The Quiet Picture

I’ve never done a hike in the mountains in October before, so it was exiting to see what the day had in store. It turned out that it was all good – the first snow had fallen in the tundra and apart from the occasional snowfall that flew past in the heavy wind, it was a sunny day which allowed us to see the landscape in all its glory. The colours were muted under the thin layer of snow and all the features of the landscape were highlighted, giving it a very graphical quality that you normally don’t see.

We hiked up to the Lill-Skarven fell because there’s a road that takes almost up to the tree line, thus sparing us from wasting time and effort on climbing up the boring part through the forest. Once you’re up there, it’s easy going until you’re at the foot of the mountain but it’s not such a bad climb anyway. It was cold though, so much so that the water in the tube leading out from the water bladder in my backpack was frozen! The October weather is nothing to toy with, the wind was biting through my supposedly wind proof clothing but by the afternoon the sun was sufficiently warm to melt the snow on the ground and the ice in the water tube. But the slight discomfort aside, it was an amazing hike. There’s nothing like the first snow in the mountains!

One mountain that I’ve meant to explore for a few years now is Ormruet. It’s a sub-1K peak but it’s located in a nice place, for one thing it’s close to the road so it’s only a 2km hike to the top (even shorter, if you’re prepared to climb a vertical cliff wall) and secondly, I’ve speculated that it will provide a nice view towards Ånnfjället, since it’s practically just across the road. Ormruet has a very similar profile to Funäsdalsfjället, which means that it’s ugly to look at but interesting to be at. Instead of one distinctive peak, the top is flat with several ridges with a tarn nested in between two of the ridges. I had a thoroughly enjoyable morning walking around the tarn and checking out the ridges and now I’m determined to come back next summer with a tent and camp out for a night. In the evening you can shoot Ånnfjället and then catch the sunrise and shoot the mountains in the west bathed in the morning light (unlikely that I will catch the sunrise in the summer any other way than camping out…). With such a short hike and relatively easy ascend to the top, it doesn’t matter if you’re lugging heavy gear so it’s a perfect location.

It’s the last day of my vacation, then it’s the weekend and back to work on Monday. I decided to do one last hike, then do some cabin maintenance on Saturday and head home early on Sunday.

It was not intentional but it seems like I finish the outdoors part of my vacation in the same place where I started it – at Rockvallen. I wanted to get to the peak of Stor-Skarven, it is 1260 m but it’s one these flat-topped mountains so from whichever direction you look at it, it is always seen as a big round mountain. It has a steep wall towards east, but the rest of it is very gentle and thus hiker-frienly. Except in the beginning, there was a zone of willow bush that was driving me crazy because your feet get tangled up in it. But once I was over this zone, it was one of the most pleasant hikes up the mountain. Either I’m in better condition than I was for two weeks ago or then it was my light backpack, but I don’t think I’ve ever gotten up a mountain this easy!

As I mentioned yesterday, I wasn’t too bothered about getting any pictures today so I only carried the little Powershot with me. I wasn’t missing the SLR at all, the light was boring with this high cloud covering the whole sky and veiling the sun. I got one nice opportunity though when I came a across a reindeer and calf and they kindly ran past me with the valley in the background.

On the way down I was able to get a better overview of the willow zone so I found a way through the maze without getting tangled up again. It was a very nice hike to finish the vacation with, a kind of boring hike because nothing much happened but I guess I’ll rather have one these than do something stupid… even if it’s the stupid things I’ll remember best afterwards!

In the evening when I was processing the pictures, I saw a strange light in the window. It had been raining all evening but it turned out that there was a gap in the clouds where the sun was setting, so I had a huge rainbow in one direction and bright orange clouds in the other. The problem is that I’m not familiar enough with my surroundings to know which way to find the best foreground and I was out a little bit too late anyway, the sun was dipping below the horizon and the rainbow disappeared with it. The glow in the clouds stuck around a bit longer but even so I missed the best of it, because I ran in the wrong direction at first and wasted precious time. When I found a better spot (not perfect, but better), it was too late already and all I had was the last rays. Last night it was the kind of sunset where you wanted to keep the light at your back and shoot the scenery lit by the sun. Tonight it was the kind of sunset where you wanted to shoot right into the light!

