The Quiet Picture

Just when I thought that it was all over, we got a new snow front and lucky enough for the temperatures to keep just on the right side of freezing. So the scenery is looking fabulous right now, with beautiful fresh snow covering the landscape. As I was walking around, I didn’t mind at all that I will have to wait just that much longer before I can take my Tricker for a ride. Live in the moment!

I’m not complaining, we got more snow. But I am just a little bit disappointed about the wind, so the beautiful new powder is spoiled by the wind blown debris. I guess that’s what they call a luxury problem…

Not that it matters that much anyway, at the moment. I’m still fighting the remains of a cold I caught on that memorable day on Flatruet last week. It’s been two years since my last cold and I got off easy again, I’m definitely not complaining!

But it all means that I settled for just a small walk in the forest, concentrating on small landscapes and then playing in Lightroom, blowing out the whites for a semi-high key image (and cloned out some debris on the snow).

This is it - the day I have been waiting for!

My requirements for shooting the full moon are very specific. I’m not interested in the moon for the sake of itself, I mean when you’ve seen one moon frame-filler, you’ve seen them all. What can you say? “Nice composition”? Nope, that just doesn’t do it for me. I want the moon to be a part of a landscape, and it immediately raises the level of difficulty - expensive long glass is not the tool for that trade. My ideal moon landscape photo requires a moonset/moonrise that coincides with sunrise/sunset, so there’s nice light everywhere. Unfortunately, those opportunities are very rare. The moonset/moonrise times don’t always coincide with sunrise/sunset, and even when they do, there’s always the issue of weather. Not to mention the time of week. The full moon has a bad habit of happening while I’m sitting in the office!

So, that’s the preface to my actual story.

I left the cabin after 8am and drove to my selected moonset spot with a view towards Skarsfjället, Mittåkläppen and Stor-Axhögen. When I arrived, the moon was still high above Mittåkläppen but it was making its way down between the mountains, which forced me to create veeeery long panoramas. Yesterday morning the moon was setting right next to Stor-Axhögen, but like I mentioned earlier, the clouds spoiled the opportunity.

The biggest panorama I have is 20×175 cm (@ 300 dpi), this version is cropped short from the right so you make any sense out of it at all. The only way I’ll ever be able to admire the full size is if I have it printed in some specialist print shop!

After the moon had set, I had another skiing trip. I actually took the same trail I did yesterday, and now the mystery of the half prepared, uncharted trail was revealed to me - it’s not a snowmobile trail at all, but it’s used by the snowcat that brings up skiers from Funäsdalen! But I still don’t know why it had made a U-turn in the middle of nowhere, I guess they didn’t like the weather and turned back.

All I needed to do now was to drive to Flatruet and wait for moonrise/sunset. It was biting cold, I mean not the temperature as such (-10 degrees centigrade), but the wind that made it twice so. I didn’t care. The wind was blowing right through my supposedly windproof clothes, but I was finally witnessing - and photographing - the full moon rise on Flatruet and I was able to close that ugly chapter from three years ago when I had made a right old mess of a rare photographic opportunity. How lucky was I to have one of the finest days in January to fall on the full moon?

* * *

As it turns out, today was indeed my lucky day.

I had cruise control installed in my car last year. It’s not a very smart cruise control, so I’ve learned to disconnect it under some circumstances when I know it will just go crazy. So I was cruising along when I got close to one of those cruise-control-will-go-crazy stretches so I disconnected and the car started to slow down because I didn’t step on the gas right away. And right then - a moose crossed the road in front of me.

Where would I have been in relation to the moose had I not disconnected the cruise control and the car slowed down?

I thought I was unlucky yesterday to drop and break my GPS unit on the ski. Well, you win some and you lose some. I won.

Sleep deprivation, some bad decisions, poor timing and boring weather resulted in zero pictures yesterday. I was hoping for better today, and I guess it was… at least I slept better.

