The Quiet Picture

Today’s hike was to the Ösjöstugan cabin and then over to the peaks of Ösjövålen and Osjökläppen. It’s a long-ish hike so I wanted to make it a bit easier by taking the ski lift up from Ramundberget up to the plateau, which meant that it was fairly level hiking to the Ösjön cabins. After that, the trail goes up and when I got to the pass, I had Ösjökläppen on my left and Ösjövålen on the right. Both are low peaks so I didn’t have to put much effort on reaching them from the pass, as you can see from the picture (both peaks are there and the pass in the middle, and you can just barely see the cabins as well, the trail is pointing the way).

Ösjökläppen turned out to be interesting. There was this barren streak going down the mountain, just about the only plant growing in the streak was the alpine catchfly (Lychnis alpina). But then, there were loads of them. Never seen anything like it. A bit higher up I came across some rock piles and holes that were filled with water now. And then it hit me – copper. The alpine catchfly loves copper, which means that there is a very high concentration of copper here. No other plants survive. But outside this barren streak, it was life as normal.

If the plant life was normal, I found it very strange how many fallen reindeer antlers I was seeing. You’d think that there are antlers everywhere in the mountains, but it’s not at all like that. It’s quite rare that you see any and on this hike, I found 11 and they were all on these two mountains, within a distance of about 1.5-2 km. That’s probably more fallen antlers than I have ever seen before, all put together!

On the way back I stopped at the Ösjöstugan cabin. I had read about a natural well close to the cabin and I must say it’s the most special well I’ve ever seen. I’ve seen natural wells before, but I haven’t actually seen how the water flows up. But here, the water was just bubbling up (without creating any bubbles but I don’t know how to otherwise describe it) and the water was absolutely clear. I drank it and it didn’t taste like anything. I mean, there was really no taste in the water! Pure as it gets.

All that remained was the hike back to the car. When I was going down the hill to Ramundberget and my car, I was glad I had taken the lift up. The hike was over 16 km and although I wasn’t tired as such, I was still hoping that the evening would be cloudy so I didn’t have to drag myself out to shoot the light. It’s almost time for sunset now as I’m typing this… and it looks like rain!

Today was going to be the rainiest day of the vacation but it didn’t bother me in the least because I can rain-proof both myself and the camera. And I knew exactly what I was going to shoot today, as well – waterfalls. There just isn’t any better motif for a rainy day than waterfalls. I love the exposed wet rocks surrounding the waterfall, you can do wonders with the polarising filter. Dry rocks on the other hand, it doesn’t matter how much you rotate the filter but they’ll still be dull.

A few years ago I visited a place called Silverfallet off Skärkdalen (a few km north from Flatruet) but I wasn’t impressed. I found the falls to be un-photogenic and all but forgot about them until this trip when I knew I would be having some rain and needed waterfalls to shoot. So today as I as hiking up along the falls… all I could think about was that I must’ve been having a bad day back then, because now I found them absolutely gorgeous! It’s a 2.5 km hike along a very wet and muddy trail (it’s like that even when it hasn’t been raining) until you get to the Öjönån creek, there’s a bridge across and then the trail follows the falls up to where they level out near the Öjön lake. It’s 1 km there – and it’s just one exciting fall after another during the whole distance. Some of them are harder to photograph than others, but considering how many of them there are, you still have plenty to shoot! So why would I ever have thought that this was not a good place? Well, it was early summer when I was there. Too much water – I don’t like it when the volume is high. You lose the definition and detail. And secondly, it was a sunny day. I can’t deal with waterfalls and sunlight.

There is quite a lot of marshland on the way to the falls. I’ve been here before to shoot orchids, but it’s always been early July. Now in late July I could see that this was an even better place for orchids that I had thought. Most of them had withered already of course, but the fragrant orchids were still colourful. Also found twayblade in bloom and some late blooming heath spotted orchids. And the withered ones… early marsh orchid ssp. cruenta. Lapland marsh orchid. And I even found a lesser twayblade! I was just simply amazed by the abundance of them. Two weeks ago, it must’ve looked amazing! Easily beats Hamrafjället and Mittåkläppen which are normally touted as the première flower locations. Of course it’s not all about orchids, but in my mind, I always start with orchids and the rest is bonus.

Silverfallet turned out to be ten times better than Tvärån that I did yesterday, with only half the trouble. Faster to get there and nicer to be there!

Since this was a relatively short hike, I did a small promenade in the evening. I followed the Mittån creek upstream, I knew there wouldn’t be any major falls but some whitewater anyway. I got to this place which I thought could be something…. I stood there for a long time, trying to figure out how to do it. I couldn’t think of anything so I continued walking and didn’t really find anything interesting along the way. On the way back, I was determined to try the spot anyway. I set up the tripod and camera and tried and tried… but I just couldn’t make it happen. Until suddenly this semi-abstract materialised in the viewfinder! Persistence paid off.

I have another mini-holiday this weekend. And there’s only really one place where I can spend it – the mountains.

