This image was taken with my iPhone SE, not with my Nikon camera that I usually take with me. I just forgot it home today. I don’t think, that the iPhone SE has or is a great camera because I’m quite picky when it comes to image quality. But it’s a great backup if you manage to keep it warm in the winter and some of the photos look quite nice.
It’s probably not the first time, that I use the word lagom in this blog. You could translate it with “just right”. Not too hot, not too cold – not too much, not too little. That’s lagom.
Just now the winter behaves lagom, too. Om Friday evening 5 cm of snow covered my garden, tonight it’s round 20 cm. Not 76 cm as last year, not 2 mm as the year before, just 20 cm. That’s lagom! Even the temperatures are quite moderate, lying round -5 °C.
I didn’t have much time to enjoy this winter, because I’ve worked quite much the last time. Today evening however I managed at least an evening promenade through the near forest, first along some ways and paths, then across country. It was snowing a bit and everything was quite. I could hear neither bird nor car, only the scrunching of the snow under my feet. Today I went afoot but I got my back-country skis from the garage hoping for more snow to come.
It became colder the last days. Yesterday temperatures were between -10 °C and -6 °C. Today it was warmer but still below zero the whole day. Especially the night before last was cold: coldest in Nattavaara with -23.8 °C but even in Åliden, just 33 km west, temperatures lay round -17 °C the whole night.
This morning I took the car to the bridge Sundgrundsbron that leads over the river Skellefteälven and pleasured in the wonderful sunrise colours. The sky in the east was coloured of warm shades of bright orange, while the sky in the west was more blue and purple, looking much colder.
Due to the stream parts of the Skellefteälven were still open but many parts were already covered with ice. Noises of cracking and clicking echoed through the air, clearly indicating that the ice was still fresh and quite thin.
A family of mute swans paddled over the river. Did they decide to stay or will they fly south? I hope they’ll cope the cold weather in case of staying.
If you look closer at the first photo you see a layer of clouds hovering above the horizon. The locals call this phenomenon “vinterväggen”, meaning “the winter wall”. It’s quite typical for this season and sometimes the whole eastern horizon is covered by a thick layer of clouds. According to a neighbour it’s this type kind of clouds that brings snow.
But according to the weather forecast tomorrow’s precipitation will come more as rain than snow.
C. and O., my best friends from Munich have been visiting me for some days. Today we made a car trip to Vindeln via Burträsk.
Contrary to the weather forecast the sun was shining, when we started. Right after Örviken, hardly 7 km from home I had to stop the car to look at the bay Ytterviksfjärden. Larger parts had frozen over under the last two days and were covered with a thin layer of fresh snow. The first sunny “winter photo” of the season!
The road between Falmark and Hjoggböle – hometown of Per Olov Enquist – was snow covered and hardly any other car appeared. Mist lay on the snowy ground, illuminated by the sun in warm yellow and orange. The whole scenery looked extremely beautiful and a bit fantastical. I was really glad to share this special mood with my friends instead of a cold November rain.
When we approached Burträsk clouds had started to cover the sky and the sun was hidden. It was so foggy, that the lake Burträsket hardly could be seen. We continued without stopping and arrived in Vindeln round 11 o’clock. While O. vas visiting a business acquaintance, C. and I made a long promenade along the river Vindelälven. It was grey in Vindeln and sometimes it snowed a bit. So the scenery was wintry as well but completely different from the colourful hazy atmosphere some hours ago.
Autumnal colours, blue sky and afternoon sun – this is the golden aspect of autumn. Time to wade into the shallow waters of the river Skellefteälven and make some autumn pictures.
One week after autumnal equinox the sun sets at 18:18 but days get shorter soon. In my dreams the first snow had already fallen. This may turn into reality in some weeks.
Today I planned to make some autumnal pictures in the early evening. I took the car to the small boat harbour tjuvkistan in Skelleftehamn. It felt like ages ago that I had been there. On the way there I saw a ship anchored in the commercial port. I stopped and to my surprise it was a ship from my hometown: The “Seabass” from Bremen. Of course I had to take a picture:
I went on to tjuvkistan and took some photos with trees (and boat navigation lights) reflecting in the sea. Still many boats lay in the small harbour or were on the way from or to the islands, but soon most boat people will set their boats on land before the weather gets too cold.
