Home from the Hill August 16, 2006

We woke this morning to warmer temperatures and misting rain. The landscape that was a little bleak in yesterdays sun shine is now devoid of warmth or charm. A good breakfast and gallons of coffee help and we are on our way back to Bjorkliden by 9:30.

We were told by two other guests that the trail that we plan to take down is the drier trail. So we are somewhat cheered by the thought that we have that going for us. Fifteen minutes into the hike we come to a large snow field that we must cross. The slope here is about a 45 degree angle and the rain has given the snow an icy surface. We carefully start across picking the spots that have indentations or rough spots that will give us better footing. It’s slow going but we seem to be making it alright when Holly looses her footing and starts to slide down the face of the field. She digs her finger into the icy mixture and manages to stop herself after just a few feet. The bottom is about 50-60 feet below us would have almost assured some kind of injury if she had been unable to stop. Slowly but surely she makes her way to the edge of the snow and finally sets foot back on the rocky slope. As we continue on we have one more snow field to cross about an hour later but the slope is not so steep and the snow is a little softer making for an easier crossing. The trail we have chosen runs along a ridge for part of its course from which you can see the lake and other mountains beyond, but with the weather that has moved in the view is somewhat limited today.

We do get to see three reindeer feeding on a mountain plateau and since we never got closer than 300 yards or so they don’t pay any attention to our passing. We also met a young lady from Germany on the trail that has been hiking in the mountains for the last 5 days and stayed at the station last night although we did not get the chance to talk to her there. She was very friendly and we ended up standing and talking for 20 minutes, again about travel and her home in Heidelberg. She said we must visit there when we come to Germany as has a lot of the German culture and history. We say we will we start hiking and is soon distancing herself as she has a much faster pace than we do.

We had been told by several people here that this was the begging of cloudberry season. They should be red now and will be turning yellow shortly. We were also told that we should be able to find them a few yards off the trail. After tasting cloudberries with our waffles yesterday we decided that we would see if we could find some, rain or no rain. We ranged out to a hundred yards or so of the trail in several areas and Holly was especially diligent in her search for the elusive fruit and we found some small bush-like plants that looked like they should hold berries, but no berries. Close to the end of the trail we met some local people o the trail and when Holly mentioned the cloud berries in unison they said it too late for those berries they’re all gone. My guess is we turned the six mile trail into ten with all of the wandering we did.

We finally topped a ridge and Holly pointing said I know what that is, it’s the golf course! Sure enough we were within a half mile or so of the course and that meant close to the hotel. We love to hike but the rain had not stopped since we left the station four hours before. We were ready to take off the rain gear and have lunch.

After lunch our old friend Mr. Laundry was waiting for us and he took most of what was left of the afternoon. After which we got our packs ready for tomorrow and the next leg of our journey which will have us crossing into Norway.