Today’s hike was at Ramundberget. I’ve read about the waterfalls of Tvärån and because the day was going to be overcast, waterfalls were just the right thing to shoot. Problem is… the waterfalls weren’t as photogenic as I had hoped for. However, I was impressed by the surroundings, especially up towards the tree line. Another place which will look just simply spectacular in autumn colours! But it’s a long hike there, 5 km just to get from the car to creek and then about 2 km upstream. The waterfalls are bigger downstream but it’s difficult to find a good angle, maybe it will be easier in the autumn where the insects aren’t quite as numerous. They can be a real inspiration killer!

And to be honest, the waterfalls further up were a little bit less exciting. It’s clear that the volume of water is very low at the moment, but I’m not sure if more water would help. But I wasn’t disappointed as such, I was just so happy to be there. Always. Hiking up to the alpine tundra cheers me up like nothing else!

And while I was up there, I also got a close view of Skarsfjället. It’s an impressive mountain at over 1500m, the highest peak of the massif is bit like a round-sided pyramid which is easy to recognise. Because it’s the highest mountain in the neighbourhood, it means it’s visible from a lot of places around here. When it’s visible at all – it seems like has its own climate and the peak is often hidden in the clouds. But not today, even if it was a bit of an overcast and dull day.

So what did I forget then? I forgot the macro lens and compass at home. I forgot the map in the car. I forgot to check the reserve batteries for the GPS (which I wanted to keep operational when I don’t have a compass and a map!). It turned out that the spare battery holder I grabbed when I left home contained used batteries which I obviously had forgotten to throw away back when the batteries were used! But no harm done, there was just enough juice to keep the GPS powered up so I could see when I was back at the car that I had hiked over 15 km. Not bad… but I think I will do a shorter hike tomorrow!

But most importantly… I forget all my worries!

I’ve been in a bit of a photographic limbo recently. It would be normal if this was November when there’s hardly anything left to shoot, but it’s July which is traditionally the busiest month of the year for me. I’ve got too many other things in my head and it’s draining my energy so I’m not really even feeling any regret for missing out on stunning sunset light like last night. Missed it by about 20 minutes… had we been driving at Hiviåsen 20 minutes later, it would’ve been a great opportunity. But nix, I was already at home, in front of the computer, downloading the pictures I had taken earlier when I glanced out the window and saw the amazing colour in the sky. But nevermind. I’m happy with the pictures I had. Which I wouldn’t have taken if I didn’t have any photographic company with me because otherwise I don’t think I would’ve bothered to lift up my butt, that’s how bad it is right now.

Anyways, enough of lamenting the current state of things and on with the show. We drove to my favourite brook which I’ve already visited numerous times, but which still keeps inspiring me. It was overcast weather which helped, because during most of my visits it’s actually been sunny, which is the only bad thing I can say about Svansjöbäcken. It doesn’t quite work in sunlight, unless you get there at sunrise in the summer which I’m very unlikely to do. As to why do I always go there when it’s sunny? Because it’s such a great place to be! So now I was taking pictures which I’ve kind of “seen” before but haven’t been able to take because of the light.

One of the first things that caught my eye was all the green grasses. It seems like the colour spectrum consisted only of reds and greens, the only exception being the greys. It’s a lovely combination so my post processing was all about making those colours pop and it took me a while to figure out how to do it in Lightroom. The secret was to use a warm colour temperature to pop the reds, and then cool down the greens using the hue slider. I’ve never actually used the hue slider before but now that I discovered it, it will solve a lot of problems I’ve encountered on previous occasions. I think I need to reprocess some old pictures!

I was reading the July issue of Outdoor Photography, there’s an interview with Joe Cornish who is one of the best landscape photographers in Britain. He has just released a new book, Scotland’s Mountains, and talks about the project and his photography in general. There’s a couple of really great quotes I picked up from this article:

— travelling didn’t make me take better pictures, just more varied pictures.

And thus he now does most of his photography at home in Britain. I came to the same conclusion a few years ago after my trip to Canada; I realised that the pictures I took there were not better than the pictures I take in Sweden. Just different, that’s all.

And then this one which really is close to my heart, when he was talking about his approach to his style of photography:

For Joe, it’s all about the subject speaking for itself. He explains, ‘Scotland’s Mountains is the book I have done that, for me, most successfully accomplishes the task of being quiet. If you employ excessive colour saturation or desaturation, or too wide a lens – anything that draws attention to the photographic process – then, to me, it’s a distraction.’

Wow! So Joe Cornish wants to take quiet pictures. Me too!

I finally had some holidays, if three busy days can be counted as such. But they were busy in the good way so I don’t mind! My sister came for a visit and there’s really nothing I want to show her around home so we headed to the mountains.

On Thursday we hiked up to the Kariknallen café above Bruksvallen for the obligatory waffle (yes, regular readers will have noticed my affection for the waffles) and then continued up to the Beritkläppen peak. The views were great just as you’d expect, but I was out of luck with the weather. A perfect weather for hiking is not a perfect weather for photography, but to be honest it didn’t really matter! It was just so nice to spend some time with my sister again.