Hopefully I will have some other opportunities to make more pictures as long the leaves have not fallen down.
The weather felt quite autumn-like the last days: Much rain, hardly any sun and temperatures between 5 °C and 12 °C. But most birch trees still bear green leaves and it will take some more weeks until leaf coloration is in full swing.
The common cranes and whooper swans however have started to gather. Delle, who is visiting me and I saw some hundred of them on the fields between Kusmark and Drängsmark yesterday. I guess they will fly southwards soon.
| English | German | Swedish | Latin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Common crane | Kranich | Trana | Grus grus |
| Whooper swan | Singschwan | Sångsvan | Cygnus cygnus |
This article is part of the series “2017-08: Kungsleden hike”.
From Alesjaure to Abiskojaure it’s round about 22 km to go. That’s the longest day’s march on that part of the Kungsleden. The first 7 km go along the lake Alisjávri which is good for a special reason: In summer there’s a boat shuttle service that allows hikers to skip this part. We all decided to take the boat, both to shorten the distance and to enjoy the boat trip itself.
Since the first regular boat starts at 10 o’clock we had a very relaxed breakfast with a lot of time. The quite large shop had fresh eggs so we had the pleasure of boiled eggs for breakfast. And very special egg cups …
The sun came out and illuminated the Alisvággi, the valley that leads to Tjäktja.
We went to the shipping pear already at 9:30, to go sure that we would find places on the boat. Andi ran up the yellow flag – the signal for the boatsman. The sun came out and I decided to take a bath. Not so easy, since the water was only knee-deep (and as icecold as expected).
Soon the boat arrived with stugvärd J. onboard. He was out fishing and succeeded: eight big arctic chars he caught.
At ten o’clock we departed. I could have stayed on the boat for hours, not only because I love to go by ship or boat, but even more because the sami boatsman had so much to tell.
He was living in Alesjávri for the summer “together with his dog and three common gulls” to run this transport business that he considers as a holiday. In September he would continue herding his reindeers. There are 17 families left in his sameby that do reindeer husbandry full time. (A sameby is kind of juridic and economical collective for reindeer husbandry.) He told us much more (all in Swedish) but after barely half an hour we arrived at the other shipping pear and went ashore.
When we started to walk it started to rain – bad timing. It was more a series of rain showers and I put on my hood and put it off again many times. Almost all mountains lay in the clouds, only the Ádnji seemed to have sun the whole time.
While we went on something chirped. Beep – Beep – (silence) – Beep … . We had heard that sound before on our hiking tour, but it was the first time that we could spot the matching bird. It was a golden plover as we figured out later. The bird was a bit nervous while I crawled nearer and nearer to get a photo, but it didn’t flee. Unfortunately my travel tele lens is not the best but I got a photo anyway.
We crossed the long reindeer fence that separates the sameby Laevas in the south and the sameby Gabna in the north. We just had to climb some stairs, where the Kungsleden crossed the border.
I knew that I had to say farewell to the treeless kalfjäll soon. In a short while we would enter the valley Gárddenvággi that would lead us deeper and deeper into more forested terrain. I was a bit sad, when i said farewell to that wonderful landscape.
The next kilometres were rainy, stony and muddy and we all just wanted to arrive in Abiskojaure, well knowing that it still would take some hours until we would arrive. I just trotted along and didn’t use my camera until we arrived in Abiskojaure. Here we finally made the photo of our four backpacks that we had talked about for days, but I was much too lazy to arrange it nicely.
The rain had stopped and the sun came out again so I took some last photos of the day, eager to eat something and to relax in the sauna.
