The Quiet Picture

Would you believe, I was cleaning again. Not inside the cabin this time, but on the outside. It looks godawful, there’s a big pile of junk next to the stairs and bits and pieces scattered around the cabin. It was easier to remove those bits and pieces, but that big pile of junk is another matter. I decided to create two piles instead, I put all the wooden material (planks etc) under the cabin and all the other junk in a pile which I covered with some sheets of plywood to make it look less disgusting (just barely) and stop the lighter junk from spreading around the cabin again.

I had been waiting to see if the sun would come out but it wasn’t quite the sunny day I thought it would be. I wanted to do my hike anyway, I was planning a longer one into unknown territory so I didn’t want to leave it too late. I drove to the Kappruet parking lot, this is a small alpine skiing centre with just one lift and it was up this lift corridor where I started. The trail I was going to take would take off after the lift and the first thing I noticed about the trail is that it’s no summer trail for sure. I was not going to walk through the wet bog so I had find a way around, and that was followed by another bog and another and another… on the map it looked like an easy A-to-B but in reality is was an A-to-B-to-C-etc-to-Z with what all the detours I had to take around small wetland areas. It got a lot easier when I reached the actual foot of the mountain, now I just had to ascend to the top but no more detours. Until on the way down – since I was not following any trail and I didn’t have a GPS because I thought I could rely on SportsTracker which I couldn’t do because my phone battery was dying and I didn’t have a charger… anyway, absolutely no risk of getting lost. Just aim for the radio mast next to the ski lift (the same radio mast by the way which is apparently the reason we don’t get a mobile phone signal up at the cabin).

Well, no matter how much extra hiking I had to do. What matters is that I “collected” another peak, had a great day and even was lucky enough to catch a sunny break!

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As you can see in this picture, the sky was very dull. I just wanted to take the shot because of the cairns, there’s 3 in the picture but there were 5 at this spot. Now, I understand that the cairns used to have a specific purpose historically speaking, but I find it hard to believe that all these cairns here are built for practical purpose. Which means that hikers like myself have built them, and now I really want to know why. Is it like the scribbling you find on toilet walls? Kilroy was here? Why do people pile up rocks (or scribble on toilet walls, for that matter)? But the really funny thing is that all these cairns are not even on the real peak of the mountain. The real peak is that little nipple in the background, and yes, there was only one cairn up there. So the way I see it, people cheat. They climb up the mountain, notice that they have some way to go before reaching the actual peak, and instead of taking the trouble to reach the top they pile up some rocks instead. Is this some normal social behaviour that I completely miss?

Take only pictures, leave only footprints. I ain’t gonna pile no rocks.

I have a mini-holiday and this is the first time I’m actually going to sleep over in my cabin. I’ve got electricity there, the radiators work, there was a good chance of getting running water – luxury!

When I got to the cabin, I met with guy who was going to help me with the water. Sure enough, we got it going with just a minor flood in the bathroom, nothing that good mop doesn’t fix.

Then I set to work with cleaning and mounting more furniture. While I was getting along with it, I met with some new neighbours (they are all very nice here!) and a guy who had an expert eye and pointed out some more problems with the cabin. Not what I needed, so I made a few phonecalls to try to organise things again and felt better afterwards so I could concentrate on an IKEA chair with a missing hole. Exactly, a missing hole. I had a powertool with me and I had a toolkit, but I had left the drills at home. So I took the biggest screw I could find and screwed it through where the hole was supposed to be, and then I used a sandpaper technique (without sandpaper) to make it large enough – it figures that the missing hole is the biggest one of the lot. And when I finally got frustrated with it, I took a hammer and just simply tried to hit the darn metal plug but all you achieve with violence is to break things, so the wood split… Note to self: Always bring the FULL toolkit when you’re going to work with IKEA furniture!

