Raining.
I’m good at rain-proofing myself and the camera, so I drove to Skärkdalen to photograph the Silver Falls I visited in the summer. It’s a 2 km hike from the car to the creek, the trail goes through some mud and muck and it was even worse now than it was the last time. I found that my wellingtons are leaking again, this is definitely the last pair of Tretorn boots I’ll ever own.
And it was raining. I hadn’t come very far when my all-weather hat was leaking water on my face. And my all-weather jacket had wet sleeves and I was only saved by the fleece sweater underneath. And my all-weather hiking pants were wet at the knees. There’s a shelter at the creek (next to the bridge over it) so I just wanted to get there, have a cup of coffee and wait for the raining to subside.
When I got to the shelter, I found that I had forgotten to take the thermos with me. So I downed my sandwich with cold water and looked at the raining to continue just the same. Then I had a Snickers and it was still raining. I waited some more (getting colder by the minute thanks to all the wet clothes I was wearing) and when it finally looked like the raining was tolerable, I went out and set up the camera by the closest fall. The camera at least was still dry, while the tripod was wet and cold and not very nice to handle.
And then it started raining some more again. I retreated back to the shelter and waited a little bit longer. And gave up. I hadn’t gotten very far on my way back to the car, when the raining quite genuinely let up and I even saw the disc of the sun through the clouds. I really wanted these waterfall pictures so I turned back, but in a minute it was raining harder again. I definitely gave up this time, it just wasn’t meant to be!
It was still only early afternoon and I had no plan B, I had a problem instead. What to do? My only rainproof clothes were soaking wet, so I had little chance of doing anything meaningful today. And the forecast said that it would continue like this tomorrow, which gave me bad odds for doing any photography.
I checked out and drove home.
It had stopped raining by the time I got to Långå, so I stopped at the Rändåfallet falls so I could investigate the top falls that I missed the last time. I got my waterfall fix anyway, and the falls were definitely worth seeing even if here’s very little water right now. I know I always say that I prefer less water in my waterfalls, but you need some water in any case or there wouldn’t be a fall!
The raining aside, I think it was a good vacation. I got to see the autumn colours, conquered three mountains, witnessed some reindeer behaviour I had never seen before, ate a waffle, did a lot of hiking that’s good for the body and soul. Now I have a whole weekend at home before work, and I’m planning to do absolutely nothing at all. Well, apart from finish processing all the pictures I took this week and re-live the good moments!