For years I’ve been looking at the Rogen Nature Reserve on my map. The region is filled with lakes in all kinds of exciting shapes and sizes and I’ve been wondering what they would look like in real life. Today was the day I was finally going to go there and see it for myself.
But a lot of things were happening before Rogen. Say for example, how about a sunrise with clear skies and clouds of mist clinging to the mountain? Yes, that ticks all the boxes so I hurried up to the nearest peak (which is just a few minutes easy hike away from the Skarvruet hostel I was staying at) and marvelled at the landscape. At first I thought that I was missing the mist, then it came back, and then went away again, and the next moment I was engulfed by it. What an amazing thing. And all the while this mysterious – or mischievous – mist was playing with the landscape, I was playing with the camera.
When I finally had had enough eye candy, I drove to the Rogen Nature Reserve. The hike to the actual lake of Rogen is 10 km and I didn’t want to squeeze a return trip in one day, but I had seen on the map that I could get to see some of the lake formations much closer, an easy 3 km hike and then back. It turned out that Rogen had more eye candy to spare – I was absolutely charmed by the place. The area is fairly flat and the few mountains that stick out are quite low, but you do get to see some higher mountains in the distance. And if any proof was needed, then this was a generous reminder that you do not need mountains for spectacular landscapes anyway. The first part of the trail (about 1.5 km) takes you through a mountain type forest with birches and pines. Then you get to the first big lake and soon after that, an exciting ridge with lakes on both sides, kind of like a miniature version of the Punkaharju ridge in Finland (most Finns should be able to relate to that). So as you follow this ridge, photo opportunities are all around. I had plenty of them, and with a little less wind I would’ve had even more. But with the stiff wind, it wasn’t really ideal for lake photography although I’m not complaining.
If you ever have a few hours to spare when passing Tännäs, visit Rogen. You won’t regret it. In the unlikely case that you do regret it, send me hate mail. I want to know what kind of a person would not like nature at its best.
Since the day had been as good as it had, I didn’t want it to end yet. I decided to take the road south from Tännäs and then drive through to Lofsdalen to Linsell. This route is many times more scenic than 84 and I was happy to discover that they had finally fixed the road so it wasn’t nearly as bumpy as it had been. Regardless, you want to drive slowly so you don’t miss any of the scenery!
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Can a holiday be any better than this had been? My senses were filled with impressions and I even had to switch off the CD player in the car because I had been listening to silence so long that the music felt like an intrusion. So I sat in the car, with my thoughts on the experiences and adventures from the past week and a big smile on my face. Life is good.