* * *

I think I’ll spend Saturday on my new couch and maybe watch some of the Frasier episodes I brought on DVD. I’ve only had time to watch one episode so far… I sure don’t need a TV here! The days have been filled with hiking and photography and I’ve barely had time to go through my pictures and write the blog posts. On the other hand, I’ve also been lucky with the weather. It has been a few rainy days, but only one day when it has rained from morning to evening. I’ve also had a few days with warm sunshine to get that summer feeling, but otherwise it’s been perfect for hiking. Perhaps a little less ideal for photography but those few moments when the light worked to my advantage far outweigh the times when it didn’t. There’s only one day when I didn’t get any pictures and that’s the day I drove to Östersund for shopping. Maybe some days I didn’t get any nice keepers, but I also have a “documentation mode” – just grab some shots of the places I’ve been to so I can remind myself of them later on. And this is what I’ve been doing with the blog as well, write the stories and use the pictures as illustration. I know the stories have been a bit on the long side, but thank you anyone who has taken the time to read through!

When I woke up in the morning, I had to remind myself that it was July. It was cold, rainy and windy and easily the kind of weather we would have in October. I wasn’t in a hurry to go out so I spent some time in Lightroom to properly process and keyword my pictures from the last few days.

In the afternoon I drove to Flatruet. Probably not the smartest thing to do if wind is an issue, but it’s not blowing storm and the raining has also stopped, so it was not a problem (at first, anyway). There are two ravines which are easiest to reach from Flatruet, Öjegraven and Torrgraven. Walking across Flatruet is really easy, there is almost no vegetation and the few scattered juniper bushes provide no hinder. At the same time, it’s quite boring – the landscape doesn’t change much and unless you’re have spectacular light with you, there’s really nothing to shoot up there. So I just walked on with the wind on my back and just barely kept myself warm enough, even with the windproof clothing I was wearing. After about 4 km I finally came across something interesting. The landscape changed character and signalled to me that I was approaching the ravine. There was this area with huge slabs of rock rising diagonally from the ground (not sure how to explain it, so please check the picture for illustration), so while it’s not perfectly photogenic, I still had an appreciation of the geology of it. This area was surrounded by a small ridge in the west and east and once I got over the eastern ridge, I found another area with some smaller slabs of rock and a little bit more wetland, but absolutely no problem to get across. And again, there was a small ridge on the other side and once I got over it, I was at the ravine.

I figured that I had reached Öjegraven and Torrgraven should be almost right behind it but possibly lower down in the forest so it’s not immediately visible. Now I got a problem though – I couldn’t find a place to cross over the brook that runs through Öjegraven. It’s not a big brook but I’m absolutely worthless at jumping and although I considered a few spots to jump across, I didn’t want to do it with the backpack on. I walked upstream hoping that I would find a narrow passage but after a few hundred meters I gave up and headed back downstream instead to have a closer look at this one ravine I did find. It was a disappointment compared to the stunner that Svartmorgraven was last week, but all things considered it was almost what I expected. The deep part of the ravine was very short, but if you follow the brook upstream you’ll find a ravine in mini-format with cliffs about 3-4 meters high at best. So I wouldn’t describe Öjegraven as photogenic or even interesting, but I will probably have to pay a second visit because I still have to find Torrgraven. I also realised that if the hike is done from the Flatruet parking, it would be possible to visit Öjegraven, Torrgraven and Svartmorgraven during the same hike. It would be shorter than hiking up from Messlingen to Svartmorgraven and then cross over the peak of Svartmorhöjden to the other two ravines.

Anyway, having given up on the second ravine I had planned, all I had left was hike back to the car, in strong head wind and slightly uphill all the way. But now at least I had no problem at all to keep myself warm!

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EDIT 2011-09-25: The ravine which is described here is Storbäckengraven. I forgot it even exists when I wrote this post but now I’ve visited the real Öjegraven and it sure is a lot bigger and less disappointing!

There’s a gravel pit along the road between Funäsdalen and Mittådalen. In one pile of sand which has been there for years, a flock of swallows have dug out nesting holes so the pile looks like swiss cheese. The birds don’t mind people so it’s possible to stand right next to the pile and photograph the swallows. The nests are high up on the pile though so they are well out of reach and I guess that’s the whole point – the birds can feel safe up there and there’s safety in numbers as well. My problem is that I keep forgetting to take my 300mm lens with me so this morning I was standing there with my 150mm macro. But at least it gave me an overview of the nests and a lot of birds flying around, although I do have to get there with the long lens before the birds leave the nests!

