THURSDAY, JUNE 04, 2020
Snowshoeing (aka Social Distancing)
It turns out that there was tons of snow despite our relatively southerly location and the late season, and that the streams were A-ok (except for one torrent that luckily had a bridge), so we could have skied with no problem. But it was fun to take our snowshoes on a real adventure and test out how it is to go winter backpacking and winter camping with snowshoes instead of skis. At the end of the day I think that I prefer skis—gliding downhill on touring skis is super easy and fun, and skis are also easier on a cross slope—but the snowshoes did allow us to get into some terrain that would have been a bit more challenging on skis.
We had spied the dramatic mountains and valleys on the map while on a nearby trip and have had the Lunndörr area in mind for a while now. The “dörr” part of the name means “door,” which gives an idea of the kind of scenery to be found in the area.
It turns out that the area was perfect for the four day trip—if the weather was really bad we could do a really short out-and-back while still getting into some dramatic scenery, or there was a medium-sized loop for medium-ok weather, or there was a long loop if all four days were clear and bright. We aimed for the big loop, but ended up having to do the medium loop because we had a total whiteout one of the days and just stayed in the tent all day.
Parts of the area have marked trails and there is both a safety shelter and a cabin for overnighting, but we spent almost all of the trip “off-roading” and never went by the shelter or cabin. I’m getting more and more comfortable being in trail-less areas, even in the winter, although I still do get a bit nervous.
 |
| This first and last part of our journey was marked with red crosses |
This trip was the premier for our new winter tent, aka our “winter cabin.” We loved it! Which is good, considering that it costs almost as much as an actual cabin. We didn’t choose the traditional Swedish tunnel tent, but instead chose more of an “Everest” model with crossing poles. The tent is extremely strong and is designed for trips up Everest, to the South Pole, across Greenland, and such. I’m not sure that we’re quite that adventurous (yet) but when the wind is really rattling the tent in the middle of a cold winter night, it is reassuring to know that the tent is likely to withstand the storm.
Hiking on snowshoes is noticeably slower than summer hiking or ski touring. Even so, we managed to cover about 15 km a day (about 9 miles) without stressing too much about it. The first day, we started out on the trail and headed through the sparse birch forest toward the hulking mountains ahead.
After a couple of hours, we left the trail and started skirting the nearest mountain before climbing up over a relatively steep pass (no skins needed with snow shoes!) and down into a very dramatic valley lined with nearly vertical mountain cliff faces.
 |
| Reindeer greeted us on when we entered into the Storådörren valley. |
 |
| Camping in the Storådörren valley. |
It was fairly windy, not top-of-Everest windy, but uncomfortable to just sit around outside. Carl dug us a cooking hole and used the snow to build a wind break, so we could stand out of the wind while cooking. The hole and snow wall made a huge difference, but it was still pretty chilly standing there waiting for liter after liter of water to melt so that we would have enough drinking water in our bottles and thermoses. The actual cooking of dinner was a relatively quick process in comparison to melting all of our drinking water.
 |
| Our Valborg bonfire |
The clouds descended and the wind picked up over night, and it was a total white out the next morning. If we had had to, we could have ventured out and navigated by compass—the wind wasn’t so strong as to be impossible, but it was strong enough to be uncomfortable. Since we were in the Lunndörr mountains to actually see the mountains and not just to make mileage, we spent the day lounging in the tent reading, snoozing, and playing chess. The day passed surprisingly quickly.
Being so late in the season and close to the Arctic Circle, it never got fully dark outside. It was a little disorienting as it still gets dark at that time of year in Stockholm, so we really didn’t have a sense of the time.
On day 3, we woke to pretty good weather. The winds had calmed and the clouds had lifted enough to give us views of the mountain tops and some intense sunlight. In the afternoon, the temperatures were definitely above freezing and the snow was getting slushy. Part of our hike was completely protected from the wind, and it actually got really hot and sweaty. But right after we crossed the next pass, the wind came back in full force and chilled us down.
