A short trip to Arvidsjaur – Starter Dec 29 2015

This article is part of the series “2015-12: Short trip to Arvidsjaur”.

On the day after Christmas Annika and I thought about making a short trip to the “inland” where weather is colder and snow depth is bigger. What about Arvidsjaur for example where I’ve been six weeks before. It’s only two hours away. We looked for a room to stay overnight but we weren’t lucky in finding a room that was (a) affordable, (b) nice and (c) free.

Therefore I asked on Facebook if someone would have a tip or even better a stuga – a cottage. Ten minutes later Pär, a friend in Skellefteå, answered and offered us his private stuga for as long as we want to stay. What a great offer!

The next day we packed the car with warm cloths, food, snow shoes, camera equipment, bed clothes and a lot of water (which the stuga lacks) and drove to Arvidsjaur. Round 9:30 we arrived and were glad that neighbours already started the main heating, since it was -12 °C outside. After unpacking the car and switching on the others electric radiators we made a short trip by foot. Days are still short – 3 hours, 12 minutes this day – and as short was our trip. Mostly we walked in the shadow of the pine trees, first on the small road, than on a snowmobile track, but sometimes the low sun shimmered through a gap in the trees.

When we stood at the lake we could see Arvidsjaurs local tree-covered mountain with some ski slopes cut into the wood. Left of it was another mountain, that was completely treeless and snow covered. It looked quite high. How far it might be? Round the corner or many miles away? We planned to check this the next day.

Evening was calm – inside as outside. Stars twinkled above the frozen and snow covered lake right behind the house. The next photo is taken from the terrace. The photo reveals to types of light that were invisible in real life: The pink gleam of Arvidsjaur and a the greenish glow of a very faint polar light.

Winter journey in a nutshell Nov 19 2015

It snowed in Skelleftehamn tonight. It’s hardly a secret, that I love winter, snow and coldness. In Skelleftehamn however it would be too warm, because the Baltic Sea is near.

Therefore I decided yesterday to take a day off today, take camera and car and travel towards winter. In the inland the climate is colder and hopefully there would be more snow. I started at 6:45 in darkness. The first part was no fun to drive. Road salt is used on the big road to Skellefteå and the road further west. With temperatures slightly below zero you always have a film of muddy saltwater on your windscreen while the wipers still are partly frozen and will not work properly. That in combination with approaching cars with bright lights makes it hard to see and much concentration is needed.

That instantly got better when I left the big road 95 (that would bring me to Bodø in Norway) right after Jörn. The smaller roads are covered with ice and hard snow – much easier to drive and the windscreen stays clear. And it looks much more like winter than a wet road. And while in Skelleftehamn even the duck pond is open, here the lakes and some small streams are ice and snow covered.

I continued the road and drove to Storklinten, a small ski hill. Well, it wasn’t so interesting yet with only round about 10 cm snow, but the lake nearby – Lill-Klintträsket – was really nice. It started snowing and the tree covered hills farther away seemed to vanish into a white nothing.

The way to Storklinten is a dead-end road and I had to return. I continued the larger road to Myrheden looking for motives. And I found one. The small river Ålsån:

I was glad I had my chest waders with me, so I could come quite near to the motive. And there were a lot of motives this day. For example reindeers. The first small flock was extremely shy and cautious. It didn’t dare to pass my car and left the road starring at me suspiciously from behind the small trees. You can see that they digged for food in the snow, the noses are snow covered and one of the reindeers even had a twig hanging in its antlers.

Further on the road: Town signs with funny looking names (there was even a village called Hej, which is Swedish for hello), more snow covered roads and trees and two extremely well educated reindeers going beside the road in single file.

I’m looking for motive especially, where there are crash barriers beside of the road – there the street will probably cross a river or a creek. Some of them are open, many broader ones with less current are already covered with ice. And on one of them – far away – I could see a reddish animal and some dark spots. A fox? Birds? I looked for the next parking opportunity – sometimes a real challenge – and walked back.

