The Quiet Picture

I was on a brief visit to the cabin this weekend. My parents came over so I got to show off the cabin and the landscape that I love, and I think they were impressed so I hope they understand why I’m not in no hurry to move back to Finland any time soon. Or ever.

We got lucky with the weather on Saturday, but even the sunshine couldn’t change the fact that the landscape looks less than spectacular at the moment. The birches are really suffering from the fungal infection and in some places the leaves were completely gone already. I didn’t see any birch at all that looked normal, because even the birches that still had leaves were clearly infected.

Sunday’s weather was a perfect match for the bare trees. The clouds were hanging low and you couldn’t even see through the length of the Fiskhålsgraven ravine.

Mom & Dad are now on their way back to Finland (through the storm) and I have the rest of my two week vacation to myself. To be honest, I still don’t have any ideas of what to do. But let’s face it – if I have nothing to do, then I’ll rather have nothing to do at the cabin than at home!

Finally taking a closer look at my vacation pictures. Found one HDR which needed processing, did it manually because I didn’t like the result that any HDR software produced. It still needs some work but I’m undecided if it’s worth the trouble. I was waiting on Flatruet for the sunset to happen with glorious colours, it didn’t do it but a herd of reindeer came running by. In the low light, I got some serious motion blur but it was a concious choice, I wanted to see how it works out.

It was nice to see the pictures from the unforgettable evening at Måns-Erstjärnen. I’m well pleased with some of them, but they all remind me of what a wonderful experience it was. I can still feel the warmth and hear the eerie cry of a loon echo from the distance… just amazing.

In fact, I think I’m still basking in the glow of the vacation. My shutter finger isn’t itching yet, although it did feel good to shoot the white waterlily today. One thing I wonder though, where are all the mosquitoes? There weren’t any at the lake. But… I’m guessing I will find them in the forest. I have some orchids to shoot there and I also need to find some blueberries and raspberries to pick… and I need to get my exhibition ready, it opens on Saturday. Nervous!

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!

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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!

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!

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!

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!

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!

I had a long drive ahead of me, so I started early. I was looking forward to the Wilderness Road as it goes above the treeline, so the scenery should be good.

Initially it was a bit cloudy and the wind was only marginally lighter than yesterday. It wasn’t particularly warm either – my fingers were numb after a very short hike to a waterfall. It’s not the temperature as such, but the wind chill…

Already as I was approaching the tree line, the photo ops were appearing one better than the other. I drove past most of them, shame on me, but like I said, time was an issue so I wanted to use all I could spare on the tundra. Unfortunately the sun still hadn’t come out by the time I reached the tree line, so I didn’t see the scenery in all its glory. Because glorious it was for sure – you could stop every 100 meters and find something interesting, a small brook, or a different angle to a mountain, or a new bend or rapids in the big creek… even waterfalls. And reindeer. At first I stopped the car and turned off the engine, got out and took pictures. Then I stopped the car at a lay-by and got out. And then I just opened the window and shot from the car… without even bothering to pull over to the shoulder. I didn’t see any other cars as I was driving through the tundra so it’s not like I was blocking the traffic!

I was half expecting the beautiful scenery to end when I descended from the tundra. But I couldn’t have been more wrong – it was just simply gorgeous, driving through Klimpfjäll (the place is much nicer than its name), then Saxnäs, and I was surprised to see that the road was still photogenic as I turned north from Stalon towards Dikanäs. I only had two problems – no time, and a lot of wind. It had taken me over 3 hours to drive the first 100 km and I still had 500 km left until Luleå. In that respect, I should be grateful for the wind because it was spoiling most of the opportunities. Still water was anything but still, so all those beautiful lakes with mountain views were wasted today.

My original plan was to visit Storforsen before getting to Luleå. But after spending so much time on the Wilderness Road, I had to drop Storforsen. Better to use the little time I had one on the photo opportunities I had in front of me, than chance on something I had no idea if it would work or not. And I still didn’t have enough time to shoot everything I wanted to. The Wilderness Road really made an impression on me, it’s by far the most photogenic 200 km I’ve ever seen in Sweden. It’s easy to find some photogenic roads, but solid 200 km of beautiful mountains, lakes and creeks… it’s hard to beat! It was a constant waterfall there, rapids here, probably impossible to squeeze it in a whole day let alone a few hours as I had. I’m just simply going to have to drive it again, but then I’ll make it the goal of the trip instead of a de-tour on my way somewhere. And September is probably the right time for it, too. The days are shorter, but you can keep shooting through all through the day and still get good light. And the autumn colours are never wrong!

Since it had been a clear night, we now had frost on the ground. Once again I couldn’t resist it but got out with the camera while waiting for breakfast to be ready – now there’s another luxury for you. Wonderful!

We were out on the trail before 9am and the frost was still thick on the ground, but the boots held steady and we made quick progress with some frequent photo stops. It turned out that this 12 km stretch from Blåhammaren to Storulvån is actually the most scenic one of the Triangle. There are small tarns a-plenty, and once you start the descent from Blåhammarfjället towards the Ulvåtjärn wind shelter, the trail follows a lovely creek with numerous small waterfalls. Under the right conditions it would be absolute heaven for a waterfall enthusiast like myself, but now I had to just settle with seeing the potential as there wasn’t much water and I prefer my waterfalls in overcast conditions anyway, with just a touch of rain if possible. The creek is doable as a day hike from Storulvån… worth keeping in mind. After the halfway point (Ulvåtjärn wind shelter) the trail started following the tree line, providing all the more photo ops with beautiful autumn colours.

Before you think that we’ve done all this hiking without seeing any reindeer, here’s one – the grass was greener on the other side of the trail and the fella was a bit put off with us for getting in the way. He pretended not to care and butted heads with the juniper bush until he finally realised that he could circle around behind us for his chosen pastures. The mountain in the background is Getryggen, the one we climbed on Saturday.

If possible, the weather was even better today than yesterday. Maybe just a touch more wind, but warm enough in the sun. Hiking in the mountains just can’t get any better than this! Making reservations for a hike in September can be a risky business because there’s no telling what kind of weather you’ll get – three years ago I got a snowstorm, and when it hasn’t snowed it has rained. We got a lucky break and we enjoyed every minute of it, aching muscles and all!