Lakes and Woodlands and Moss!

Yesterday we started the hiking tour through Sweden

For the first night I stayed at a small camp which had about 5-6 small huts in which I could spend the night with 2 other people. I was glad that the accommodation was in such a good shape. It didn't have running water of course, but a good roof over my head and a bed to sleep in was more than I expected (I carried a small tent with me as well). I met about 4 people there which were also walking the trail, and we had a bit of small talk. Early in the morning on the next day I got ready for my second day. I wanted to start early as I didn't know how fast I would be able to walk in the terrain. It wasn't always obvious from the maps I had and rocks or woodland takes much more time to traverse.

Here was another instance of some wetlands. The ground was wet and soggy from all the moss. It was much easier to walk here due to the wooden path constructed and it also kept nature quite pristine. You can really get a sense of scale in the picture here. I could often see my target for the day at the end of the horizon which was generally between 15 and 25km. It's a really nice experience to walk in such open spaces as it gives a lot room for thinking or just being quiet. The mind really does change after even one day of a much reduced input from all the social noise we usually get.

I really enjoyed the little ponds here. They were here every now and then and it felt like I was in a Japanese garden. The rocks overgrown with moss; the trees finding their way in this stony ground. Luckily there were only very few mosquitos! This is something that can really be a surprise when one does not do the journey oneself as the pictures might look beautiful, but standing there taking them while thousands of little flies are trying to eat you is very very uncomfortable!

There were also some bigger lakes along the way and you can see how diverse the landscape was. Generally up on the hills the Fjäll area started while in the valleys there were woodlands and lakes. The weather wasn't the best, but it also wasn't the worst. I almost had no rain, but the sun came out very rarely.

A truly curious and interesting sight was the yellow/whitish moss that covered much of the landscape. It was incredibly fluffy and about 15-20cm thick! The plants sticking out are blueberries which unfortunately were not quite ripe yet.