With all the time I had spent on one lousy chair, I decided to enjoy the warm evening sunshine instead. I wanted to check out the lake and the Mittån river that runs from the eastern end of the lake, so I took the trail that is very conveniently almost behind my cabin and headed down to the village. Now, the only problem is that there are lots trails here. I was sure that the trail I needed was going straight so I ignored all the trail crossings, but soon I was starting to feel that it was sure taking a lot longer to get to the village than I had anticipated. I found the reason – I had walked in the wrong direction and ended up too far in the west. But at least I came out from the trail in a place which I recognised, so knew which way to go from there. Sort of – after another wrong turn and time wasted, I finally got down to the lake. Of course by now it was getting a bit late so I just walked to the bridge that crosses Mittån, took a picture (no points for the wind beaten lake) and headed back. I made an educated guess where I would find the trail that I was supposed to follow in the first place and I actually found it right where I figured it should be. Walking the trail this way, I got back in a fraction of time I had taken me to go out and indeed, it’s a very short bit to walk from the cabin to the village. It will probably take me some time to learn where all these different trails lead… but time is something I should have now, and I’m not talking about this mini-holiday!

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I have no Internet connection from the cabin, no telephone coverage either for that matter. So I’m posting this from Funäsdalen, the wind is blowing almost storm so it’s a perfect day to do some shopping. I’m not the least bit tempted to go up on a mountain in this wind, but at least it’s a bit sunny so I need to find something to do in the afternoon that doesn’t involve cleaning or furniture or lakes or alpine tundra.

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Oh and my first night in the cabin! A little bit sleepless to be honest, until at sunrise (I can see the summer sunrise from the “kitchen” window) I finally put on the earplugs to shut out the birds’ chirpy chatter and the occasional cracking from the radiators. I’m a light sleeper.

I thought yesterday was a great day. Today was better! During my walk, it suddenly started snowing. A lot. I loved every second of it! And the walk which wasn’t supposed to be as long as the one yesterday just kind of got extended so I hiked 12 km through the snow and I was almost regretting I didn’t extend it further because the landscape and the trees in particular looked so nice.

I have a favourite spot every time there’s new snow, an old meadow with a barn and a forested hill in the background. Last year I noticed that the barn is barely visible behind the young birches that grow in front of it. And today when I was approaching the spot, I found myself surrounded by the birches! I’m sure I was here last year and the birches didn’t reach above my head. I didn’t even think there was this kind of a tunnel through them at all. They grow fast – I also found that the barn is no longer visible at all behind the birches. I need to find a new favourite spot!

Raining.

I’m good at rain-proofing myself and the camera, so I drove to Skärkdalen to photograph the Silver Falls I visited in the summer. It’s a 2 km hike from the car to the creek, the trail goes through some mud and muck and it was even worse now than it was the last time. I found that my wellingtons are leaking again, this is definitely the last pair of Tretorn boots I’ll ever own.

And it was raining. I hadn’t come very far when my all-weather hat was leaking water on my face. And my all-weather jacket had wet sleeves and I was only saved by the fleece sweater underneath. And my all-weather hiking pants were wet at the knees. There’s a shelter at the creek (next to the bridge over it) so I just wanted to get there, have a cup of coffee and wait for the raining to subside.

When I got to the shelter, I found that I had forgotten to take the thermos with me. So I downed my sandwich with cold water and looked at the raining to continue just the same. Then I had a Snickers and it was still raining. I waited some more (getting colder by the minute thanks to all the wet clothes I was wearing) and when it finally looked like the raining was tolerable, I went out and set up the camera by the closest fall. The camera at least was still dry, while the tripod was wet and cold and not very nice to handle.

And then it started raining some more again. I retreated back to the shelter and waited a little bit longer. And gave up. I hadn’t gotten very far on my way back to the car, when the raining quite genuinely let up and I even saw the disc of the sun through the clouds. I really wanted these waterfall pictures so I turned back, but in a minute it was raining harder again. I definitely gave up this time, it just wasn’t meant to be!