It was one of those days which start with some disappointments but end up just fine. I tried to catch the moonset, but it was too cloudy for that. I wasn’t too bothered about that though, just made my way to start of my planned skiing trip. I took the snowmobile trail from Hållan towards the Malmbäckstugan cabin, except the funny thing is that the trail that I followed actually swung a little bit north from that, and then ended right in the middle of nowhere. What I mean is that they had prepared the trail only halfway - I could see Malmbäckstugan ahead of me on the left, and the trail markings were leading to the Lill-Skarven mountain right in front of me. Which was a bit strange, considering that the map said that this trail would go to Malmbäckstugan on the left. So what would I do? Turn back and scramble to come up with Plan B, or ski ahead on the fresh snow to get on the south-north trail between Tänndalen - Bruksvallarna? Since I already had had to resort to a plan B yesterday, I decided to make my own trail so I headed on. There was a fairly hard crust on the snow which carried me most of the time, except for the last 200 m with the crust breaking constantly under my skis. Had it been like that for the first 200 m, I would have turned back!

No more mishaps (not counting the part where I dropped my GPS unit right on the ski (as opposed to the soft snow all around the skis) and the screen cracked) on the way to my car so I just drove back towards Messlingen and admired the beautiful sunset light on the mountains around me. The cloudwork was a bit patchy, so for example Ånnfjället was just gorgeous while Mittåkläppen and Stor-Axhögen were shaded. While I was looking at Stor-Axhögen and wondering if the clouds would part for long enough, I saw the peak of Helagsfjället behind it, bathed in the orange light - so straight to Flatruet for a closer view! It was just amazing… I don’t often get to see a winter sunset in the mountains!

Dunsjöfjällen in sunset light (cropped from top and bottom for a panorama)

* * *

Could someone please tell me the secret to blister-free skiing? I’ve tried two kinds of boots, I wear Compeed plasters, I put on extra padding between my heel and the boot, worn double socks… but it still hurts! So the Compeed prevented blisters on the area the plaster covered, but now I have a blister right above it. Is there anything that works?! New feet?

It’s time for all play no work! I have booked myself for a long weekend in Messlingen, long being four days. The reason I chose this weekend is that it’s full moon on Tuesday and ever since a botched attempt to shoot the full moon on Flatruet three years ago, I’ve been obsessed to get a good picture of mountains under a full moon. So the plan was to use the first three days for scouting, and then be ready for the big day. What I didn’t plan on is that a big storm would hit Sweden today, so my scouting consisted of a loop in a snow covered mountain forest, the last stretch of the loop in a heavy headwind. The really big winds hit us later in the evening and I can hear the wind blow around the cabin as I write this. It will be interesting to see what the scenery looks like tomorrow… It should get better anyway with a chance of clear skies, so I can start scouting. Actually, I don’t even need clear skies. Just reasonable visibility and a compass and I’m back in the game!

Snow covered forest in Messlingen (and it’s snowing)

We witnessed a strange light phenomenon today - the sun! When’s the last time I saw that? Some time last year anyway.

With a little help from the polarizer filter to lift the clouds against the pale winter sky

If I thought that yesterday was wonderful, then today was even better! More snow and less wind. When I set off, the trails were completely snowed over in some places as the snow mobiles hadn’t been around yet. The snow wasn’t too deep though to spoil skiing, so I enjoyed every second I spent out there. And after a while, the snow mobiles appeared and the tramped snow they left behind was even better to ski on.

I’m still a bit hesitant to ski on the lakes. Logic dictates that the ice holds, but my legs don’t seem to care about logic. They just refuse to cross the lakes, which forces to me to choose my routes carefully. At one point I thought I’d avoid the lake and just ski around it, but it was surrounded by marshland and the marsh is more treacherous than the ice. You can see these depressions in the snow and it’s a fair bet that there’s water underneath - water, not ice. I pushed a pole in one of the holes and it came back covered with slushy snow. In other places the snow hasn’t even covered the hole, so you can see the water. Never overestimate the safety of the snow cover. Even if sinking in one these holes is not as dangerous as falling through ice, it will still give you wet feet and a cold ride home!

Very light snowfall today, but all the more wind. A wonderful winter’s day, in other words.

It was also a bit dark today, so there was very little contrast. A few times I nearly tripped on the snow drifts because it was just simply impossible to see where the wind had piled up the snow. Like I said, a wonderful wintry day!

I had been planning to spend the Christmas holidays in the mountains, but the weather conspired against me. I was sorely needing to get out there though, to experience some proper snow in a beautiful setting. I finally got my chance, even if just for one day - so I contributed some CO2 and drove to Funäsdalen. A trip to the mountains just can’t be wrong!

Snow can transform the landscape, but it can’t do miracles. I really need to get out of the village and the find the real landscapes!