Monday, August 25, 2008

Mountain vacation 2008. August 14th

On the Thursday the weather was very unstable ... it went from sun to rain to neither and back again every five minutes. But nothing really got going - the sunny spells didn't last and we never got any real showers of rain, just drizzles - so my mother and me decided that it was great hiking weather; it's all down to what you wear. :-) We packed my backpack and set off to a little tarn a couple of hours' walk away - Gjermundstjønn, ie Gjermund's tarn (a tarn is a kind of lake). I have no idea who this Gjermund was. When we took a look at the map after we got home, it turned out that the place isn't even called Gjermundstjønn, but ... something else that I don't remember right now. A name that no one we asked could remember having heard ever. Weirdness. Anyway.

The first part of the hike was to Musvollseter again. Then we continued along the old cart road past the shieling, and eventually turned off onto a path. There were two paths to choose from and of course we picked the wrong one. But in our defense, that was the one that had the signpost on it, the other one had nothing. More weirdness.

Two paths were available to choose from in a not-yet-yellow wood
We took the one we thought was most travelled by
And it didn't make a lot of difference
Vaguely inspired by Robert Frost

I took lots of photos along the way, both there and back again. Brace yourselves ... :-)

I liked this for some reason. It's just an uprooted tree that we passed. But I liked the image. Imagine what it will look like in winter, covered in snow. :-)

This type of moss-covered ground is very typical of the area. You can walk for hours and never get away from this moss - 'reindeer moss', we call it in Norwegian. The wild reindeer in the area eat it in winter, they dig down through the snow to get to it. It's difficult to walk on as the surface below the moss is quite slimy and slippery.

I was hoping we would get to see a moose during the hike ... unfortunately that didn't happen. The closest we got was some, ahem, evidence of moose activity. ;-)

Because we picked the wrong path we ended up having to slog through some marshy patches. There are a lot of these smallish marshes in the area.

The path least travelled by, indeed. The other path - which we accidentally ended up taking on the way back - was obviously the one that people actually use. So few hikers use the one we first picked that ... well, see for yourselves. (Post a comment if you spot what I'm talking about. ;-)

Believe it or not: this trail has been worn exclusively by ants. :-o Untold millions of tiny feet ... !

Here's the trail with my hand pointing to it, just for scale. Pretty amazing.

Here's the anthill it led to. It wasn't that big, actually. But those things are like icebergs, ten times bigger below than what you can see above the surface.

Another lovely forest scene. I like those uprooted trees.

The tarn. Too much vegetation in it for its own good, unfortunately.

My mother, having just forded a stream that crossed the path.

Like I said before, it's a shitty year for cloudberries. We found a few during this hike. I spotted an absolutely perfect one that I wanted to pick for my mother. She absolutely loves them; I'm not a fan. It was a little risky, since it was growing on the edge of a very deep part of the brook. Really very deep, take a look! :-o (Can you see the berry? :-)

But I got it and apparently it was delicious. Here it is in my mother's hand, seconds before it was devoured. :-) An almost perfect specimen!

Mount Musvollkampen seen from a completely different angle.

Me sitting in a very strange-looking (and no doubt very old!) pine tree that we came across.

Another strange tree that was growing alongside the path closer to the cart road. It's very unusual to see trees as mossy as this in the area.

The bridge across a little river called the 'Deepbrook'. As I said before, the road isn't really used much these days. :-)

A view of Mount Musvollkampen from right where the path comes up to the shieling. Mount Svulten in the background.

Mount Musvollkampen again. Some tourists had rented a canoe to go fishing in the tarn - lake Musvolltjønn - and were cooking their catch. :-)

A good time was no doubt had by all!!! :-)

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