We crossed over two passes on day 3: the first one wasn’t too far from our tent and wasn’t very steep, but the second pass was pretty dramatic. We had been hiking uphill to it almost all day and the views of the cliff faces at the pass got more and more dramatic. We stopped for a windy lunch just on the other side of the pass and then continued down the relatively steep terrain.
 |
| Approaching the Lillådörren pass, and stopping for lunch on just the other side. |
That evening, the wind died back down for a while and we had sun at our tent spot for a couple of hours. Carl dug us a sun bench and we sat outside and enjoyed the view and some snacks for quite a while. It was so relaxing and felt so exotic to just sit and enjoy the sun and the snowy scenery.
 |
| Camping in the Lillådörren valley. |
It was blowing again on our last morning, but not tooo strongly. We managed to take down our tent without anything flying away, and then we had the wind at our backs for most of our hike down the valley. Despite not being on a trail, and despite all the wind, we navigated back to the exact same route we had taken into the area and even found our almost-erased snowshoe prints. We were pretty proud of our exacting navigational skills in a black and white landscape that often looks very repetitive. After not too long, we rejoined the marked trail and headed back to our car.
While we were in two spectacular neighboring valleys, we were never actually in the dramatic Lunndörr valley. We’ll just have to go back some day!
 |
| We walked by the entry to Lunndörren valley, but didn't go through the valley on this trip. |
TUESDAY, MAY 26, 2020
Easter on Utö
I had been on Utö for an hour or two in 2006, the first summer that I visited Carl and his parents on their sailboat in Sweden. Carl’s probably been on the island a number of times while sailing with his family, but neither of us had ever explored the island in depth. This time, however, we saw quite a lot of the island as we spent two days hiking two different 15 km loops in large nature reserves and a third day visiting the islands various historic spots.
The first loop was 15 kilometers mostly along the coast, sometimes on the glacier-smoothed rocks right by the water, sometimes in the forest just slightly inland. The forest is impressively well developed considering that the entire island was clear-cut about a century ago. I suppose it hasn’t really been touched since. Both types of scenery were beautiful, and I especially liked all of the surprise pools of water up in the cliffs and rocks.
 |
| Hiking on Utö |
We ate lunch overlooking the water to the west and had an incredibly lovely afternoon fika in the sun looking out over the water to the east. We found a wind-shaded crevice in the rocks and the sun was pouring in on us to the extent that we quickly took off our hats, gloves, and jackets. It was one of the loveliest, most relaxing hours I have spent in a long time. I felt like a cat basking in the sun!
 |
| Hiking on Utö |
That evening, we went to Utö Värdshus for dinner. The food wasn’t amazing, but the historic inn is very picturesque and we enjoyed trying delightful new-to-us wines that aren’t available in the state liquor store. There were a couple of other groups dining, but the dining room was mostly empty. A more impressive dining experience was the uber cute village bakery, where we had breakfast the next day.
Most of Utö is a nature reserve and camping is not allowed, so we tented at the beachside campground. The campground wasn’t officially open for the season, so it was free, and we were the only guests.
The next day, we rented bicycles and biked about 8km on gravel roads to the southern end of the island where there’s a bridge over a narrow water passage to the neighboring island of Ålö (“Eel Island”) and Ålö’s 15 km hiking loop. This loop was surprisingly rugged considering how little elevation there is out in the archipelago. But even so, the trail managed to climb steeply up and down, up and down. There was a good bit of rock hopping and such, too.
 |
| biking to Ålö and the small channel between Utö and Ålö |
Ålö’s coastal granite slabs weren’t nearly as smooth as on Utö, but other parts of the coastline were long white sand beaches in little coves—very unusual for the archipelago! I was surprised by how different the geology is between Utö and Ålö despite the islands’ proximity to each other.
 |
| Hiking on Ålö |
Biking back to our tentsite on Utö was pretty darn painful. I only ride a bike at most once a year these days, and my backside was already bruised from our gravely ride in the morning. I was so, so relieved when we made it back to the Värdshuset and could return the bikes! We had another glass of delightful wine to numb our backsides before heading back to our tent and camp stove dinner.
