What an amazing day it was yesterday! I had been looking forward to it the whole week, and this trip fulfilled and even exceeded all my expectations.

(If you don’t want to read the long story, just scroll down for all the pictures!)

Our first stop was at Ikea in Sundsvall to eat brunch. I ate too much and my stomach felt heavy as we started our hike at the Härnöklubb nature reserve in Smitingen, just outside Härnösand. But as it turned out later, the brunch was exactly what I needed…

Härnöklubb is special for geological formations like tunnel caves and giant’s kettles. There’s a small lake with small islands, and rocks and cliffs and twisted pines aplenty. Smitingen-Härnöklubb is a part of the High Coast area, with mountains rising almost straight from the sea. There’s also a beach which is very popular in the summer, but now in this season it was almost abandoned, except for some people walking their dog. The areas which were interesting for us were the peninsula east from the beach and the area south from it. Our first target was the peninsula and already the hike there gave us our first taste of what the day had in store for us – there were some passages which were a bit tricky to navigate, even if they had built bridges and ladders over the most difficult spots. But still, I had to abandon some my safety margins in order to get to the mouth of the cave and when I saw the entrance, I decided that that’s as far as I need to go. In order to go down to the cave, you had to get across a smooth cliff face which slanted about 45 degrees… I had a look at the cave and didn’t think it was worth the effort. My friend got down there though, pictured. But as you can see, I didn’t miss anything!

Coming back from the cave, we decided to explore the shoreline instead of following the trail. I was really enjoying it, and the weather was just perfect – it was cloudy so it was possible to shoot in whatever direction that provided the best angles without having to worry about backlight or shadows, and it was a little bit windy but not too much and the temperature was ideal, not too hot for climbing the cliffs and not too cold for stopping to shoot.

When we got to the lighthouse in the north-east corner of the peninsula, we realised that the trails didn’t actually lead here. So in order to back to the beach, we would either have to circle back towards the cave again, or – because the shortest distance between two points is a straight line – just simply walk up the mountain and down on the other side. When we got to the top, we found a bench there and rested for at least half a minute. Then we started searching for the path down the mountain, because surely there’s a path leading to the viewpoint? Yes… and no. We found a kind of a path, but we lost it almost immediately. Nevermind, we thought, as long as we are going down, it’s all good. Somehow we ended up to a windowless hut with the powerline, must be something used for sea navigation. So then we figured, if there’s a building there must be a path, right? Wrong. All we found was a steep, almost vertical cliff and a huge problem. But again, you know the shortest distance between two points… we saw some ledges which seemed to zigzag the cliff face, making it possible for us to take us down quite safely actually. Until we came to a spot where the ledge below was too far to safely step down. After some consideration, we sat down on our butts and just simply glided down! Not my proudest moment but in the end, quite a lot of fun and very useful as well, I ended up using the same method a lot during the day! And that’s why you wear tough hiking pants on these trips…

Back on the beach, we stopped to refuel ourselves. I still wasn’t properly hungry after that massive brunch but we had been in constant motion (apart from the photo stops) for four hours so it was only smart to eat something to keep the energy levels up. After that short break, we headed south and found ourselves climbing up the next mountain. Already on the way to the first cave, we had some trouble with staying the marked trail just because the trail disappeared on the hard rock, and the trail markings were few and too far in between. But we found the first cave regardless, and were completely unimpressed. Had I found a formation like this myself, I would call it a crevice and not a cave… so if I wasn’t interested in shooting the first cave, I cared even less for this second one. However, it’s not always about photography, but sometimes you can just simply be interested in the geological formations so we made sure to explore the features from both sides and up and below.

The trail was supposed to continue down to the shore, where we obviously wanted to go because the best photo ops were there. But it didn’t take us long to completely lose the trail again, it was hopeless. No matter, we could explore the shore on our own and abandon the sea stacks and kettles promised by the brochure.

Again, I enjoyed the exploration even if I found it quite hard to find anything to shoot. But quality before quantity, right? Time was really flying by and I was surprised to realise that it was actually evening already. And my body was showing the signs of the day’s adventures – my feet were so sweaty that my otherwise comfortable boots were chafing, my back was aching, my thighs were complaining for constantly going up and down the rocks and the funniest thing, my fingertips were hurting! It was too warm to wear gloves so my fingers quite simply were worn for holding on the rough rocks, some of which were covered in black lichen which felt almost like broken glass now that it was bone dry.

Finally back at the car, I looked at the time and it was 19:30! We had arrived here at around 10:30, so this really was a full day of exploration and shooting. And believe it or not, but I still didn’t feel hungry… in between the brunch and now, I had eaten one sandwich. And walked 20000 steps. This was probably the best day of the year so far, there really isn’t anything more I could have asked!