I was right: There was a fox. And some kind of skeleton, perhaps a roe deer or a reindeer. And some crows. And an eagle! It doesn’t happen often, that I see eagles nearby where I live. I made some photos with my tele lens. Zooming in I could even see some magpies hopping around hoping for a snack. The scene was much too far away to get good pictures, but anyway, I want to show you this one:

After a while I started to get hungry. My car too; the red R-lamp has been glowing for a while. Anyway, the town Arvidsjaur, todays destination, was not so far away anymore. As people in former days first fed their horses before eating themselves I first tanked my car with E95, then myself with beef, mashed potato, mushroom sauce and salad. Then I looked around in the city which I think is really nice. Especially in winter with snow – round 20 cm today.

Even if the “real winter” is not here yet the days are already quite short: Sunset in Arvidsjaur was a quarter past two! At three o’clock I started to use the car’s full beam, half an hour later it was quite dark. Time to head home. I couldn’t see any motives any longer and I navigated to the main road. Now driving became exhausting again for a while since it started to snow quite heavily. And if you use full beam while snowing you just see a tunnel of snow flakes swooshing towards you. It’s a big like old televisions science fiction series, when the spaceships activated their warp-drives. And as in space there is no up or down. The second photo may give you a faint idea.

Luckily the snow shower ended soon and the rest of the trip was just about coming home.

400 km and 500 meters – 11 hours 30 minutes – a straining but great one day trip winterwards.

Back again in Skelleftehamn: Snow is gone, it’s pitch black and it’s raining cats and dogs.

Two sides of an autumnal morning Oct 7 2015

A cold side and a warm side. The difference? 19 Minutes and 500 meters.

It’s really fascinating that even larger water areas than mud puddles start to freeze over after just three mornings with temperatures below freezing; today round about -5 °C.

From Nallo to Vistas, Alesjaure, Abiskojaure and back to civilization Sep 11 2015

This article is part of the series “2015-08: Kungsleden hike”.

August 30 – September 2: Day eight to eleven of the summer hike through the mountains of Swedish Lapland

Nallo – Vistas

After two days in Nallo Annika and I were eager and keen to move on. After our breakfast we said goodbye to stugvärd Janne and started to ford the stream behind of the hut. Fortunately the water level dropped to normal again and quite easily we could cross the stream.

Then we went along the Nallú, a fantastic mountain that changed its appearance every other second because of the moving clouds and the changing light situations. We never tired of looking at this big mountain that seemed to accompany us a long way.

After a while another stream that we had to cross, came down from the lake Nállujávrrit. While I managed to splash through with my high rubber boots, Annika decided to take of her shoes and wade through it in her sandals – brr, the water was really ice cold!

We continued the hike through the fast-changing scenery. Quite soon we saw the first trees and realised that the big mountain ahead was the Vássačorru, that lies behind the valley Visttasvággi, where our next destination, the Vistasstuga is located.

Soon we crossed the Visttasjohka on the chain bridge and arrived at the cabin to meet the stugvärd – the warden.

Oh look: Coke and beer are priced down! That’s because the season only lasts three other weeks. After that the huts are closed down until their reopening for the skiers in February or March. But because none of the cans would survive the frost, all liquids has to be drunk in the next three weeks or poured away. We decided to save some cokes from this cruel destiny.

We were placed in the outhouse – the main building was in the act of being renovated. There we sat on the front stairs, ate, drank and looked on the river Visttasjohka. And we took a bath in this cold river. Chilling but refreshing! Finally the sun came out. I crossed the bridge to make a photo of our cabin.

Later – it started getting dark – we got a visitor: A big moose stood beside the river. I went out, where I could observe this huge animal, how it ate leaves and grass, less than 10 meters away. It looked at me but wasn’t disturbed by me at all, it even passed quite near until it vanished between some trees. This was one of the moments were I was glad and touched as a “normal person”, but a bit grumpy with myself, that I was too lazy to carry my big tele lens for better and sharper pictures. I never experienced a moose so near and so fearless.

Vistas – Alesjaure

The trip the day before was short: only 9 kilometres, this day it would be twice as much: 18 km. The first kilometres were a bit boring since they went through birch forests and quite muddy passages. But after a while the landscape opened and we could see the mountain Siehtagas with its glacier Siehtagasglaciären. In front of the mountain there were alpine meadows and small birch forests. In front of that the turquoise water of the Visttasjohka glimmered in the sunlight.