We spent our last day on Utö in and around Gruvbyn, the Mine Village. Utö’s iron mines were in use for 700 years, starting in the 1100’s. They’re believed to be Sweden’s oldest mines (before that, iron was collected in bogs, not mined in the earth) and their location out in the archipelago was convenient for export to other areas of the Baltic. The mines are now filled with water and while two of the largest are right at the edge of the village, there are a number of smaller mines dotted around the forest. Even the largest mines, though, were astounding in their relatively compact size considering that they were active for 700 years! I guess mining before dynamite was a very slow process. However, the mines probably look smaller than they actually are considering that the deepest mine is 213 meters or 700 feet.
 |
| A tiny mine out in the woods and a large, looping mine at the edge of the village. |
Like most of the Stockholm Archipelago, Utö’s entire building stock was burned to the ground by the Russians in 1719 so there are no super historic buildings on the island. However, to my American ears, the several buildings from the mid 1700’s sound pretty historic! The most iconic of the historic buildings is the windmill which was originally built to pump water out of the mines. Enterprising locals added a couple of other functions including a sawmill and a flourmill, all using the same wind blades as the original pump.
Utö is so easily accessible from Stockholm; our visit was a reminder of the archipelago’s beauty right on our doorstep. We really should spend more time out there!
TUESDAY, MAY 05, 2020
A Little Weekend Hike (+ A Little Day Hike)
Johan and Jessica picked us up early-ish Saturday morning and we headed north of the city, driving about an hour before getting to our starting point at Wira Bruk. We lucked out with a beautiful, sunny day and relatively warm (though not toasty) daytime temperatures. Parts of the trail were less scenic as large sections were through clear cuts,
We also walked by a few farm fields, and even stopped for a fika break in one of them. These open spaces were perfect for bathing in the sunlight—even though we hadn’t had a winter to speak of and it hardly snowed or dropped below freezing the entire winter, it had been grey and rainy for months on end and I think we were all a little desperate for some sunshine (even me, who had been basking in the sun for a month already in Fresno!).
We arrived at Bergshamra Kvarn with perfect timing for lunch. Sitting on a little fall of a little creek, this was a historic mill site that had already been in operation for centuries when it was claimed by the crown in the 1500’s to saw timber for shipbuilding. Today the site is maintained by a non-profit and is probably open in the summer. In March, however, only the picnic table was “open”. But that’s all we needed for a lovely sunny lunch.
 |
| Bergshamra Kvarn: Historic mill building and the creek powering the mill |
Roslagsleden is a very easily hiked trail. There’s very little elevation gain or loss, it’s well marked, and the trail itself is usually pretty wide and well maintained. There are bridges and bog bridging to keep your feet dry, and parts of the trail are even on roads. Without hiking particularly fast, we made good time and made it to our destination earlier than expected.
We had hoped to stay in a cute little grass-roofed cabin called Grevinnans Rå. It sleeps two or four if you get cozy and has a fire pit outside as well as a fireplace inside. We knew there was a chance that the cabin would already be claimed when we got there, but considering that it was March, we thought we’d have a pretty good chance of having it to ourselves. But when we got to the cabin, seven people had already laid claim.
 |
| Grevinnans Rå |
The only downside to our chosen camp spot was that there was no water immediately nearby. While the guys walked another kilometer to the nearest stream, Jessica and I collected a gigantic pile of firewood. Despite having a Hollywood-sized campfire going for a couple of hours, we still didn’t go through all of the wood! We grilled gourmet sausages and had packets of veggies on the coals. For desert, we made banana boats on the coals. It was one of the best meals ever!
