About Stalpet
The Stalpet Waterfall (which can also be called just “Stalpet”) was our introduction to waterfalling in Sweden.
It was the first waterfall that we visited on our epic trip throughout Scandinavia, where we were on a long drive between Stockholm and Gothenburg (or Göteborg in Swedish).
Thus, we had targeted it as a short detour (actually one of two waterfalls we visited on this driving day) when we traveled across the opposite coasts of Sweden.
Stalpet had a moderately attractive 20m drop over a dual segmented plunge on the Svartån River, which made for a very pleasant stop.
Svartån and Stalpet’s Flow
The Svartån River of Eastern Gotland (Östergötland) was a largest of the tributaries flowing into the lake Sommen at the border of the counties of Jönköping and Östergötland.
Since Stalpet sat near the town of Aneby, which was closer to the river’s source at Ormaryd, we saw the waterfall with fairly light but still satisfying flow.
I’d imagine that earlier in the year, the river would have higher volume, which would put on a greater waterfall display than what we had experienced in the early Summer.
Experiencing Stalpet
We had a pretty easy time visiting the Stalpet Waterfall.
From the car park near the Stalpets Cafe and Hantverk (crafts), we walked through the complex, then descended steps into the gorge carved out by the Svartån.
Once at the bottom, the briefly followed the boardwalk and a bridge before reaching a lookout with a picnic table.
This was where we got views of Stalpet from the bottom.
We then went up steps on the other side of the gorge, where we wound up at an overlook providing the contextual view you see at the top of this page.
Next, we had a choice of completing this short loop by either walking in the downstream direction back to the main road, or in the upstream direction towards the brink of the falls.
The downstream route to the main road went across a road bridge where we could get another contextual view of Stalpet.
The upstream route to the brink of the falls led us to an informal and overgrown view over the waterfall’s drop.
Then, it traversed what appeared to be a dam regulating the flow of the river over the falls while yielding some kind of marshland further upstream.
Either way, the roughly 500m loop walk took us on the order of about 30 minutes, including all the time spent taking pictures while letting Tahia play on one of the childrens swings at the cafe.
Authorities
Stalpet was closest to the town and municipality of Aneby in the county of Jönköping, Sweden. For information or inquiries about the area as well as current conditions, you may want to try the local municipality website or the Stalpet Facebook page.
In our routing towards Stalpet, we used the town of Aneby since it sat the closest to the waterfall.
From Stockholm, we drove out of the city area on the E20 towards the E4.
Then, we drove for a little over two hours to go the 200km along the E4 before exiting for the Route 32 near the town of Mjölby (just west of Linköping).
At that point, we drove south on the Route 32 for about 58km towards the signed turnoff for Stalpet.
After taking the turnoff, we then went the remaining 3km to the car park just past the bridge and the cafe.
This drive took us a little over three hours.
Had we been coming from the city of Jönköping, we’d leave the E4 and drive east on Route 132 for about 36km to Jönköpingsvägen into the town of Aneby.
Then, we’d turn left onto Storgatan and followed it for about 1km to the car park by the Stalpet Cafe and Hantverk on the left.
For geographic context, Aneby was about 45km (under an hour’s drive) east of Jönköping, 100km (about 75 minutes drive) southwest of Linköping, 190km (over 2 hours drive) east of Gothenburg, and 295km (over 3 hours drive) southwest of Stockholm.
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Sweeping direct view of Stalpet while showing the context of the cafe and viewing area at the bottom
Brief sweep covering the double-barreled drop of Stalpet from its brink
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