This is the last ”real” day of my vacation, meaning that it’s my last chance for a hike. I was going to go to the Lövörgraven ravine at Kappruskaftet that I was my original plan yesterday before I got the call from the camera club, but now when I parked the car I saw a lot of other cars arrive with people wearing hunting clothes and I realised that the moose hunting season had just begun. But no worries, I knew another ravine with no risk for me being shot so I drove towards Flatruet instead and hiked to the Öjegraven ravine that I thought I had found in the summer. It’s a little bit confusing and you can’t really blame me that I got my ravines mixed up, I mean what kind of logic is it that Öjebäcken runs through Storbäckengraven and Storbäcken runs through Öjegraven? But that’s the way it seems to be, I finally realised that this week when I was studying the ravine descriptions in detail. There are three ravines close to each other in this place, Öjegraven is the biggest and furthest in the west, Storbäckengraven is the next one to the east and Torrgraven very close behind it. I could’ve reached Öjegraven in the summer if I’d just followed the brook downstream instead of crossing it and then going over the field of strange diagonal rock slabs. Those diagonal rock slabs are a precursor to the ravine, it was my initial reaction when I saw them so I should’ve trusted my instinct. But I had dismissed my instinct because I couldn’t see anything further down that even hinted of any vertical cliff walls and now that I reached Öjegraven, I found out why. The ravine starts somewhat abruptly, so if you’re approaching it from the top you really can’t see it until you’re there. Other ravines like Svartmorgraven and Fiskhålsgraven have rock formations that continue way out, just gradually getting smaller.
Öjegraven is a fair sized ravine, right up there with Svartmorgraven and Evagraven. It has a friendlier profile though, with a broad and flat bottom where birches thrive and more vegetation on the edges of the ravine. If there’s any drama happening, it’s on the eastern side of the ravine. The western side is somewhat tame with no cliff walls at all in some places, and birch forest growing at the edge. This actually played a trick on me when I arrived at the ravine. One moment I was walking in birch forest, and the next there was nothing – the ground just disappeared ahead of me! I had to stop for a moment and let my pulse calm down while I processed the information. Through the birches I had seen that the ravine was down to my right, so I was just aiming for that, without realising that the ravine makes a turn so that it was right in front of me where I was. But when I got over the initial surprise, I had a pleasant walk up and down the ravine. If I would have to describe it with one word, I would say ”nice”.
A nice place and a nice way to finish my holiday!