Siehtagas mountain and Visttasjohki river

We went up again until we again were over the treeline. This part of the valley Visttasvaggi is beautiful and very varying. The first rest we made in the lee side of a huge cuboid rock. We weren’t the first – someone built a bench by laying a plank over two stones. The second rest we made at the Tjatjajaurekåtan (there’s not much left of it).

After a while I saw some reindeers grassing. There were shy and quickly went away when I came nearer. We saw (probably) them again when we had a view at the sami village Alisjávri that lies at the lake with the the same name. From that it’s not far to the mountain huts of Alesjaure – the Swedish version of Alisjávri. The Alesjaurestugorna are the biggest mountain huts of the STF – the Swedish tourist association. I prefer the smaller ones as e.g. Nallo, but it’s fine to have a shop, a drying room and especially a sauna. And we used it all! It’s nice to go to sleep after being in the sauna and having a wash in the river Aliseatnu.

Alesjaure – Abiskojaure

I didn’t make many pictures of this part of our tour. I was a bit bored of this part of the trail and found nothing special in the landscape. Just some photos of human evidence: Tent poles for a lavvu and a crossing over a long reindeer fence.

It was the first time, that I was really impatient and just wanted to arrive. Some kilometres before Abiskojaure we came below the treeline. Most of the birch trees still were green but you could see, that autumn is near. No wonder, it was the 1st of September, beginning of autumn for the meteorologists.

Finally we reached another chain bridge and shortly after it arrived in Abiskojaure. The sun came out and even though it was much colder than one week ago we could sit and lie on the short-cut lawn in front of the hut. I took the last bath of the journey and strolled around making some photos. After crossing a small swamp I came to a quite huge sandy beach beside the lake Ábeskojávri. A beautiful place!

The evening it started to become chilly, hardly 3 °C. I was curious if we would get the first frost of the season next morning …

Abiskojaure – Abisko Östra

… and yes, we got frost. -2.5 °C showed the scientific thermometer of the swedish weather service, when I had my first look. On the water surface of the buckets lay a layer of ice and round the leaves of lower plants I could see the first autumnal hoarfrost.

The first frost: Ice covered water in the bucket

I was up very early that morning and I went to the beach at the lake again. First it looked quite normal but then it started to get foggy and misty while the sun rose behind the mountain Giron. What a beautiful sight! I stood there for at least an hour and only walked back to get another full battery for my camera. Later I met Annika, showed her the place and was glad that I could share this awesome experience.

I was a bit sad – this would be the last day of hiking through the wonderful mountain landscape of Swedish Lapland. But each journey has some kind of end and so had ours. We started our tour through the birth forests along the lake Ábeskojávri, than along the river Abiskojåkka.

After a while a famous landmark came into sight: Lapporten – “The Lapponian Gate”, a U-shaped valley framed of two mountains that give this valley its specific and recognizable shape. However, since this photo is taken from the backside, it hardly shows this special shape.

Since Alesjaure we followed the Kungsleden – the King’s Trail, but right after the bridge over the stream Nissonjohka we left the main trail that leads to the Abisko Mountain Station and turned right to Abisko Östra, the village, were we planned to stay for two other days. The way, however, was not much fun to go. A lot of all-terrain vehicles has turned the way into mud. Since I lost my lens cap and I was afraid that mud would splatter my lens, I packed the camera into its waterproof bag long before the worst mud patches. And that’s why this is the last photo of our hiking tour:

Thank you Annika, för trevligt sällskap – for nice company. Where should we hike next?

Any suggestions?

From Nikkaluokta to Kebnekaise Fjällstation Sep 6 2015

This article is part of the series “2015-08: Kungsleden hike”.

August 23: Day one of the summer hike through the mountains of Swedish Lapland

It’s hardly imaginable that it was only two weeks ago, that Annika and me started our tour through the mountains of Swedish Lapland.

On Saturday, August 22 I shouldered my packed backpack and travelled from Skelleftehamn to Nikkaluokta, this time not by car but by bus and train: The bus to Skellefteå, the bus to Luleå, the train to Kiruna, the bus to Nikkaluokta. The journey took the whole day – hardly surprising, it’s more than 550 kilometres and travelling in Northern Sweden takes time.