We continued to Anderssjöåfallet because it looked like we would be spared from the rain that was forecast for the day. At first it even was sunny, which dampened my enthusiasm to shoot the water while I was walking up the falls. But then, higher up after the last big fall, I finally got the shade I needed so I was able to start shooting.

Mr S. drove back home in the afternoon, so I needed to find my own inspiration for the evening’s photography. It was going to be a calm evening with a good chance of sun, so I drove to Måns-Erstjärnen and this time I had a 300mm lens with me, because the swallows’ nests are on the way there. It was overcast when I got there so I didn’t have a lot of light to work with, but I tried anyway. It looks like the young swallows are flight-ready because I’m sure I saw some of the young leave the nest and then come back again to beg for food from the parents.

When I got to Måns-Erstjärnen, there was a little wind so I didn’t get the calm water I had hoped for, but maybe with a little bit of luck it would calm down (before the wind would pick up even more, because it was going to be a windy day tomorrow). This is the second time I was following the shoreline and I was even more impressed than I was the first time. There are photo opportinues almost after each turn, all I needed was the light and the calm water. But no such luck… so I looked the other way and found this little brook meander through a bog with the peak of Ånnfjället in the background. I had to wait for a while before the sun came out again but it was great when it did! The light lasted all of one minute and when I looked back towards west, I saw that the group of clouds had only increased. So my chances of getting that wonderful evening light were reduced, but at least I could do some scouting. At one point there was a ridge with not many trees on which got me curious so I walked up to see what’s on the other side. A small lake, that’s what – and this one was calm! But still, no light. So I walked back to the bigger lake and continued my hike around it. When I had walked a long stretch without any photo potential, I was going to turn back but had second thoughts and continued ahead anyway. It turned out to be a bad idea, because of course the sun would come out now when I didn’t have any use for the light. I half ran to the small lake with the calm water and just when I had the tripod set up and was ready to take a picture, the light disappeared again. I only caught the last of it, but now I wanted to wait instead of walking around and missing the next opportunity. I waited for half an hour and the clouds in the west persisted, so I decided to give up. And about half a minute after I had put the camera in the bag, the sun came out. I swear. And I swore. But instead of setting up the gear in the same spot, I made the fatal mistake of getting back to the bigger lake and try to catch those spots that I had scouted earlier. But by now the wind was picking up again so nothing worked and I just walked back to the car feeling very crossed with myself. I mean… I had waited at the same spot for half an hour. Why couldn’t I wait for one more minute and actually get the picture?!

By the time I got back to car, I had calmed down. I will have another opportunity here, and it will be even better and it will not be down to one minute either!

Move over Fiskhålsgraven. I have a new favourite ravine!

My big Messlingen photo project is to document the ravines in the region. Fiskhålsgraven and Evagraven are easy and the rest of the ravines require a varying degree of effort, but they all can be reached during a day-hike in any case. Today’s hike took me to Svartmorgraven, which is easy to reach even if in the end Sportstracker had logged 17 km for me. It’s an easy 17 km though where the hardest part is right at the beginning when you take the trail from Messlingen towards Fiskhålsgraven. But once you get above the tree line, you can start walking parallel with it until reaching the ravine and the ground is easy. The kind of hiking I like the most, actually – I love the wide open spaces in the tundra and here in Messlingen in the oligotrophic conditions, there’s not a lot of growing in the tundra either so it’s easy to navigate around the scattered dwarf birch bushes.

I didn’t know what to expect from Svartmorgraven, I just assumed it would be smaller and less interesting than Fiskhålsgraven. But it really took me by surprise, it’s possible that Fiskhålsgraven is deeper but Svartmorgraven has tons of character and it’s also longer than its more famous brethren in the east. It means that you can walk up and down the ravine and constantly discover new details, one more photogenic than the other. There’s also a brook that runs through the ravine, providing some waterfalls. Would you believe that I didn’t have a tripod with me? I wanted to hike lightly but I guess that’s the best guarantee that you will find tripod-worth subjects, just leave the tripod at home. There’s even a couple of nice small waterfalls above the ravine and it’s possible to jump over the brook so you can explore the ravine and waterfalls from both sides.