Since my sister is interested in history and culture, I figured that she’d really enjoy a visit to Röros. I was right – the only disappointment was that the famous church of theirs was closed for renovation. But she got quickly over it as we were wandering around and admiring the old buildings. On the way back to Sweden I wanted to stop at Brekken and find a waterfall that I heard of a few years ago. It has taken me a long time to figure out exactly where the waterfall is and how to get there and now I finally got to see the place – and it was gorgeous. I’m telling you, it’s a real stunner! The light was a problem once again but imagine this same scene in autumn colours and soft light. I have a week’s vacation in September and I’ll be coming back here, no doubt about it!

Since this trip wasn’t about photography, I only had the 24-105mm zoom lens with me because I didn’t think I’d do any flowers this time. But when I came across these jacob’s ladder (Polemonium caeruleum) flowers in Mittådalen, it was a relief to see that the zoom lens was sufficient. It’s the first time I’ve seen the flower in the wild but that beautiful blue colour caught my eye immediately!

On Saturday it was already time to turn home. Our last hike was in the Rogen nature reserve. The lakes in Rogen are amazing, just check it out on a map and you’ll understand what I mean. I wanted to see if it was possible to get an aerial view from one of the surrounding peaks so we got up on the Handskinnsvålen fell off Käringsjön. While the landscape was amazing to see, the view over the lakes didn’t quite live up to my expectations but once again I didn’t mind. It was a great hike and who cares about the über-dull light when there’s wolf lichen to be admired? Rogen is one of the few remaining strongholds for this rare lichen.

All that remained then was the way home (we got to see a herd of hundreds of reindeer to my sister’s delight). But I’ll just say this… my sister ain’t no photographer. It turned out that her memory card was filled with pictures from the past year and the only way she could snap any new pictures was by going over the old ones and deleting something else. Which is not an ideal way to photograph any animate subjects such as the reindeer!

Had a busy day yesterday. Busy in a good way – one day trip to the mountains, I was in desperate need of a break. The last time I had any vacation was September! Of course, we can debate how relaxing it is to drive hundreds of km in a day and hike up and down two mountains… but I’ll much rather have a tired body than a tired brain.

Anyway, I started with Stor-Mittåkläppen. There’s a special flower I knew might be growing there, it’s the glacier buttercup (Ranunculus glacialis), however I had no confirmed reports about it but I had to start from somewhere. This flower likes the tough conditions next to snowfields and there’s one on Mittåkläppen that doesn’t melt until later in the summer. When I got to the foot of the mountain, I saw a herd of reindeer gracing above and below the snowfield. There were a couple of hikers ahead of me and the reindeer didn’t like them (reindeer are not wild animals as such, just extremely shy of people) and ran off, so all I had to do was to avoid the reindeer droppings on my way up to the snow. Very soon after I arrived at the snowfield, I found some leaves which I thought would be the glacier buttercup. To be honest, I’m still not 100% if I’m right, I’ve compared my picture with four different sources and sometimes the leaves match and sometimes not. But it’s gotta be a buttercup of some sort, not that it helps. In any case, it wasn’t flowering yet so the question is if I can go back there in about two weeks to confirm the species. Oh well, it took me 4-5 efforts to find the alpine chamorchis so I can’t expect to find the glacier buttercup so quickly!

It was a warm day and initially it was overcast so it didn’t look promising for photography. When I arrived at the peak of the mountain, the sky had cleared enough for the sun to shine and it got hot. Wind normally brings some relief and today the wind was heavy, but it was the warmest wind I’ve ever experienced on a mountaintop. Strange experience. But at least it kept the mosquitoes at bay!

When I came back from the mountain, I had a waffle at Djupdalsvallen. They are so incredibly good there, there’s probably a few thousand calories in one but who cares! I really recommend it, not just for the waffle but the whole experience of hiking up this special mountain and then having a coffee in the beautiful surroundings.

By now it was mid-afternoon. I drove to Messlingen to check out the Mittån delta where the creek runs into the lake Messlingen. It should be a botanically interesting place but I would disagree, I reckon you’d need to be interested in grasses and half-grasses to find anything exciting there. So after walking around for a while, I took the trail up towards Kappruskaftet because I wanted to see if I could get a view down to the Anådalen valley from there. I didn’t find the view of the valley (or maybe I didn’t walk far enough) but the landscape was otherwise interesting. Kappruskaftet isn’t high enough for alpine tundra even if it looks like at first. So it’s a bit strange seeing all these big old pines there, some of them growing all alone on the borders of the big marshland.

When I got back to the car, it was past 7pm and all I’ve had to eat all day was one small sandwhich, energy bar and a waffle. I calculated that I had hiked about 15 km up and down mountains, so I was hungry – I was halfway home when I finally could stop eating, LOL!

I came home after 11pm and it seems like the day had been even warmer here because it was still 21 degrees. But today it will be raining, which is just as well – I think I will do nothing today. Watching a movie sounds like the kind of activity I want to take on!