It’s officially the last day of the season – Djupdalsvallen closes today. It’s my favourite waffle place so naturally I had to have a waffle there and celebrate (or commiserate) the last day of my holiday; I will leave in the morning tomorrow so there will be no more hiking then.
When I got to the Mittån valley, I walked to the ridge to check out a spot that I scouted many years back but I’ve always had trouble with the timing. Right place, wrong light. And so it was this morning as well, the clouds persisted. There were some gaps in the clouds but there was no way that I would have light in the foreground, middle ground and background at the same time so I gave up. I walked around a bit and found a couple of other good spots that I will have to try next year.
As so many times before, I sat at Djupdalsvallen eating a waffle and waiting for better weather. But there’s only so much coffee I can drink so I gave up waiting and went for a hike regardless of the clouds. Last year we took this trail to Gruvvålen to scout for a moonrise location and I remember we passed through a geologically interesting location but we were so goal oriented on that trip that pretty much everything we saw along the way was ignored. This time I walked through the ”bowl” and understood just exactly why Djupdalsbäcken was called like that (djup dal = deep valley). A very interesting place for sure.
Another interesting thing I found along the way was this twisted mountain birch that seems to have been two birches in the past but now the other one was lying on the ground. And excellent opportunity to use a leading line but it turned out to be as difficult as it was obvious. Having walked around the birch and shot it from every angle, I came to a conclusion that the only way to use the leading line properly was to use a wider lens than the 17.6mm I had. Next year I will have a 16mm lens at my disposal, those extra 1.6mm should do it!
When I reached the peak, I admired the snowclad Skarsfjället in the west. I wanted to get a picture of it and found this rock to use as foreground, far from perfect but it was the closest I had. What I didn’t have was light. So there I stood on the top of the mountain with the wind blowing on my sweaty back from the hike up and I started to wonder if I had some kind of a private cloud that always blocks the light for me… there were spots of sunlight everywhere around me but not where I was standing! It took almost half an hour with me standing glued on the spot until I finally got the light and the irony of this is that the picture isn’t even any good! But I rather have it like that, than not even try and then wonder afterwards what I left behind.
I took the private cloud all the way back to the cabin so I didn’t have to bother with any kind of sunset pictures. Home tomorrow, whether the cloud follows me or not is of no consequence any more!