What an amazing place! I really fell in love with it and was delighted to see all the greens. There are birches and rowans and other things that will turn colour in the autumn and make the place even better. Today started out sunny but it was mostly overcast when I got to the ravine. A little bit surprising to see that the ravine works even in sunlight, I’ve felt that it’s far too contrasty when I’ve visited Fiskhålsgraven or Evagraven on a sunny day. Not sure how it will look like later in the afternoon and evening light is probably no good, but now that I was there around noon I had no problems with contrast.

One thing is for sure – I don’t care how long the hike is, I will be there in September. I know I’ve said that about a lot of things, but if someone told me that I can only visit one place, then I would pick Svartmorgraven. No hesitation!

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If anyone is missing closer instructions on how to get to Svartmorgraven, I will post them separately at a later time.

05:25 – Somebody knocks on the door. I try to open the door from the left side (like at home), it fails miserably. But in the end I get the door open from the right side. “Hello, I’m your new neighbour. If you’re planning to drive out today, then you should move your car to the main road because we will have a big truck block the road today”. My cabin is by a cul-de-sac, so there’s only one way out. I take the keys and park the car at the first best lay-by by the bigger road. It seems to be a nice morning though, foggy at the moment but the sun is clearly on the go. But I am so tired from yesterday’s hikes that all I can do is crash back in the bed.
06:45 – Somebody knocks on the door again. This time I remember how to open it. “Can you move your car a bit further out? It’s too close to the junction, the truck needs more swing room.” So I move the car, see what a beautiful morning it is and give up on sleep.

* * *

One thing I have been dreaming about for several months it seems, is the waffles at Djupdalsvallen. I know it sounds silly to miss something you can easily make at home, but there’s so much more to it than just the waffle itself (which, I have to say again, are the best I’ve ever had).

The target of today’s hike was Lill-Mittåkläppen. I’ve been up to Stor-Mittåkläppen a number of times but the smaller mountain should also be good for flowers and it’s one of the 60 toppar peaks. The day was warm, so I couldn’t wear any more layers than a t-shirt. Blood-sucking demons… everything from mosquitoes to gnats to horse-flies. And then I had to get across big boggy areas and very soon I felt that my feet were wet. Whether it was because of walking through water or sweaty feet in the hot sunshine, I don’t know. But I don’t like the idea of water soaking the Gore-Tex, in my experience the first time the Gore-Tex hiking boots are soaked through, they lose their water-proofness (which obviously wasn’t so good to start with, if they get soaked through…) so they kind of lose their purpose. But it has happened with several boots so I know it’s a fact, no matter what the brochure says.

Anyway, once I was across the bogs, I faced a reindeer fence. I got lucky and quickly found a hole in the fence, so I was able to crawl through. Then I had to cross a small creek and after that it was all uphill to the top of Lill-Mittåkläppen. I had a look at the melting snowfield in the steep side of the mountain for some flowers, but I lost my interest quite quickly when I almost lost my footing a couple of times. It would be a quick way down, but rather painful I think. Up on the top of the plateau, the biting insects finally left me alone. But I wasn’t done with flying critters yet, now I had a pair of gulls circling around me, apparently they have a nest close by. I was a little bit worried that they would start dive bombing me, but I got spared from that.. even if they flew so close to me that I could hear the swoosh.

And after all that hiking and wading and climbing and crawling and biting, I found that I couldn’t actually reach the top. There’s another reindeer fence that surrounds the top from this side and I couldn’t find any opening in the fence that would’ve allowed me to go through. I didn’t feel like following the fence either, I was getting a little bit worried about the time. Djupdalsvallen closes at 16:00 and I had to get a waffle, no matter what! So it was with some bitterness that I gave up, I will still consider this mountain as conquered even if it bothers me that I didn’t actually stand on the highest point. But as you can see in the picture, I was very close in any case.

Since I didn’t like the idea of wading through those mires again, I had this bright idea of going over Stor-Mittåkläppen. Exactly what made me think that climbing a second mountain (which is almost 200 meters higher) would be better than getting wet feet I’ll never know, and I can honestly say that halfway up the steep slope I was seriously questioning my decision-making process. Again. Why are my ideas good only when I get them?

But I made it to Djupdalsvallen with over half an hour to spare. And the waffle was just as good as I remembered it was. An adventurous day with a perfect conclusion!