The most popular way through the Swedish mountains is the kungsleden, the “King’s trail”. It’s not only possible to sleep in cabins, you even can buy food in some of them to keep your package small. We however preferred another route on the Norwegian side. There’re cabins, too, but you cannot buy food. That’s why we started with quite heavy backpacks that included food for more than a week. (It included my camera, three lenses and a tripod as well, but that’s another story …)

Sunday morning was a sunny morning and already very warm. Our destination today: The Kebnekaise Fjällstation, 19 km away. We started our trip right behind the cabins of Nikkaluokta and soon we left “civilisation” and were out in the beautiful Lappish nature.

But we were not alone. Some other hikers were on their way but most of all there were a lot of helicopters flying there and back. Soon we gave up counting them, they were too many. We were glad that the aerial traffic calmed down after a while.

Our first stop was the beginning of the lake Láddjujávri, quite popular for two reasons: Here you can take a boat over the lake to shorten your trip to the Kebnekaise Fjällstation and you can eat a reindeer burger at “Lap Dånalds”. We neither took the boat (too lazy) or a burger (too early), but we ate waffles with cloudberry jam. Tasty!

The day was really warm: 24 °C. You even may call it hot when you carry 20 kilos on your back. Beads of sweat ran down and before we ordered our waffles, I took a bath in the fresh and cool water of the lake.

After a quite long and relaxed rest we continued our tour. The path is extremely well marked and changes between rocky and wet parts. Almost all wet and muddy passages are bridged with spångar – wooden walkways – but there are exceptions …

After 6 km walk we came to the other pier. Time for a rest, some water and food and another bath. This part of the lake was much colder and the bath was merely a dip into the icy water.

What a nice resting place: Warm, quite and not too many mosquitoes. It was hard to get up and to continue, both because of the great weather and our heavy backpacks that felt quite uncomfortable on the very first day of our hiking trip. But finally we managed to pick ourselves up and continued.

After a while the first chain bridge came into view: The bridge over the Darfáljohka. That meant, it was less than two kilometres to the Kebnekaise Fjällstation where we would stay over night. But before that I saw the first patch of snow. As a snow lover I just had to take a picture of it even though I knew it wouldn’t be the last snow on our journey.

Finally we arrived at the mountain lodge which is quite huge. The Kebnekaise is the highest Swedish mountain and so the lodge is used by many people: Hikers, climbers, mountaineers, and fly-in tourists – remember the helicopters?

Annika invited me to dinner – thank you, Annika! – but sadly it was a bit disappointing. The restaurant changed the menu without letting us know in advance and the cod was so soaked in butter that it hardly had any own taste left. Anyway the starters were great!

But anyway – a really nice first day of our tour.

Main building of the Kebnekaise Fjällstation (taken on the next day)

Storberget Jun 21 2015

Storberget – “The big mountain!” A bit more than 90 meters high, which sounds completely ridiculous, if you live in Norway, near the alps or another place that has real, big mountains. But Storberget is a mountain, too, with a lot of rocks, a small ravine and a view on the near Baltic Sea and some islands. And it’s near, just fifteen minutes by car and a walk through the forest.

Valborgsmässoafton May 1 2015

Valborgsmässoafton, that’s the Swedish name of the Walpurgis Night, which is celebrated on April 30, which is today (or has been 15 minutes before). A friend invited me to celebrate valborgsmässoafton with her family in Aspliden and I accepted gladly.

Beside of nice people to celebrate with you need three ingredients for a typical valborgsmässoafton:

1. Good food.

In this case a so called “Smörgåstorta” – a sandwich cake which is a very popular dish for special days as today.

2. A big bonfire.

The bigger the better. It can be quite hard to light a bonfire, because the cut down trees, twigs and branches are mostly very cold and soaking wet.

3. Cold weather, preferably with wind and snow showers.

While the first half of the day was sunny, clouds came in in the afternoon and round 8 o’clock we got our first snow shower. Last year it snowed as well.

Most Swedish people don’t think at all that chilly and snowy weather must be a part of the valborgsmässoafton, put it’s quite typical.

And just an off-topic photo from today. Three whooper swans that I saw today at the same place.

A small sightseeing tour in Norsjö kommun Apr 26 2015

One of the disadvantages of a long journey as I made it this winter is that you cannot meet your local friends for a long time. It felt like ages ago, that I was in Kusfors to visit my good friends Martine and Lasse, that I got to know the very first day when I arrived in Skellefteå five years and some days ago.