It was still only early afternoon and I had no plan B, I had a problem instead. What to do? My only rainproof clothes were soaking wet, so I had little chance of doing anything meaningful today. And the forecast said that it would continue like this tomorrow, which gave me bad odds for doing any photography.

I checked out and drove home.

It had stopped raining by the time I got to Långå, so I stopped at the Rändåfallet falls so I could investigate the top falls that I missed the last time. I got my waterfall fix anyway, and the falls were definitely worth seeing even if here’s very little water right now. I know I always say that I prefer less water in my waterfalls, but you need some water in any case or there wouldn’t be a fall!

The raining aside, I think it was a good vacation. I got to see the autumn colours, conquered three mountains, witnessed some reindeer behaviour I had never seen before, ate a waffle, did a lot of hiking that’s good for the body and soul. Now I have a whole weekend at home before work, and I’m planning to do absolutely nothing at all. Well, apart from finish processing all the pictures I took this week and re-live the good moments!

Yesterday was such a great day that it was unrealistic to think that I would have another one today. My hike started off cold, windy and moody and when I was climbing up to mount Ramundberget from Walles, I found that my thighs were a lot more tired than the rest of my body. I was lifting my feet more by will power than muscle power but at least I was still ok walking on level ground and going down. My original plan was to go to the Hästkläppen peak after Ramundberget, but having discovered how sluggish my feet felt, I abandoned that and settled with one peak. With the weather as it was, I wasn’t inspired to make extended hikes anyway.

There was a path to the peak of Ramundberget, but instead of going back the same way I continued down on the other side to meet with a trail that was coming from Ramundberget (the village) and then follow it down to the Össjön valley and then south-east back to Walles. A great plan with one big problem – the trail from Ramundberget (the village) was old and apparently not used much and although finding it at first wasn’t hard, it was really hard to stay on it. The trail was frequently crossing some wet streaks and disappeared and initially I always found back, but the closer I got to the creek at the bottom of the valley, the harder it was to find the trail again. In the end it didn’t matter, it was virtually impossible to get lost in any case but the terrain was not fun. All these small streams of water and patches of marshland that you constantly had to be going around to find a safe place to set foot. I’ve got Goretex boots but it doesn’t mean that I want wade in water ankle-deep all the time.

But then there were these really brief spells of sunshine that lifted my spirit. At one point there was big blue gap in the sky and I saw that the clouds were moving in the right direction, so I had some time to find a good(ish) spot and get some sunshine pictures. But then the gap closed and I didn’t see the sun again the rest of the day. It started raining when I was driving back.

Today I hiked to the peak of Lill-Skarven (1224 m). It was promising to be a relatively easy and quick hike, except that if you park your car by the road 84 in Tänndalen, the entire hike is uphill from there to the peak. The only places where it levelled off at all was when the trail crossed some small wetland areas (duckboards over them). There is an alternative route with less climbing if you take your car up to the Fjällparkering which is close to the tree line. But having done a few of these small mountain roads, I didn’t want to put my car through the ordeal again so I decided to punish my feet instead. But my feet were fine, and later on when I walked down that road, I found that it was actually quite fine as well. Maybe next time then.

The view from Lill-Skarven is fabulous. I know I always say that the view is great, and naturally it always is because the peaks give you a high vantage point. But Lill-Skarven is better than average, it feels right in the middle of the mountains and closer to them as well. And one thing I found attractive is the view towards the valley of Anderssjö with mountains all around.

On the way down, I decided to check the view from the Skarvvålen height. It doesn’t require any climbing as it’s just kind of an extension of the mountain, but I was looking for an alternative viewpoint towards the valley and the Hamrafjället mountain so it was worth checking out. It turned out that the view wasn’t that special, but then when I was going back to the trail, I saw a herd of reindeer on the slopes of Lill-Skarven. They were moving slowly but the general direction was east, which is where I was heading as well. So I thought it’s worth a try to see if I could get closer to them, and took a diagonal approach so I would be ahead of them if they would continue towards east. And amazing things happen – they did come towards me and when I saw that I might have a possibility to use them as silhouettes against the sky, I took the risk of getting closer. And they allowed me to do it!