* * *

I have a love-hate relationship with hikes like this, I hate them when I’m doing them but afterwards when I get back safe, I love them. My biggest concern is that one day I will hurt myself pulling out these silly stunts like exploring the steep side of a mountain with a heavy backpack that can throw you off-balance. I can’t always even call for help – for example today, there was no mobile coverage until I was almost on top of Lill-Mittåkläppen so sometimes I’m well and truly alone. If I hurt myself so badly that I can’t move, I will die there. Nobody knows where I am and nobody will miss me until I should be back at work. So this is a little bit scary sometimes, but what the heck. I’m doing what I love doing and if I have to stop doing it, then I will stop living. Easy decision.

I read in Härjedalens kärlväxtflora (as mentioned yesterday) that there’s a very rare dandelion (Taraxacum crocodes) growing on the eastern shore of the lake Messlingen. Now, all dandelions look all the same to me, but the book assured me that this particular dandelion is different.

I found some dandelions. They all looked the same to me. I snapped some shots of them anyway for later analysis (at home with proper Internet connection).

In the afternoon I drove to Hamrafjället. Whenever anyone starts to talk about flowers in the mountains, Hamrafjället will come up sooner or later in the discussion. To be honest, I’m kind of over it by now – sure, there’s a lot of flowers there that I’m not familiar with yet, but my interest in botany is not going in that direction. I’m more honed in on some particular species, I feel better when I have a clear target of what I’m looking for, like the ferns now and before them, orchids. So the reason I went to Hamrafjället is that I wanted to get to the top of Småhamrarna. It’s the lower of the Hamra peaks, I’ve been on top of Hamrafjället 2 or 3 times already but it’s only now that I’m kind of collecting the peaks of “60 toppar” that the lower peak caught my attention. And the reason I am only “kind of” collecting them is that I have no intention of conquering all 60. Some of them just look like too much trouble so I won’t bother get there just so I can claim an achievement that was only created as a tourist attraction. I have some opinions on which peaks were selected among the 60 anyway… But like I mentioned about the plants, I need some targets so the 60 toppar is as good as any, until I come up with a better plan.

It was an overcast day with the clouds hanging low, even the Småhamrarna peak was shrouded in mist when I started my hike. But gradually the clouds were clearing away and when I was back at the car, the sun was shining. But by now I had done two over 7 km hikes today and the idea of making something out of the evening light wasn’t appealing to me at all. If I had some company who would tempt me otherwise, I would probably have gone along, but alone as I was, tiredness was my main motivator and I just wanted to go home (=cabin) and have a cup of tea and look at the new pictures.

Speaking of the pictures, I was carrying the macro lens again while the Powershot served as the landscape tool. I was halfway back to the car when I realised that I hadn’t used the macro at all, so I was in a hurry to find something to do with it because I just hated the idea of dragging that heavy gear without using it. Since Sunday, I had also planned to take pictures of plants that I hadn’t photographed yet, so the common butterwort (Pinguicila vulgaris) was just the ticket. It’s a common plant and we have it in Loos, but I’ve never taken the trouble. Because trouble it was – the darn thing is swaying like crazy in the wind, even when there’s so little wind that you hardly feel it on your skin. And it’s also a painfully 3D plant, meaning that the lower petal is pointing straight out so it’s not physically possible to stop down far enough to generate the DOF required for it. So shallow DOF it is, I have my common butterwort picture now. Next!

I’m on vacation. Two weeks! Amazing luxury, I don’t even want to hear when was the last time I had such a long a vacation. The cabin is ready enough to be my home for the whole period, I have hot water and the toilet ventilation works. The biggest problem I have with the cabin is the lack of furniture, the lack of storage space is driving me crazy. I have my things spread all over the floor (well, nothing new there, I have things all over the floor at home as well…) but it’s the kitchen area in particular where the lack of storage space is a problem. I’m waiting for Ikea to deliver my order, I was silly enough to think that the 5-7 working days delivery time mentioned on their home page would cover the whole country but I’m not so lucky, it takes them 10 days which means that I will only get the furniture on the 11th. Unless it’s delayed, of course.

I spent the Saturday mounting the furniture I already had. The weather is nothing stellar so it’s not like I’m missing out on anything major if I skip a hike and I also just realised that two weeks is a long time – there’s a lot of hiking to be done yet!

