I decided to go to exploration mode today, so I left the cabin with the compact camera in one pocket and a chocolate bar in another. Equipped with a map and a compass, my mission for the day was to find a way to the Kovvograven ravine south from Messlingen. There was a slight problem though – I didn’t know exactly where it was. It’s not big enough to be shown on the maps the same way as e.g. Evagraven does so all I had was a vague idea and a plan.
It’s easy enough to get to the region where the ravine is, just walk south from the bridge over Mittån until your reach the plateau with the Middagstjärnen tarn. So I set my compass and followed where the arrow pointed, and gave myself a pat on the back when I came up to the plateau exactly where I wanted to – to the right of the tarn. Now I just had to continue going south, over the plateau and then go a little bit down on the other side and this is where it would get tricky, I didn’t know how much to the east or west I would need to be and I didn’t know at which altitude either. So the plan was to walk down a bit and then change to an east-west direction and walk back and forth until I came across the ravine. I almost laughed when I saw that the ground dropped steeply in front of me when I’d gone a mere 10 metres or so from turning east. Considering how steep the drop was, it was obvious that I had found some kind of a ravine, but there were no cliff walls like in the other ravines I’ve visited. The bottom of the depression was covered with spruce forest and I was wondering if the whole place even qualifies as a ravine at all. I followed it down until it levelled off, and then followed it back up in case it would get a little bit more exciting on top. I had almost given up on the whole place when I saw some cliffs between the spruces to my right and sure enough, I had found it!
Earlier in the summer I wrote about the Öjegraven ravine and what a disappointment it was. Kovvograven was even smaller, but I wasn’t disappointed at all, because it had a completely different character. It wasn’t just Evagraven in miniature scale like Öjegraven was, but it was a much gentler profile with a broad mire bottom and only one spot with cliffs on both sides in the southern end of the ravine. I followed the ravine up and now there were low cliffs only on the western side while in the east the ravine was bordered by a ridge covered with a birch forest.
Getting back from the ravine was obviously even easier than going there. All I needed was a generous southern direction, knowing that if I veered too much to the left, I would end up by the lake, and too much to the right would take me to the river. In other words, it was virtually impossible to get lost but when I found an old path, I decided to follow it anyway, curious to see where it would take me. The answer is that it took me down to a small beach by the lake and I realised that the people who use the trail normally take a boat across the lake. I didn’t have a boat but there’s also a trail that circles the lake (not sure if it circles it completely, so I guess I will have to explore it some other day) so I took it back to the bridge. But if you’re planning to visit Kovvograven, forget about the paths and just go south from the bridge to the ravine and then follow the same way back north. No GPS needed!