The Quiet Picture

The sun sets pleasantly early in September, giving me nice opportunities to try to catch a nice sunset. I mean, go out for the sunset and come back for the evening tea… works perfect for me. But there’s a lot more to sunsets than just finding the right spot for shooting it!

Attempt 1

I was looking towards west but the sky was almost clear so there was nothing to shoot, but in the south there was this one cloud that looked perfect in relation to the trail, so I was in a hurry to set up the gear and shoot it before the light faded.

Attempt 2

Nothing. Zero. Zilch.

Attempt 3

It was a clear and sunny day which tempted me to drive out to make use of the evening light. I got the light, but what I really need is some nice clouds instead because the lack of autumn colours are not doing any favours to the light.

Attempt 4

Now we’re talking! I was really happy that my efforts were finally paying off, but then when I saw the pictures on the screen they just didn’t feel as nice as the sunset was when I was looking at it happening. I need more clouds.

Attempt 5

I got too much clouds. Above the horizon it was just right, but those clouds at the horizon obscured the sun so the sunset was so colourless that it was almost black and white anyway.

Attempt 6

Another nice evening that was looking very promising for the sunset, but then the light faded behind a bank of clouds in the western horizon.

Attempt 7

I would’ve converted this to B&W but I’ve already used that trick.

Attempt 8

I was out on the road and didn’t have time to find any nice sunset spot. Not that it mattered anyway, because once again the sun set behind some clouds in the horizon. But in the north, the high clouds were catching the last rays.

Attempt 9

I gave up. No matter how nice the day was, in the evening those pesky clouds in the horizon made the sunset a non-event again.

And that was it. If I didn’t catch a great sunset, it sure wasn’t because I wasn’t even trying!

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!

* * *

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!

The other day I lamented how I lacked patience and missed out on nice evening light. I speculated that it was no big loss though, there will be new opportunities. And guess what, I already had that opportunity and it was better than the one I missed! The evening was so calm that even the big lake provided reflections so I didn’t have to settle with the small tarn next to it. It didn’t start too good though, just when I got to my first spot a small cloud drifted in front of the sun and with so little wind, it took a while before it disappeared. In the meanwhile, I was looking at the sky quite frustrated because there was a really nice cloud formation above Ånnfjället. By the time I got the light, the formation had changed already. I almost wished that I had a real wideangle though, so I could contain the foreground and enough of the sky to show the remains of the nice cloud formation. So I used stitching instead, three verticals and it still wasn’t quite enough…

But after that initial wait, it was all good. It was quite an incredible evening, it was warm and the light was great and the water was calm and my mosquito proofing worked, didn’t get bitten once despite the clouds of insects surrounding me every time I stopped. It was already close to sunset when the next cloud drifted in front of the sun, so I had to wait again. But by then I already had a lot of pictures so I decided that I will wait just this one more and then call it quits, it was a perfect evening as it was.

I really can’t describe what a feeling it was to experience an evening like this. My head was full of the impressions and I was wondering if my pictures would do any justice to the scenery. But it turned out that it wasn’t over yet – I had barely driven 50 m from the parking when I looked towards the sunset and saw the mountains silhouette against the warm sky. I quickly pulled over and grabbed the camera one more time. Imagine, I even got the peak of Sylarna that I missed yesterday!

I’m almost thinking that this should be the last picture from my vacation. Wouldn’t it be a perfect ending?

* * *

My furniture arrived before noon, so I spent the day putting it all together. It worked out nicely, because it left me plenty of energy to do this evening excursion. Not like some days when I’m so tired that I’m just hoping that it would be a windy and overcast evening!

* * *

I came back so late that I didn’t have time to do any proper post processing and now that I’m posting this, I’m sitting in daylight which definitely is no good for evaluating pictures (the post is back dated, obviously). I will have to go through all of my pictures next week at home, so there’s a risk that I will be posting more holiday pictures later…

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

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

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 had a couple of visitors today, one of them all the way from Spain. It would’ve been really nice to show some beautiful mountains to him, but the powers that be decided otherwise. It was raining, and if it wasn’t rain then it was drizzle. But the autumn colours are there, no matter the weather. So hopefully not a complete loss.

Since great scenery was not to be had, the highlight of the day was the waffle at Djupdalsvallen. I love their waffles, I really do. A vacation wouldn’t be complete without one!

On the way home (or hostel), the miracle of light happened, even if it was very brief. Having been raining on all day, the cold wind was biting through me and it was a relief to see the light disappear so I could go inside to warm up!

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!