So the hiking started today. I drove to Rockvallen, it’s great for orchids and other flowers and then up on Kariknallarna you have the waffle cabin (even if their waffles are nothing special, what I really miss is Djupdalsvallen) and from there, it’s an easy hike to Hästkläppen so I can claim a new peak.

There’s really nice alpine forest on the way up. I was delighted to see all the ferns, the season is still early and the ferns are bright green. The early season was evident up on the alpine tundra as well, there is some snow left and in one place the trail was blocked by a big snowfield. I reckon some spots are only a month away from becoming glaciers – the snow is probably gone in August and in September it could already be snowing again. But of course it varies from year to year and somehow I get a feeling that the season is late this year.

When I started climbing up to Hästkläppen, I found a lot of dwarf cornel. It’s not a rare flower but maybe I don’t visit the places where they grow because I don’t often see them. So I made the most of the opportunity and picked a younger individual which still had a pale green colour, normally those bracts are white. And note, the actual flower is only the black cluster in the middle!

And something very cool happened when I was approaching Knallen. There was a huge bird in the sky, so I grabbed my binoculars (which I’m finally carrying with me, after years of cursing that my binos are in the car) to take a closer look. It was still only a dark dot against a white sky, but the size was obvious – must be a golden eagle! After following it for a while with the binoculars, I finally decided to try and take a picture. I only had the 150mm macro lens which is no bird lens for sure, but it was able to focus on the small dot without hunting at all. The crop is ridiculous but the silhouette is clear. Further in the distance I saw another big bird but it had a white tail, so I wasn’t sure if it was the same species. But when I checked the bird guide later, it turned out that juvenile golden eagles have white tails. This was the first time I saw a wild golden eagle, and I got two of them at once! And you know what, during all that time that I was observing the eagle, it didn’t flap its wings at all. Not once. What a cool experience!

* * *

Towards the end of the hike I was developing a bad headache that started from aching shoulder muscles – either I hadn’t been drinking enough, or the backpack is too heavy. I now have a hydration system in the pack which is very nice, I can sip water without stopping but it’s difficult to say exactly how much water you’re drinking. Although I thought I was sipping often enough, it turned out that it wasn’t a lot anyway, I had one liter in the system but I had only drunk 1/3 of it. Not good. The backpack weighs about 9 kg with the stuff I had in it in today (9 kg!! I didn’t even have a spare lens in it, where does the weight come from?) and although it feels good and balanced on my back, it does wear me out after a trip up and down a mountain. But I’ll survive. What are painkillers for anyway?

The official opening of the expanded Hamra National Park has been pushed off until September (it was supposed to be opened last year). They have done most of the work with building the entrances and making new trails, so I was curious to see what it looks like now. There are three entrances to the park – the main entrance is at the old part of the national park, and new ones at Svartåmyran and Svartågrenen where the creek falls falls into the Voxnan river. I was really interested in the one at the Svartåmyran bog because I’ve wanted to explore this bog since a long time ago, but it just never happened for whatever reason.

I actually like what they’ve done there. I mean it’s nothing out of the ordinary, just your normal information boards, toilets and waste disposal (bear proof I hope!) and a picnic area. But I just like the way they’ve done it, it somehow fits the environment quite well and it’s all very solid work. Reading the information board, I discovered that there are four hiking options in the park. Three roundtrips, about 3 km each (trailhead at each entrance), and then a long trail which goes right across the whole park from the main entrance to Voxnan. I doubt I will ever do the long trail, but today’s mission was the explore the shorter ones.

The trails at Svartåmyran and the main entrance are new. There’s only a very short stretch at Svartåmyran which follows an old trail, as I saw from the rotten duckboards at one point. I think they have some work to do with the trails, I saw some signs that are waiting to be set up and then they have to do all the trail markings. Currently there’s only some ribbons hanging from the trees and there were times where the next ribbon wasn’t even visible. When the trail is not worn out yet, I had no idea which way to go, had to circle around the spot until I saw the next ribbon.

It was a rainy day so I was happy to see that they have some covered picnic tables at the main entrance. It was such a delight to sit down and drink a cup (or two) of coffee, listening to the rain pound the roof. Now that’s luxury… not the street cafés with their cappuccinos and lattes, all I need is a roof over my head and hot coffee in the thermos!

The weather considered, I skipped the last trail at Svartån. It’s an old trail anyway, I’ve followed it up until it disappears into the forest… I assume that they’ve improved it though so now it actually leads to something!