What I then got to witness is something I will not soon forget. The herd consisted mostly of females, plus two young bull reindeer and one older (bigger) bull. The reindeer mating seasons starts in September and the two young bulls were sparring with each other, crossing their antlers so I could hear the sound they were making. If only they would’ve come up a few steps closer to me I could’ve gotten their fighting profile against the sky… but I wasn’t that lucky. And by the time I got their silhouette, they were not sparring any more because the big bull appears to have cooled them down. It was not tolerating any challenges so it chased off the young bulls while running around the cows to make sure they would not stray off.

Although the reindeer allowed me to get so close, they did keep a watchful eye on me. I’ve heard that the only time a reindeer might be a threat to a human is during mating season when the bulls get too excited. So when this running and chasing was going on, a couple of times it looked like they would be running towards me and that really got my heart racing! But this is probably still early season for them, the bull was flemming but none of the females were ready and I didn’t really see any aggressive behaviour from the dominant male, apart from the moment it thought the young males got too close.

It’s easy tell the males and females apart. All reindeer grow horns, but the males shed the velvet skin on theirs before mating season while the females keep it, and just like with other animals with horns, the older the animal the bigger the bigger the horns. So if you look at the pictures, you can easily tell apart the cows and the bulls, and also the dominant male and the future challengers (they didn’t seem to pose much of a challenge today).

What did I say about putting experience first and pictures second? Well, this one was an experience for sure. And one of my photographic aspirations is to picture a reindeer silhouetted against the sky, and I think I kind of got that one as well. Can’t ask more from a hike!

I’ve been in desperate need of a vacation, and now I finally have it – one week in the mountains in the autumn colours is just what the doctor ordered.

In preparation of the vacation, I had been studying the maps quite intensively. After all these years, I’m still finding new things, like this oddly name lake Uggtjärnen north from the Ånnfjället mountain. My maps told me that there is no trail to the lake, but satellite images told me otherwise – I could even see the sharp lines of duckboards in some places. After some more investigation, I finally found an old map where this trail was marked so I plotted it in my GPS to make sure I could find my way even if the old trail would disappear in the forest.

The trailhead to Uggtjärnen is marked from the road, it’s a small sign but if you just pay attention you can see it. And the trail itself was just fine, there was absolutely no need for the GPS so I really don’t know why it’s not in any of the current maps. When I got to the lake, I even found a wind shelter which is also not on the map. Very strange. Both the trail and the wind shelter were in good condition, no signs of decay that you sometimes see in trails and constructions that actually are on the map.

I had some great expectations about this lake. I figured it would give an opportunity to shoot Ånnfjället with the lake in the foreground, it would only work later in the day when the sunrays would reach the northern side of the mountain. It was a null point today, because as calm as the day was (when driving here, I saw that the big lake of Lossen was dead calm, I’ve never seen it like that!), there was just enough wind to break the surface of the water. And it was overcast anyway, but it looked like there would be some sun later so all hope was not lost.

It’s only about 3 km to Uggtjärnen and I had plenty of time, so I continued hiking north-east from the lake towards the Anåkroken peak. It was absolutely lovely to hike up there, my chosen route (there was no trail here, marked or otherwise) took me along the tree line so sometimes I was walking among the crooked mountain birch and sometimes out in the open. The sun was coming out just as predicted but the light was moving fast, so normally the light was gone by the time I had set up the tripod and camera for something that had looked perfect the moment before. No complaining though, my new mantra is that experience comes first and pictures second, and there was certainly nothing wrong with the experience!

