The Quiet Picture

I’m back at the cabin to spend the week and a half of vacation that I have. To be honest, I’m still not sure what to do with all that time because of the conditions (those being, no autumn colours). But in the very least, I have a comfortable couch to sit on… no TV or Internet, but some DVDs. I’ll manage.

When it was time to decide what to do with the day’s hike, I ruled out everything with water. It’s very windy and overcast so the peaks were out of the question as well. The obvious thing that remained was ravines – time to check out the Evagraven ravine that I have spoken of rather dismissingly this summer.

Although it was supposed to be overcast, the sun made some welcome appearances on occasion. As I was looking down on the ravine, I saw a yellow rowan that was lit up in the distance and it attracted me like a moth to a flame, because it was really the only tree with any colour on it. While I was walking down to it, I got a good look at the ravine and I had to admit that maybe I’ve been overly harsh on Evagraven. The sheer size of it makes it interesting and the photo opportunities are not as hard to find as I had experienced on previous visits. On the other hand, it’s been many years since my last visit and I’ve learned a few things since then… things like using a wideangle lens, for example! I’m still having a blast with the Tokina and it’s pretty much permanently set on 16mm and I’m already wishing I would’ve gotten something wider.

On the way back, I stopped at the little brook and finally checked if I could use any filters with the Tokina. I had high hopes about the Cokin B/Y polarising filter and sure enough, it works! Since it’s made for the filter holder, it has a square shape and because the filter element itself is round, it leaves me generous corners for holding the filter. I can then place it against the petals (the built-in glare guard) of the lens without needing to worry about scratching either the lens or the filter. The crop factor of the camera allows me to use the filter like this even at 16mm without any dark corners. I also have a normal Cokin polariser but for some reason it has a round shape which makes it harder to hold properly and it’s also too small to be safely placed against the petals because there is no margin of error between the edge of the filter and the petals. Slip it one mm in any direction and there’s a risk it will touch the front element of the lens. So I have to settle with the B/Y filter but it’s better than nothing, especially this autumn because the golden end of the filter can add a touch of colour to an otherwise colourless scenery!

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.

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!

What a dark day. Too dark for bird photography (although I tried – ISO 1600, f4, shutter speed 1/50…  doesn’t quite work), but just right for waterfalls. I drove to Hylströmmen, sort of. The freeze period last followed by the thaw and rain in the past days had turned the road into a mud track. When I almost got stuck, I decided it was close enough and walked the last 2.5 km to the falls. I can risk breaking my skull on the slippery wet cliffs but I won’t risk my car sinking in a mud pit!

And the falls then… I’m glad I didn’t even try to drive the car all the way. It certainly wouldn’t have been worth it. Note to self: don’t bother with Hylströmmen again. Ever. I just can’t make it work, I’ve been here a few times already but the number of keepers is alarmingly low. I mean, it’s a nice enough place to visit for sure, but photographically speaking, how do you capture it? If I don’t know it by now, I never will. Need to find new waterfalls!

We had a long trip to the Orsa-Finnmark today. The weather was anything but photogenic, overcast and very windy so the grand view we had from our first stop at Finnberget was wasted. Since my only picture from the place is not a very good, I won’t post it but I couldn’t resist using the name in the post title (“A Finn on Finnberget”)! Finnberget is situated on top of a mountain at 638m in the western-most reaches of the Gävleborg county.

From Finnberget we drove south via Tjäderåsen and then turned west towards the Ämåsjön lake. And this road was a real discovery! The road goes very high, almost at 600m so the landscape takes on some sub-alpine features. There are big areas of marshland surrounded by forest covered hills and the really special thing here is that the hills really are covered by forest instead of ruined by logging. So this is definitely a road I will be driving again, but under better conditions so it’s possible to take pictures.

Then we followed the Ämån river south-east. There’s a couple of waterfalls along the way, the first one was a disappointment (just like Storstupet and Helvetesfallet I visited a couple of years ago, they are further downstream) but the second one was marginally better. But still, the most interesting part of the falls was the path there. I usually don’t shoot wideangles in the forest because I’m just not able to bring any order into chaos, but this half-fallen tree provided enough of a focal point for me to compose around it. And for this picture, it was the right weather!