Kusfors is 70 km away from my home and it usually takes my exactly one hour car drive. Yesterday it took longer since I made some detours. There’s a nice minor road along the river Skellefteälven which still is partly ice covered – at the end of April!

Skellefteälven – partly still ice covered

Martine, Lasse and I made a short trip to Norsjö and Lasse showed us around. For example the beautiful wooden church:

Or the ski slope nearby. (We where quite lucky that we didn’t get stuck in the rough clay road when we went up and down):

Or the farm shop in Svansele, that is specialised in carrots and is open 24-7.

But my favourite spot and motive was the old abandoned mill near Norsjö – Norrsjövallens kvarn:

I definitely have to visit this place again with more time and better light, probably in the evening, or even in the night time. (Perhaps with some polar light? …)

Addendum: A black and white version of the last motive:

Norsjövallens kvarn – black and white version

Two months ago – first aid course in Solberget Apr 21 2015

Day 31 – 38

Today when I look outside the window, I realised that winter finally has left Skelleftehamn. The patch of snow that I stood upon ten days ago to view the Northern Lights has melted away and some trees start to show their first little leaf buds.

Well – it looked different when I was in Solberget in Swedish Lapland two months ago, where a first aid course of the “Outdoorschule Süd” took place. The week was filled with many actions – both course units indoors and outdoors and leisure, too. If you are one of the course participant you will realise, that I left out quite much. That’s because I tried to keep the text very short – it’s more keyword style – and focus more on the photos.

Saturday

Arrival day: an incredible starry night with even a bit of faint Northern Lights

Sunday

Course unit outdoors, training recovery position (“Stabile Seitenlage”) – course unit indoors, training cardiopulmonary resuscitation (“Herz-Lungen-Wiederbelebung”) – and a beautiful coloured evening sky.

Monday

How to move injured people: a lot of teamwork is needed – frost patterns again – Lars, the Sámi, tells us about the reindeer herding

Tuesday

How to evacuate injured people from an observation tower – reindeer sledge ride. (No people were harmed)

Wednesday

Ski tour to Polcirceln, where we’ll stay to nights. I slept in my tent since the two cabins are really small.

My sleeping place for the next two nights

Thursday

A misty morning – another “real life case”: hypothermia – a beautiful dusk. (No people were harmed)

Friday

Ski tour back to Solberget – another fantastic dinner, this time: salmon.

Saturday (again)

The last day – many serious studies as: How many people fit into the igloo (Answer: all!) or who wins the snowball fight

Thank you, Angela and Stefan from the “Outdoorschule Süd” for a great week!

Deforestation in Skelleftehamn Apr 18 2015

When I moved to Skelleftehamn in July 2010 I directly fell in love with the nature around. The Baltic sea with the stony shores, the islands and the pine and birch forests. One place I really love is Storgrundet, which is name of both an island and the tiny sandy beach at the mainland. It’s my favourite starting point for kayaking, because you’re into nature directly, but I guess I have to wait some more days until I’ll be able to start there, since the sea is still partly ice covered. Two images of yesterday:

Storgrundet – a beautiful place. The way that leads to it however has changed. Last autumn it was framed of dense forest, now many of the trees are cut down and the way is framed by piles of tree logs. It brings to my mind that almost all forests in Sweden are no wild untouched primeval forests but commercial forests. There’re not only used for collecting berries and hunting moose, but for hugging down trees, too.

Now I’m sitting a bit on the fence – on the one hand I like wooden houses and furniture made of wood and I love to fire a cabin or a sauna with birch logs. On the other hand I really loved the forest around and when I walked cross-country today, I felt a bit sad seeing the clear-felled areas. I’m glad that the terrain is not too easy to enter with forestry machines. There are some really big rocks and many shallow ponds and swamps. I guess that’s why there’re a lot of single trees left. But it’s not the same anymore.

Now, that many trees are gone, you can look much farther and I realised, how many swampy areas were hidden in the woods. Now they are quite visible and they look fascinating and desolate at the same time.

I do not have anything against using the forest and cutting down trees, but anyhow I felt sad, when I walked through the destroyed landscape today.