The Anån creek starts from the slopes of Ånnfjället and I needed to get over it. I thought it would be easy so high upstream, but it wasn’t and I suck at long jumping so I found it a bit tricky. I had to walk up and down for a few times but I didn’t find any easy spots, so I had to pluck my courage and make the jump. It was either that or wade over, which I didn’t find an appealing option either as the water was surprisingly deep and flowing fast. But even before I got to Anån, I came across some water which I didn’t understand at all. It looked like it was flooding because there was certainly no waterbed here and water was flowing over grasses and bushes that I’m sure were growing high and dry earlier this summer. Very unusual, because everything else I’ve seen indicated that water should be low, I saw many dry waterholes and dry brooks on the way. But then when I was walking upstream in search for a place to walk over (it was not very deep, just very wide), I found a small pond and a beaver hut. Never expected that – the pond was above the tree line and the nearest trees were further downstream. Live and learn.

And here’s some more trivia. The peak I reached today, Anåkroken, literally translates to “The An creek hook” (where “An” is a name!). I never quite figured out what the hook is (well, never really thought about it), until now that I was crossing the creek (or brook as it still was up here). It flows east at first, then swings north and finally turns west to the Anån valley. And the Anåkroken moutain is there where the creek makes the big turn.

The light continued to be as shifting as it was earlier but by the time I was back at Uggtjärnen, it had become almost completely overcast. It looked like there would be little chance of a nice sunset, and I was actually genuinely hoping for a dud because my feet were killing me and I was absolutely starving. So my options were to wait for the sunset and suffer the hunger pains, or drive to the hostel and get something to eat. My stomach won, and I was relieved to see that the sunset was indeed a dud so I didn’t miss anything.

But oh what a great day it was!

I’m back at home now, had a relaxing day at work – meaning, I didn’t have to use my feet much. Coffee machine and back! I did two small hikes yesterday which puts my four day total to exactly 50 km of hiking, and I could easily go for another hike now. The only thing that is making me tired is the mosquito that kept me awake the other night, I tried to kill it but every time I switched on the light, the bug would sit still and I couldn’t find it. A male mosquito obviously because it didn’t bite me, but the noise it makes just keeps the stress hormones going and thus no sleep. But enough about the mosquitoes!

The first small hike I did yesterday was to the Svalåkläppen fell off Bruksvallarna. A very easy peak to reach from Rockvallen and then you get to eat a waffle at the Kariknallen cabin, even if their waffles are not as good as those server at Djupdalsvallen. But then again, the waffles at Djupdalsvallen are the best, period! Maybe I’ll get there in September before they close for the season…

As I was driving home and the clouds were still not clearing much, I suddenly had an idea that I should visit the Rändåfallet waterfall in Långå. I’ve been there only once before and it was years and years ago when I was shooting film. The falls are very easy to reach and they are quite nice so it was about time I paid another visit. Since there isn’t any abundance of information about the falls on the Internet, I will write another blog entry about them later – for now, just a picture that shows a small detail of the falls.

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I’ve reprocessed some of the pictures I’ve posted here in the past days. If you’re a regular reader, clear your browser cache and re-visit Thursday‘s (first picture updated) and Friday‘s posts (all pictures updated). I’ve re-done the stitched panorama in Friday’s post, I used an adjustment brush to “fade” the tree that was cut off in the frame. It’s still cut off, obviously, but I hope it’s not as distracting as it was before.

I also realised something about the Tvärån falls from Thursday. I was already speculating when I was there that I took a wrong turn and didn’t end up quite where I was supposed to end up. The thing was that as I was following the trail up the creek, there was a brook that came from the side. I was almost sure that I should’ve crossed the side brook, but there was no way I could’ve gotten across without getting my feet wet. It was too wide to jump over and too deep to wade over (without taking off my boots). And the trail that continued over on the other side was much weaker than the trail that turned to follow the side brook, thus I decided to follow the better trail. Had I had the instructions with me (forgot them in the car with the map), I would’ve taken off my boots and waded across the water, because that was the right trail to take! So now I’ve missed what presumably is the best waterfall in Tvärån, very annoying to have done all that hiking and miss the target. Which means that I will have to get back there one day, long and boring hike or not!

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.