Instead of following the river all the way to E45, we swung north towards Vässinjärvi because we also wanted to take a look at Korpmäck (Korpimäki). It’s about 20m higher than Stora [big] Korpimäki we visited a couple of weeks ago, so I’m just wondering, shouldn’t it be called Större [bigger] Korpimäki? (LOL) On the map it looks like it would be possible to get some pictures of the mountain with marshland or a tarn in the foreground, and this time reality turned out be as I imagined it. Except, not in this weather of course.

So now I have two new places I have to visit some other time in better conditions. And I’m fairly sure that there will be a lot more to shoot that these two places, I just need to get the timing right!

There is a really nice waterfall close to the road between Hede and Funäsdalen. As usual, it’s not signed from the road so you need to do your research beforehand to find out it’s there. The creek is called Rändån and the waterfall is Rändåfallet.

When you come from the direction of Hede, you will pass thru a small village called Långå. About 8 km from the T-junction in Långå (a road branches off to the right but you continue straight on the 84), the road crosses over two creeks. In between the bridges, there’s a yellow sign for “Långå 7″ for a gravel road. Look right and you’ll see a parking lot and a large information board – that’s where you park the car! And now you just hike the very easy trail 1 km through a pine forest to get to the foot of the falls. The trail is level and dry (unless it’s been raining a lot) so you don’t even need any hiking boots to manage it. But then if you want to follow the falls up (which you will definitely want to do!), you have to work a bit harder to get up the steep hill. But it’s still easy.

The first part of the falls is wide but it falls in many smaller falls instead of one big. It takes some searching but you’ll find some nice angles to shoot those smaller falls close to the right bank where the trail is. When you get past this part of the falls, the creek levels off a little bit so now there’s a series of smaller falls. About 300 m further upstream, there’s another big waterfall and that’s as far as you need to go.

As usual with waterfalls, their photo worthiness depends a lot on the volume of water running down. My personal preference is low volume because it reveals more textures and forms, so the best time to visit is late summer and autumn. However, I think that Rändån is regulated upstream from the falls so the volume of water might not always be relative to the season. You’ll get an idea of the situation already from the main road where the bridge crosses over the creek so if it looks like there’s too much or too little water, you might want to save the visit for another day.

Rändåfallet is perhaps not the most photogenic waterfall and it certainly takes some work to find the best angles. It’s a very nice place though so if you’re at all interested in waterfalls, it’s well worth the visit and you should never leave the camera in the car!

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(Edit 2010-09-18)

I paid another visit to the falls and this time walked all the way up to the top falls that I missed the last time around (even if I wrote that they’re there). It just confirms my opinion of this place, the top falls were just as nice (or even nicer) than the lower falls. The top falls are kind of in two parts, the picture shows the upper part. When you get to this viewpoint, the trail goes up very steeply but it’s not worth the climb, there’s nothing to see so only do it if you want the exercise.

There was also very little water in the creek at this time, some of the falls pictured above no longer existed. Any less water and there wouldn’t be any falls to shoot at all!

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!

Time to wrap up this holiday, but I had plenty in store for today. First, I drove to Ramundberget and hiked the 3 km to Klinken. The black vanilla orchid (Gymnanedia nigra, or Nigritella nigra) should be in bloom and I was very curious to see how it was doing this year, last year I had only found four individuals. It was certainly more than four this year – I counted 29! Maybe I counted 2-4 of them twice, maybe I covered a slightly bigger area than last year, maybe they were blooming earlier this year… but whatever way you look at it, the vanilla orchid had multiplied in numbers. What have I said about 2009 being a good orchid year?

After Klinken, I drove to Rockvallen. For two reasons, first, to have a waffle at Knallen, and second, take a look around the marshland because this is normally a good place for orchids and other flowers. For the hike up to Knallen I decided to travel light and left the camera bag in the car, only had the G10 with me. It was such a liberation to be walking without that heavy pack on my back! All my photo excursions would be so much nicer if I could shave off a few kilos from the bag. But it means leaving behind the camera and tripod, which doesn’t make much of a photo excursion… Anyway, I took the shortcut to the Knallen cabin which means that the trail was a bit steep in the end, but the view was magnificent so I was only too happy to stop for a breather so I could take in the sights as well. The hike up there is well worth it, not just for the waffles but really just for the view. 360 degrees of mountains, it’s hard to beat – I can really recommend it if you’re ever around Bruksvallarna!

