Previous road trips have convinced us that actually we can pull off any stupid idea and somehow have way more fun than we are ever supposed to. This time we have decided that Scandinavia must be pretty fun. We marked Åre and Hafjell in our trip map, and managed to convince a few friends that having no money and going to the most expensive places in Europe will be best thing we can do this summer. Genius plan: do not buy anything in Scandinavia. So we rented a camper in our mountain-less Lithuania, crammed food in it, beer, spare parts, sleeping bags, ourselves and anything we could think of and we were off. Two cars with bike mechanics, office workers, surgeons, punks, military officers, engineers, fathers, artists and the dog became a gypsy tribe of riders for the next week.After celebrating the beginning of our trip with cocktails made out of Stroh and whatever was around, we followed convoy of truckers' mustaches out of the ferry and after approval of customs we were let loose into the beautiful Sweden. The plan for the first day was 700 kilometers up north to our first stop - Åre Bike Park.Waiting for the first lift of the trip feels like being in love and drunk on Christmas morning. After a whole year of riding trails that are as similar to mountains, as a kids slide is to Six Flags, you have to try really hard to act your age and not to cheer more than it is socially acceptable.Åre is the place where everyone can find their favorite trail. After the first few runs, everyone scattered all over the mountain exploring trails and looking for the ones that would bring them the most joy. No matter how fast you ride or how much skill you have, everyone can have the same amount of fun riding these trails. It is amazing to see how diverse the riders in this bike park are: from local shredders in tank tops ripping down the black tracks to elderly ladies burning brake pads off rented bikes... and they all have one common thing - the same wide smiles at the bottom of the mountain.When you ask your friends what their favorite trail is, you get different answers but one same phrase remains: "Have you been at the top?!" Most of the trails are accessible by a network of chairlifts but there is another option - you take the gondola to the middle station, take another gondola to the top and suddenly you are in the different planet. No more trees, very little dirt and rocks everywhere. There are no defined tracks and all you get is just a direction and some spray painted dots on the rocks occasionally letting you know if you are on the same track that you started.I have nothing to compare riding this terrain. You fly through loose rocks into hard braking sections, into steep technical drops, into wide open areas, into never-ending fast berms, into something fun again. It doesn't matter which track you choose at the top, but at the bottom you want to get up and do it again. "Was I supposed to go here?" is repeatedly occurring thought while riding down these trails. Since there is no strictly defined trail, you can ride one track whole day and never have same two runs. Lines are endless. You can wander off the trails and see what you can find. This is unique terrain in which you can create your our lines and have different experience every time you go down.After two days of riding, melting in the sun and swimming, we packed our bruised bodies into the cars again and headed towards Norway.When we reached Hafjell we drove practically right into lifts and found out that there is a campsite with electricity, Wi-Fi, showers, drunk German riders and all other features necessary for proper road trip camping. And everything is FREE! There are some rules in the camping site and they can be summed up like this: "Everything is free, just don't be a dick". Since none of us were, we set up our camp and after doing some exploration have found Dirt Park with pump track. Our frst evening at Hafjell was spent drinking beer and doing laps in it. It was clear that next few days would be filled with lots and lots of great riding.The next day we were the first ones at the lifts and without wasting any time we spread out with a mission to find all of the roots, rocks, berms and jumps that this mountain is hiding. But instead we found attitude. These trails have their own idea about how they are supposed to be ridden. If you have balls big enough to ride them fast, you will be rewarded with an experience that cannot be compared to anything. But if you are trying to ride safe, you will encounter every rock and root hitting your suspension and deeper and deeper into your mind. All you get is just deep doubts about all this and yourself in general. You can hear the trail saying "When you are done pretending being a tough guy, you can ride a green track to the bottom and go berry picking. And no one will judge you."After half of the day was spent thinking that riding bikes may not be for me after all, (never mind that I have been doing that for more than a decade) I finally found the solution! There is one simple rule to have the most fun in Hafjell. You go to the top of the mountain, get off the lift and do some identity check - if you have 200mm of travel, racing colors on your jersey, body armor, neck brace or any other indication that clock is your life-long enemy, you go to the left and enjoy descent over roots, rocks and heating your rotors till they are blue. If you have single crown fork, 180mm of travel and you are riding with t-shirt and jeans, put in your headphones, find something in your playlist with as much distortion on guitars as possible and go to the right. There you will be met by fast wide trails, berms and all the jumps you can case.At the time of our visit trails called Ekspressen and Råbølstien were closed due to the damage from heavy rains. These trails seem to add a nice gradient between flow, smooth and fast to rocky, rooty and technical ends of the trail spectrum in Hafjell. But since we didn't have this comfortable middle ground - we had an option to ride easier trails with more relaxed attitude or rock as hard as we can on the "dark side". These were the last riding days of our trip and it didn't take long till we ended up in the black tracks pushing ourselves out of comfort zones and having way more fun than we would be if we had option not to do so.After a bit more than a week with 2600 kilometers of pure road and more than 24 hours spent on a ferries we were back to our own beds. They may have been no seven other guys snoring into your ear, no flies that would keep you awake and you might even have a proper rest but you won't have an adventure in it. Go road tripping.Photography: Aistė Ridikaitė The whole tribe: Kęstutis Kilikevičius, Mindaugas Kvietkauskas, Evaldas Danilevičius, Redas Raginskas, Ramūnas Dranseika, Mantas Pupius, Aistė Ridikaitė, Algis Ribikauskas and Raketa.Mentions: @HafjellBikePark