Njupeskär. Dalarna. Sweden. The combination of these three makes my pulse quick and irregular as I have never been so close to Shambhala, and this venture could easily cost two steemers their lives.
Another spontaneous decision - to drive 430 km to the north-west to explore Dalarna province where Selma Lagerlöf wrote some of her best novels, where mountains on the border with Norway merge with milky clouds in a long French kiss, where roads cut moors and forests with their sinuous grey ribbon. More than 5 hours at the wheel through deserted territories with their gravel roads, through concrete town islands with their wide highways, through the whole country full of unexplored miracles and untravelled roads.
I am a lucky person: heading for Dalarna's untravelled roads I had a friend sitting alongside me, a steemer from Sweden, a passionate cryptocurrency lover and a nice fellow, you know. We passed one mile after another following the curve that brought us to one of the beautiful places I've ever seen: Njupeskär, Sweden's highest waterfall, a friendly national park if you follow the paths and a wild and severe territory when you leave the beaten tracks. Guess which alternative of those two we chose.
Equipped with a camera, a bottle of milk and three bananas we deviated from the wooden road meant for usual travellers and moved up. Most of those who arrive at Njupeskär enjoy the landskape from this point:
Awesome, inspiring, breath-taking. Still, not enough. Too many photos have been taken from this angle, too many people have experienced adrenaline outburst trying to get closer to the falling water, and so that was too little for us who were so eager to touch the untouched, to see the unseen, to change the angle. And so we changed it looking on the falling water from the very top of the mountains.
That was really risky. No roads and you have to jump from one stone to another and you never know whether your next step leads to a fall. Though the risk was worth taking. When you see the beauty hidden from the eyes of most travellers you feel sorry for all those who never dared and stopped there on the civilized road created by the government (that reminds of choosing the sourse of income, doesn't it?).
Two lenses taken to the trip helped me to take some breath-taking photos from the very edge. Such angles can't be hidden in some ordinary place, never, and to enjoy their best you need to take a risk, to fall, to get some minor injures. And to be passionate. Sure.
When I was preparing for my trip to Sweden a friend of mine told me "Oh, you've already been in Sweden. Why do you go there? There's nothing left to see". There's always something left. And I think that I will definitely come again to amuse and to be amused.
Staying there in the mountains you feel that mankind can't curb the nature and make it obey though there're so many injures on the body of our planet. You feel that to have all roads open you need to leave the comfort zone and come to the place where there're no roads at all.
And when you break the ties of comfort, norms and commonly accepted behavior you'll explore that there's no thicker carpet than moss and no better drink than mountain river water.
To get down we had to climb down an almost sheer slope, to cross the river trying to keep balance on a fallen tree, to sink in the moss and to near us civilization step by step. We had to be restless as the car was waiting on the parking and with the car there were miles and miles of night road, adventures and risks.
The greatest things in your life happen when you dare to leave the comfort zone
Anastasia