When I woke up in the morning, I had to remind myself that it was July. It was cold, rainy and windy and easily the kind of weather we would have in October. I wasn’t in a hurry to go out so I spent some time in Lightroom to properly process and keyword my pictures from the last few days.

In the afternoon I drove to Flatruet. Probably not the smartest thing to do if wind is an issue, but it’s not blowing storm and the raining has also stopped, so it was not a problem (at first, anyway). There are two ravines which are easiest to reach from Flatruet, Öjegraven and Torrgraven. Walking across Flatruet is really easy, there is almost no vegetation and the few scattered juniper bushes provide no hinder. At the same time, it’s quite boring – the landscape doesn’t change much and unless you’re have spectacular light with you, there’s really nothing to shoot up there. So I just walked on with the wind on my back and just barely kept myself warm enough, even with the windproof clothing I was wearing. After about 4 km I finally came across something interesting. The landscape changed character and signalled to me that I was approaching the ravine. There was this area with huge slabs of rock rising diagonally from the ground (not sure how to explain it, so please check the picture for illustration), so while it’s not perfectly photogenic, I still had an appreciation of the geology of it. This area was surrounded by a small ridge in the west and east and once I got over the eastern ridge, I found another area with some smaller slabs of rock and a little bit more wetland, but absolutely no problem to get across. And again, there was a small ridge on the other side and once I got over it, I was at the ravine.

I figured that I had reached Öjegraven and Torrgraven should be almost right behind it but possibly lower down in the forest so it’s not immediately visible. Now I got a problem though – I couldn’t find a place to cross over the brook that runs through Öjegraven. It’s not a big brook but I’m absolutely worthless at jumping and although I considered a few spots to jump across, I didn’t want to do it with the backpack on. I walked upstream hoping that I would find a narrow passage but after a few hundred meters I gave up and headed back downstream instead to have a closer look at this one ravine I did find. It was a disappointment compared to the stunner that Svartmorgraven was last week, but all things considered it was almost what I expected. The deep part of the ravine was very short, but if you follow the brook upstream you’ll find a ravine in mini-format with cliffs about 3-4 meters high at best. So I wouldn’t describe Öjegraven as photogenic or even interesting, but I will probably have to pay a second visit because I still have to find Torrgraven. I also realised that if the hike is done from the Flatruet parking, it would be possible to visit Öjegraven, Torrgraven and Svartmorgraven during the same hike. It would be shorter than hiking up from Messlingen to Svartmorgraven and then cross over the peak of Svartmorhöjden to the other two ravines.

Anyway, having given up on the second ravine I had planned, all I had left was hike back to the car, in strong head wind and slightly uphill all the way. But now at least I had no problem at all to keep myself warm!

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EDIT 2011-09-25: The ravine which is described here is Storbäckengraven. I forgot it even exists when I wrote this post but now I’ve visited the real Öjegraven and it sure is a lot bigger and less disappointing!