The Quiet Picture

I talked about the Moose Lake hike a while back. Another favourite hike I have is north-west to the Kvarnsjön lake, then south to Ryggskog and home via Gäddtjärnen. I used to do it a lot when I was still skiing, but not so much now that I’m snowshoeing because it’s a tad long for that. But when you’re on foot, it’s possible to take the road from Ryggskog back to Loos so it was easy to make the decision today to do this hike.

Photographically this route is not quite as good as the Moose Lake, but yesterday I went to Älgsjön and had very little to show for it, so today all I wanted was to have a nice hike and maybe take a few snapshots along the way. And the hike certainly started well, I got a real kick out of the wide open spaces and the new snow. It was snowing and there was almost no contrast at all, so the trail is barely visible in the picture.

When I got to Kvarnsjön, I had a look at the Storryggsån brook that runs into the lake from the west. During milder winters this brook is almost always open, but now it’s been covered with ice since December. I found a great opportunity for a panorama though, and there aren’t a lot of places around Loos that would work as a panorama quite as well as this. It was still snowing but the sun was starting to come out, which provided an interesting light on the landscape. I found a few other opportunities as well, but they would have required digging my way through the deep snow. I had already done one 50m detour and my legs were screaming for oxygen afterwards, I’m really not cut out for hiking knee deep… but following my own tracks back was easy. I can see the benefit of snowshoeing in a group – people can take turns in doing to the hard work. Anyway, I missed those other opportunities I speculated about because my legs were still shaking from the first effort and I had to leave some energy for the hike to Ryggskog.

The trail from Kvarnsjön to Ryggskog is not used a lot. I can’t remember if I’ve ever seen a snowmobile here, but they do drive the route occasionally because the tracks are there. Except now of course, nobody’s done the trail since the snowfall started this week, so I had to pulse through the new snow. It’s uphill almost all the way to Ryggskog, but I love the forest that this trail runs through. It’s a fairly dense forest, mostly pines but a good dose of spruces as well (which is the norm around here). Because of the closeness of the trees, you’ll often see snow here when it’s already fallen down from the trees everywhere else. I haven’t found a way to photograph it so I could do it justice, but as an experience to hike through this forest it’s just simply wonderful. For me it’s a mile of pure winter bliss! And today it felt like it was better than normal… I don’t know if I was stopping so frequently to catch my breath or to enjoy the sight and silence!

I had high hopes for great winter scenery, because it’s been snowing for a couple of days solid now. But alas, I had a really tough time finding subjects. A few twigs sticking out of the snow turned out to be the highlight of the day… Oh well, one more to add to my minimalistic snow abstract collection.

The snow cover is probably about one metre on the marshes. It’s all powder – there hasn’t been any thaw since December to create an icy layer, so it’s tough to walk in the snow even with snowshoes. I sank to my knees wearing the snowshoes, but I guess it’s better than sinking to my hips without the snowshoes. Knee deep, you can still move… hip deep, and you’re pretty much stuck! Despite the generous snow cover and recent cold weather, there’s always a small element of risk to sink in a water hole. This particular water hole here was easy to avoid, but some small holes are covered so you have to watch out for those depressions in the snow to avoid wet feet. So every time I ventured outside the trail, I was just a little bit nervous… I do not like wet feet in cold weather!

What a strange winter. I think we’ve had a solid two months of cold weather, not a single day with temperatures above freezing. And now it’s really cold again, it was borderline too cold for me to want to go out, but in the afternoon the temperature crept up to -18ºC and it felt quite alright, properly dressed as I was. And then I came out from the protection of the forest and the wind hit me right in the face, instantly freezing my cheekbones. I was glad I had been smart enough to wear a scarf so I could pull it over my face, it’s not often I cover my face because I don’t particularly enjoy breathing through a cloth but rather that than frostbites.

I’m talking more about the weather and less about photography because there’s not a lot to say about photography to be honest. The entire February has been a struggle, every picture feels very forced because the thought of letting an entire weekend pass by without taking any pictures seems like a waste so I’m just scraping the proverbial barrel in pure desperation. But when everything else fails, there’s always some barn door that I haven’t shot yet!

Instead of complaining how difficult it is to find any photo subjects, I’ll marvel at the sun instead. To be precise, how warm it is already. It was -5°C when I left for hike in the afternoon, and very soon I discovered that my gloves were too warm. So I took them off and hiked barehanded. Of course, when I stopped for those very few photo ops I had, the hands quickly cooled but the gloves came off as soon as I was moving again. Brilliant. For the first time since I moved to Sweden, I’m actually quite eager for the winter to end and the summer to begin. A promise of the cabin that is scheduled to be finished in early May, if the current schedule holds…

Sometimes four seasons isn’t enough. When the sun breaks out from its winter hibernation and you feel it warm on your face while the landscape is still covered with snow, that’s what we call the fifth season. It’s that time of the year when you can go skiing wearing a t-shirt and when the sunglasses is a must or you go snowblind. Early February is still winter, but the thing is that I had a fifth season feeling when I was snowshoeing today. My clothes were too warm and I was missing my shades! To top it off, I heard the birdsong that I always associate with the spring winter.

As for the snowshoe hike, it was nice as always, but I’m really struggling with the pictures. I hoped that the fish-eye would inspire me, but nix. I blame the landscape though; even with all the snow we got this week, the trees are looking a bit scabby and in the end it didn’t matter which lens I had with me. Or maybe a little bit – I wouldn’t have been able to take this picture of a pine when the wind picked up the snow from the branches and blew it towards me. Serendipitous perhaps, but isn’t that what it’s about – being at the right place at the right time?