The marshland starts right from the parking lot, so when I got back down I swapped my hiking boots for wellingtons and G10 for the heavy gear and started zigzagging around the marsh. At a risk of repeating myself, there were plenty of orchids – mostly early marsh orchid ssp. cruenta and fragrant orchids, but also heath spotted and lapland marsh orchids. Seemed like it was a bit early in the season though, I didn’t see much else in bloom yet… or it could also be that I was so blinded by the orchids that I didn’t have eyes for anything else. I have another week of holiday in the middle of July so I will visit Rockvallen again, it’s hard to beat it for ease of access anyway so you don’t have to kill your feet to find the flowers!

I left relatively early to catch the morning sun in a panoramic spot I discovered the other day. It was windier than anticipated though, but I took the pictures anyway because the scenery is a little bit unusual – the only place along this road between Funäsdalen and Ljungdalen where you can see the Sylarna mountains. I only know of one other road in this region where they can be seen (and I didn’t actually even realise that until later today when I drove past).

And then to Mittåkläppen. Since I’ve now given up on flower photography because the season is too early for them, I wanted to concentrate on scenery instead. There are a lot of mountain pastures around Mittåkläppen, so I picked a trail which leads past a few of them. It’s important to be there before noon, because the “backside” of the Mittåkläppen mountain becomes shaded around noon and I didn’t want that for my pictures. The only shade I had to worry now was the clouds and at one point I waited for an hour for the clouds to disappear. It really tried my patience… I mean, it was sunny all the way to the freakin’ Helags in the distance, but just not where my camera was aimed!

Having done my hike, I rewarded myself with a waffle at Djupdalsvallen. It’s their first day of the season, but the waffle was as good as ever! Walking around the place, I saw these marsh marigold in full bloom and the scene was just begging to be photographed. I waited until late afternoon and in order to pull off the composition, I needed something wider than the 24mm on my zoom lens (plus crop factor, of course). So I tried stitching, I wasn’t sure if it would work because I was so close to the flowers, but ICE didn’t have any problems with it!

I also did some scouting. Found a nice place, or rather, I finally stopped at this nice place I’ve driven past countless times… a small tarn with a great view towards to Skarsfjället. But it was too windy to make use of it today, in fact, it was too windy to make use of any of the ideas I had, because all of them had water in them! And then there was also a bank of clouds coming up from the west, which means that all the views towards Mittåkläppen were washed out. I decided that I’ve done enough for the day, with these clouds coming up the evening light won’t happen either.

Going home tomorrow, the butterfly orchids will be open by now… and then back to the mountains later in the week again.

I’ve no special plans for this year’s vacation – just mountains. I started with a de-tour to Klövsjö, I wanted to check out the Fettjeåfallet waterfall. It was a sunny day so not really ideal for waterfalls, but at least I’d get to see the place. It’s a relatively short hike – about 2 km – but very rocky. But there’s also plenty to photograph along the way, and it’s this “along the way” that makes Fettjeåfallet one of the better waterfalls I’ve seen.

I had made the radical decision of taking the film camera (and the G10) on this excursion. The contrasty light in the forest is a nightmare for any camera so every time I wanted a picture I waited for a cloud to drift in. With the G10, I was able to use bracketing for HDR. And I must say I struggled a great deal with that. Every single time I’m on the field and need the bracketing function, I forget how to use it! And what kills me is that it’s not difficult, but I just can’t remember the combination of buttons to press. Because there’s that bracketing function, I can set it, I can even choose the interval… but the darn camera totally ignores my settings. So I’m missing some crucial last step in the process. Which leaves me doing manual bracketing, which takes too long, when the clouds are moving fast and thus changing the conditions of shadows and light in the composition. When I get home, I’ll have to check the manual and write down some notes and put them in the bag. I refuse to let a compact camera beat me.

But the film camera then. Not enough functions to get confused! The only custom function I need is the mirror lockup, but just in case, I carry the manual in the bag. You know, the good old days when you actually got a hardcopy of the manual. When I was walking back to the car, I was wondering why I’m not a least bit bothered about whether or not the slides will be any good. All too easy to botch the exposure in these conditions, and I didn’t even bracket. And I realised – the final picture is not that important! I’ve always said that the journey is more important than the goal, and it truly is. Good pictures are just a bonus. Sweet!