The Quiet Picture

I was going to hike to one of the ravines today but then I got a call from some members of the camera club who are on an annual excursion in Funäsdalen. Since I’ve been alone for over a week, I was only too happy to get some company so I abandoned the ravine and drove to Funäs to join the club (pun intended, even if I’m already a member). We then headed to Norway, the plan was to see the Syldammen dam and Nedalshytta. Unfortunately the weather turned to the worse almost as soon as we were in Norway, but something else happened as well – the birches had leaves! Unbelievable. As we were driving towards Nedalshytta, the colours were a little bit on and off. Some forests were bare but some still had some colour.

It was very windy and drizzly at Syldammen, not very easy to shoot with the Tokina wideangle with a protruding front element which is impossible to protect from the water drops flying around so I wasn’t getting anything done. Then we drove to Nedalshytta and sat down for coffee and waffles. Coffee was excellent, I drank too much of it… waffles were ok, but can’t hold a candle to the ones at Djupdalsvallen. It was nice to sit there anyway, talking about cameras and waiting for the weather to turn, which it should’ve done according to the forecast. But there wasn’t even a hint of the sun so we headed out anyway and followed a creek upstream where we had seen a big waterfall from the road. Turns out that we were on the wrong side of the creek so our hike was cut short when we came across another creek that was flowing into the one we were following, impossible to cross. Note to self: follow the creek on the left side to get to the waterfall…

I was supposed to get Ikea deliver my furniture today, but they called me in the morning to say that the car is broken so they will have to postpone it for tomorrow. My cabin is cursed, for sure. So I had to come up with a plan B, and quick. No vacation is complete without a trip abroad, right? So I drove to Norway.

My first stop after the Norwegian border was just before Brekken to have a look at the Ryfossen waterfalls that I discovered last year and thought were fabulous. The weather was overcast, so it was ideal for waterfalls. But last year when I was there, I was with my sister and I was only half concentrated on finding the best details. Now that I was fully concentrated, I didn’t think it was as good as I thought it had been and I only really found one detail I was happy with. I got the impression that the water level was quite high though and it looked like it would be possible to jump across with just a little less water in the stream, so maybe there will be more ops then.

I continued my journey to the Syldammen dam. It’s a bit funny driving the last bit to Syldammen which is on the Swedish side of the border, because for a moment the road curves in and out of the countries. So in order to reach something in Sweden, I had to drive to Norway and then in Sweden, back to Norway, and once again back to Sweden. No customs to drive through, though!

The reason I drove to Syldammen was to find the glacier buttercup. I had a description that there would be hundreds of them just 200 meters downstream from the dam. What the description didn’t say was which side of the river, but with only a couple of hundreds of meters, I’ll easily do both. So I started from the near side, and very soon had a couple of birds of prey circle above my head, screaming an alarm. I saw that on the opposite side of the river, there was a steep cliff so I assumed that the birds had a nest there. So I moved further away from the shoreline, I didn’t see any possible location for the glacier buttercup anyway. Since I didn’t have a GPS with me and SportsTracker doesn’t start tracking without a connection, I couldn’t really say how far I had gone but surely it was more than 200 meters. With no buttercups of any kind, I turned back and made sure to walk even further away from the assumed bird nest (but still the birds sounded their alert above my head). But this was a problem – if they reacted like this to me when I was on the opposite side, what would they do when I was approaching the cliff from the same side? So I decided to try it and turn back as soon as the birds got agitated. Said and done, I probably got just as far as 200 meters but no buttercups here either.

Now what? Had I completely misunderstood the description? While I was walking on the far side, I had spotted a patch of snow behind a group of buildings. So what if the “dammbyggnad” (literally, dam building) referred to these buildings and not the actual dam? And glacier buttercups love the late patches of snow. So I felt good about that, I figured it must be it. Except… no glacier buttercups, nothing that even hinted at their existence. With nothing better to do, I decided to climb up on the nearest peak (not high!) and while doing it, I got those birds of prey on my case again. Either the birds hate me or then there are two pairs of them but I was seriously doubting about my nest theory now. Maybe I could walk further on that other side of the river anyway… but it felt hopeless, I figured my best chance of finding them had been this patch of snow. All I wanted now was to drive back, I had some blue sky already and metre by metre the clouds were creeping up on Sylarna so maybe I could see the peak from some nice viewpoint along the road.

No new furniture, no glacier buttercup and no mountaintop on the way. Still, it was a good day. Weird, huh?

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!

A little bit sick of the heat and the mosquitos, I decided to drive to Röros today. Even if it’s warm, there are normally no mosquitos in towns and then of course there are all those cafes so you can sit down and have an ice-cream if it gets too hot.

It turned out to be good decision, because I thoroughly enjoyed my time. When I arrived it was early afternoon, I couldn’t resist taking pictures even if the light wasn’t ideal. But one thing to remember is that the all the buildings won’t be sunlit all day, so sometimes you had to take the harsher light to get any sunlight at all, and some buildings are only sunlit in the afternoon. Which means that you can walk around the town, and then walk around it again, and always find something with good light on. I finished after 6pm, and only had a few short breaks so it was a lot of walking around the town, small as the town may be. I think I caught the town in ideal conditions, sunny and warm with a few fluffy clouds in the sky to decorate the pictures. I’ve wanted to do this for a couple of years now and I couldn’t have picked a better time, there was honestly not a single thing I would’ve wished was different. I had a genuine holiday feeling even if my feet were killing me in the evening, but I’d much rather have tired feet than a tired head after a day in the office!