We drove to Gröntjärn today, the idea was to shoot pale pasque flowers. I was sure they would be in bloom or at least budding because the spring is slightly early this year. The weather wasn’t too good, overcast and cold (there were snowflakes in the air at one point), but the pale pasque flowers are nice even if they’re not open. So I was prepared for all this, but I was not prepared for not finding any pale pasque flowers at all! I couldn’t believe it, I was standing right where I’ve been shooting them in the years past, but now there was nothing. After some searching I finally found one plant, with just tiny leaves. This is like a deja-vu from last year when we looked for the flower in a place where they were abundant 15 years but almost all gone now. So I’m totally mystified by what has happened. However, now that I’ve had some time to to think about this, I remembered reading last year that the pasque flower can skip blooming some years and then pop up again when the conditions are right. I just always assumed that they are a sure thing at Gröntjärn… And what’s wrong with the conditions this year if they’re only resting and haven’t completely died?

Since there was too much wind to make anything out of the lake itself, we drove on to Hornberget. I’ve been on top the mountain once before, that was in 2001 – the 6th of May 2001 to be exact, I wrote in the guest book which was still in the small cabin on top. The oldest entries in the guest book are from 1995 and there’s plenty of empty pages left in it, so there’s not much traffic up here. Which is a shame, really, because the view is fabulous! You can walk to the cliff’s edge and look right down at the tree tops and the occasional falcon flying below you. There’s a 200m vertical difference from the car park to the top and I reckon the cliff drops straight down at least a 100m, if more. That’s an impressive cliff in this region!