one night stay in a very nice Swedish House)
- 2010 – February – 20; Eric, Bjorn, Tobias, Mahgol, Melika, Ayse, Christoph, Honza and Yigit; Svartådalen nära Fläckebo
- 2010 – February – 27; Mahgol, Constance, Björn, Melika, Zarina, Tobias, Vaida, Liudmila, Tomas, Jackie, Chandra, Ayse and Teddy; Björnö Loop
- 2010 – March – 13, Quentin, Tobias, Björn, Melika, Ludmila, Ligaj, Mahgol, Anna, Constance and Chandra, Ängsö
- 2010 – March – 20, Constance, Mahgol, Tobias, Ligaj, Liudmila, Vaida, Katty, Iryna and Teddy, Skerike
- 2010 – April – 03, Constance, Maryam, Mahgol, Patricia and Honza, Surahammar Loop
- 2010 – April – 10; Constance, Melika, Björn, Maja, Tobias, Honza, Tomas, Rebecca, Batu, Katty, Clover and Mahgol; Lövudden
We have 153 members in our facebook group and so far we have been on 36 trips organized by MDH Hking Club. There have been around 200 people (student and non students) from these following 31 countries have come along and enjoyed the Swedish nature and the international company: Czech Republic, Poland, Sweden, Iran, Germany, France, Argentina, Indonesia, Turkey, Austria, Switzerland, USA, Panama, Canada, Australia, Spain, Mexico, China, India, Hungary, Pakistan, Netherlands, Nepal, Italy, South Korea, Lebanon, Scotland, Kyrgyzstan, Lithuania, Greece and Ukraine.
The time length of the activities has been varying between 4 hours to three days and each trip demanded at least 2 hours of planning, internet research and calling different organization for more information. There have been mainly 7 people helping out with the planning.
There have been many hikes without any cost, basically walking both ways and having the food we have brought from home and there have been activities such as the Valentine Hike 2010 which cost the club an amount of 2000 SEK.
The equipment we have is a GPS Garmin cx 60, a fishing knife, three compasses, a rope cutter lighter, six warming hand bags, a set of first aids kit as well as a couple of maps and BBQ equipments.
We have got support from MDH International Committee and Svartådalen.
It is already really fun but it becomes even more fun if you join as well.
Note: Please excuse us if your name is miss spelled and we thank you all who have shared these nice pictures on the blog or facebook so that we got the possibility to make this report ready.
