I have a four day weekend without any specific plans. Everything depends on the weather and it doesn’t look so good… my main target currently is Skarsfjället, which I’ve decided to do as a day-hike. It’s long (about 24 km, if I use the bicycle to Klinken), but perfectly doable. But, Skarsfjället is often shrouded in clouds, so if I want to be sure that I actually have a view on top, then I need to pick a good day. And the forecast (all of them!) yesterday said it will be partly cloudy in the morning and partly cloudy in the evening, and overcast in between. So I decided against Skars and selected another long hike, albeit with a lot less altitude, and aimed at Långbrottfjället.
Going from Ramundberget, I cheated and took the lift up. That meant that the only real climbing I had to do was after Ösjöstugan, because Långbrottfjället itself doesn’t rise much from the plateau around it. So the hiking was easy, and quite frustrating – for one thing, it was sunny. Blue sky sunny. It would have been a great day on Skarsfjället! I know the weather forecasts can’t be trusted, but when it says overcast, I can’t think ”well it’s wrong anyway, it’s gonna be gloriously sunny”! Take this morning for example. The forecast said it would be overcast with rain later, but it’s been raining since I woke up. So it can swing either way. Anyway, the second reason I was frustrated was that the trail was very wet. It’s marked as a summer trail but I would call that false advertising, and when I had to walk around some wetland for the umpteenth time, I decided to take the higher ground back (I had the extended ridge of Ösjökläppen on the south side so I would just need to take the trouble to get up there).
When I got to Långbrottfjället, a problem appeared – I didn’t know where the peak was! I don’t know where this mountain gets its name, but for sure it’s long (=lång). I was standing by the eastern cairn but I saw another cairn in the west, and it appeared like it was a bit higher. There is no peak marked on the map, and I would absolutely hate it to have come that far and then not actually been at the highest point. It’s only 1.5km, so off I went… and when I reached the western cairn and looked east, the eastern cairn appeared higher. When I sat down for my coffee break, I dug out my detailed map and found a contour line which wasn’t on the first map I had been checking, and the line indicated that the highest point was the one in the east! Well nevermind, this extra 1.5km (3km) gave me my first pictures of the hike so it wasn’t completely wasted.
The sun disappeared during my trek back, but when I was past Ösjöstugan, it was back out and I had lovely evening light. There were some mountain birches off to the right which looked really inviting, but my legs were feeling the long hike. But somehow, even before I had finished thinking that the detour is too long, my legs were already taking me towards the birches. Irresistible!
With this detour, the hike was about 22km and it had taken me 7.5 hours. The Helags hike was 9km and took me over 6 hours! The difference is 1) altitude gained 2) pictures taken. I reckon the Skarsfjället hike will take about 9 hours, longer if there are a lot of photo opportunities. I need a day when the weather forecast says that it will be all good, all day!
