I talked about the Moose Lake hike a while back. Another favourite hike I have is north-west to the Kvarnsjön lake, then south to Ryggskog and home via Gäddtjärnen. I used to do it a lot when I was still skiing, but not so much now that I’m snowshoeing because it’s a tad long for that. But when you’re on foot, it’s possible to take the road from Ryggskog back to Loos so it was easy to make the decision today to do this hike.

Photographically this route is not quite as good as the Moose Lake, but yesterday I went to Älgsjön and had very little to show for it, so today all I wanted was to have a nice hike and maybe take a few snapshots along the way. And the hike certainly started well, I got a real kick out of the wide open spaces and the new snow. It was snowing and there was almost no contrast at all, so the trail is barely visible in the picture.

When I got to Kvarnsjön, I had a look at the Storryggsån brook that runs into the lake from the west. During milder winters this brook is almost always open, but now it’s been covered with ice since December. I found a great opportunity for a panorama though, and there aren’t a lot of places around Loos that would work as a panorama quite as well as this. It was still snowing but the sun was starting to come out, which provided an interesting light on the landscape. I found a few other opportunities as well, but they would have required digging my way through the deep snow. I had already done one 50m detour and my legs were screaming for oxygen afterwards, I’m really not cut out for hiking knee deep… but following my own tracks back was easy. I can see the benefit of snowshoeing in a group – people can take turns in doing to the hard work. Anyway, I missed those other opportunities I speculated about because my legs were still shaking from the first effort and I had to leave some energy for the hike to Ryggskog.

The trail from Kvarnsjön to Ryggskog is not used a lot. I can’t remember if I’ve ever seen a snowmobile here, but they do drive the route occasionally because the tracks are there. Except now of course, nobody’s done the trail since the snowfall started this week, so I had to pulse through the new snow. It’s uphill almost all the way to Ryggskog, but I love the forest that this trail runs through. It’s a fairly dense forest, mostly pines but a good dose of spruces as well (which is the norm around here). Because of the closeness of the trees, you’ll often see snow here when it’s already fallen down from the trees everywhere else. I haven’t found a way to photograph it so I could do it justice, but as an experience to hike through this forest it’s just simply wonderful. For me it’s a mile of pure winter bliss! And today it felt like it was better than normal… I don’t know if I was stopping so frequently to catch my breath or to enjoy the sight and silence!