This took ages, there must be an easier way. (Not facebook)

We travelled 700 km north to hike in the southern most Fjalls - Anarisfjallen in the Jamtland county. It rained. A lot on the first day. Thank goodness for (borrowed) goretex. Hiking first through the mixed birch/conifer woods.

Lunch

We passed some Sami houses, traditionally used when moving reindeer to summer pasture higher up the fjalls. Shorlty after we advanced passed the treeline to see the 'pyramids' - the area was heavily glaciated during the last ice age and its left a lot of cool land forms, and rounded hills.

Hobbiton

Then up onto a plateau, and overlooking a bit of a primitive looking scene, down a valley with a Issjon or ice lake. The lake was approx. this cold: [------], and so were the streams flowing into it, as we discovered bathing (bordeline torture) the next morning.

The pyramids

A fast hike out of the valley to defrost, we climbed up the nearest fjall. The weather lifted enough for some quite spectacular views of the surroundings

Ice lake valley

We found masses of blueberries still around despite the encroaching autumn up there, but we didnt go overboard on the eating.....




Agnes finds solace in pasta

Say Aaaaahhh

More walking, downhill this time. We came across another blueberry patch - superior even than the last. If you ask Alec if he wants a beer he more often than not says 'does a bear poo in the woods?'. The staple food for bears is blueberries, and after handfulls of them i can vouchsafe the merit in this saying. So can Agnes.


View from the top

Agnes pretends her bag is bigger, but actually mine is just packed better

The 2nd blueberry patch

putting the colonic benefits of blueberries aside for the moment, we continued down the mountainside to a small fjall station. There was a nice sauna there, but strangley even up here in the wilderness they had a timetable for sauna, and it was 'womens hour'. The batteries to my camera ran out about now. We camped the second night near a glassy lake amongst some juniper bushes. Made a fire to keep the mozzies away. By the way Mike and Chris, Birch bark peels off the trees lovely and burns better than newspaper - my Ray Mears tip of the day (A tip from Erland). Chris that tree in Marnies garden is birch.....

We made drawing of the campsite as the camera wasnt working. I think Agnes' is better than mine, but she added stones and trees to accentuate the mood of the place so mine is worse but more representative. Its hard to draw and swat mosquitos at the same time.

My picture

Agnes' picture, I uploaded it 5 times and everytime its vertical, so just use your imagination. or bend your head


We walked back the next morning, only stopping to pick cloudberries (only great when made into a sugery jam) and to swim in the vala river.






This is a moose print. no honestly...