I left relatively early to catch the morning sun in a panoramic spot I discovered the other day. It was windier than anticipated though, but I took the pictures anyway because the scenery is a little bit unusual – the only place along this road between Funäsdalen and Ljungdalen where you can see the Sylarna mountains. I only know of one other road in this region where they can be seen (and I didn’t actually even realise that until later today when I drove past).

And then to Mittåkläppen. Since I’ve now given up on flower photography because the season is too early for them, I wanted to concentrate on scenery instead. There are a lot of mountain pastures around Mittåkläppen, so I picked a trail which leads past a few of them. It’s important to be there before noon, because the ”backside” of the Mittåkläppen mountain becomes shaded around noon and I didn’t want that for my pictures. The only shade I had to worry now was the clouds and at one point I waited for an hour for the clouds to disappear. It really tried my patience… I mean, it was sunny all the way to the freakin’ Helags in the distance, but just not where my camera was aimed!

Having done my hike, I rewarded myself with a waffle at Djupdalsvallen. It’s their first day of the season, but the waffle was as good as ever! Walking around the place, I saw these marsh marigold in full bloom and the scene was just begging to be photographed. I waited until late afternoon and in order to pull off the composition, I needed something wider than the 24mm on my zoom lens (plus crop factor, of course). So I tried stitching, I wasn’t sure if it would work because I was so close to the flowers, but ICE didn’t have any problems with it!

I also did some scouting. Found a nice place, or rather, I finally stopped at this nice place I’ve driven past countless times… a small tarn with a great view towards to Skarsfjället. But it was too windy to make use of it today, in fact, it was too windy to make use of any of the ideas I had, because all of them had water in them! And then there was also a bank of clouds coming up from the west, which means that all the views towards Mittåkläppen were washed out. I decided that I’ve done enough for the day, with these clouds coming up the evening light won’t happen either.

Going home tomorrow, the butterfly orchids will be open by now… and then back to the mountains later in the week again.