Since Abiskojaure is the last hut before Abisko we found a lot of leftover food as dried vegetables, noodles or tuna sauce. That gave us a formidable afternoon meal. While we prepared for the sauna we heard, that there were moose on the other side of the lake. Indeed two female moose stood there in the wateraquatic plants. There were far away but we saw them dipping there heads into the water (they could hold their breeze really long) and eating aquatic plants. We saw them wading, swimming and shaking out the water. They had spotted us but knew that we were far away and no danger for them.
Katrin, Annika and Andi headed for the sauna, I watched a bit longer. When I went back to the hut I saw some others photoing something. It was a huge male moose, that stood amidst the huts and seemed to be not at all shy. I never saw a male moose so close! The moose went away, but stopped again, when he found rallarros flowers between the old toilet building and the wood shed. While watching us all the time he continued picking flowers with his huge mouth and eating them. At least twenty people stood there, watching, photographing and filming. Since all were quite sensible – no one was too hasty, too loud or came too near – we all could watch this big animal for some minutes. Then it took some step into the forest and almost instantly vanished in the shadows. What an experience!
This article is part of the series “2017-08: Kungsleden hike”.
Today Katrin, Annika, Andi and I would continue to Alesjaure, the longest distance to walk so far.
The morning was frosty with -2 °C and the petals of the flowers called rallarros (rosebay willowherb or fireweed) were covered with ice.
The sky was blue, the sun was shining, we had picture-book weather. As a photographer I would have preferred to hike two weeks later when leaf coloration would be in progress, but you can’t have everything. Anyway, the photo of the bridge over the Visttasjohka right at the Vistasstugan looks like a postcard motif:
This spot looked quite Canadian or Alaskan to me. I almost expected to spot some huge grizzly bears catching salmon in the river. But we’re still in Sweden where bears are brown bears and (luckily) very shy.
The first kilometres of the trail to Alesjaure lead through dense birch forest. Then gradually the forest got less and less dense and the snow covered mountains that frame the valley Visttasvággi were revealed.
The first kilometres were said to be muddy and they were, but not more than many other passages that we walked the days before. Unfortunately the trail continued to be both rocky and muddy and therefore wasn’t easy to walk.
After we left the birch forest the landscape became more rocky again. We found the resting place I remembered from two years ago. Someone had used a plank and some stones to build a bench in front of a huge block of stone. Still the sun was shining but gradually the sky become cloudy. Will we manage to arrive before the rain comes? We still hadn’t walked half of the distance.
We continued our tour until we reached the bridge over the stream Moarhmmájohka. Andi and I went down to refill out water bottles, then we took only a short rest since we were eager to arrive not too late.
After having crossed the bridge we had to go uphills quite steeply and we all slowed down more or less. Then we arrived at the plateau and looked back a last time into the beautiful valley Visttasvággi.
The clouds became denser, the wind increased but still it was dry. We passed the lakes Vuolip Čazajávri and Bajip Čazajávri. We went on and the sami village Alisjávri, located by the lake of the same name came into view. Now it was only 1.5 km left to the Alesjaurestugorna, our destination. As the day before we spotted the sauna first.
At 4 o’clock we arrived at Alesjaure and we stayed dry. Alesjaure is the largest mountain hut that we would stay at. It has as much as 86 regular beds (and more place if needed.)
I already found out, that stugvärd J. would be here, he whom Annika and I met in Nallo two years before and I again on my winter tour in Singi for some days. And really, he indeed was there and I was very glad to meet him again.
To meet J. means also to meet Simba, his kingsize dog. Simba dosed in the outside, stoically ignoring the mosquitoes in her eyes and on her nose. I said hello and started to pet her, which she apparently liked: she sighed and slumped onto her side. The photos I made before and afterwards:
Alesjaure has several houses, which appear more like a youth hostel than a mountain hut. That may look less cozy but we all enjoyed our big beds in our own four-bed-room. Katrin and Annika went to the sauna and after that we cooked one kilo (!) of pasta with goulash soup as a sauce. No, we didn’t manage to eat it all, the rest would follow us to Abiskojaure the next day.
Alesjaure would the last place in the kalfjäll above the treeline on this tour. Tomorrow we would continue to Abiskojaure, which is round 22 km away. This could be the longest day’s march, but we took a shortcut …