While sitting by the very warm fire in my extra puffy down jacket and ski pants, I hadn’t noticed that the temperature was really dropping. But once we got into our tent, I got really, really cold. Since the winter had been so warm, I hadn’t thought to bring my winter sleeping bag, but I really could have used it! The temperature dropped down to -8C or 17F. Considering that I’m cold in my summer bag when the temperatures are around +5C, I was really, really cold. I ended up putting my big fluffy down jacket back on, then wrapping my smaller down jacket around my hips, all inside of my sleeping bag. With only one sleeping pad, I could feel the cold seeping into my hips, so I put our sitting pads under my sleeping pad. That made my sleeping surface pretty uneven, but at least I wasn’t shivering any more.
When we woke up the next morning, our water bottles had frozen solid, so Carl spent a good bit of time thawing them over our camping stove. We had a relaxed breakfast in the sun, packed up, and headed out. We only had a few kilometers left until we came to the road and our bus stop. We took the bus back to the car at Wira Bruk and ended the trip with a celebratory lunch and glass of wine at the super cute historic forge which had been Sweden’s largest smithy for swords, sabers and bayonets in the 1600’s. It was the perfect finish for a lovely weekend. Thanks Johan and Jessica!
 |
| Wira Bruk: a historic forge. Left: an inn from the 1700's. Right: the creek that powered the forge. |
Two weekends later, Carl and I made a day hike out of the next stage of the Roslagsleden. This time we started at Penningby Castle. The Castle was built in the 1400’s which was a very unstable time in Sweden’s history with a series of power struggles that affected the entire countryside in addition to the cities. Everyone with means from the nobility to the aristocracy to the bishopry built themselves fortified houses. Most of them are of course gone by now, but Penningby is one of the few that remain.
Penningby’s two towers were enough to be able to keep a lookout around the entire premises. Originally, the house between the towers was one story taller, but this story wasn’t rebuilt after a destructive fire in the 1800’s. None of the large windows are original, of course, but otherwise, Penningby hasn’t been changed much over the centuries—it still doesn’t have electricity or hot water!
 |
| Penningby Slott |
From Penningby, we “hiked” down a beautiful allée and stopped to look at some Iron Age grave mounds beside the road. We “hiked” along farm fields and then the trail even joined up with a paved road through a gorgeous farm landscape.
 |
| Allée and Milestone |
We made a little detour to see Länna Kyrka and the historic parsonage with its extensive farm (priests and pastors didn't make much money with their religious profession, instead, the parsonage farm was what traditionally provided a good living for the religious leaders). The church is from the 1300’s and is known for its murals, but it was unfortunately locked so we weren’t able to see them. We did make use of the church’s picnic table and enjoyed a nice picnic by the water, though. The parsonage is the area’s oldest buildings, and I loved the traditional fencing along the village road.
 |
| Länna |
Today, Penningby and Länna are sleepy areas of the countryside. However, historically, they were both positioned along important waterways—systems of lakes and creeks that were navigable way inland and which served as both prehistoric and medieval “roads.” The lakes remain today but the creeks are now far too shallow and/or seasonal for boats.
 |
| Länna Kyrka and lake |
Only a small portion of the day’s “hike” was on a trail or in the forest, but it was a very pretty section. We stopped for fika on an outcropping overlooking the lake. Right as we were finished with fika, clouds moved in and blocked the sun, turning the day from pleasant to very cold. Luckily we were only a couple of kilometers away from the city of Norrtälje and a bus homeward.
While there are very pretty sections, and other sections that are interesting from a cultural historical perspective, I can’t say that the three stages of Roslagsleden that I have hiked are the most scenic hikes in the world. Even so, having so many miles of trail so close to and so accessible from the city is just amazing; it’s one of Stockholm’s unique features that make living in the big, dense city so livable and enjoyable. We live in the middle of the city, but we don’t feel trapped here in any way. Nature and trails and forests and open spaces are just a short easy bus ride away.
MONDAY, APRIL 27, 2020
Two Trips to Fresno (with a stop in Mexico and a weekend in the Bay Area)
We flew into Mexico City relatively late, and since San Miguel is a 4+ hour bus ride and we didn’t want to be on a bus in Mexico in the middle of the night, we spent the night at the airport hotel. You don’t even have to leave the airport to get to the airport hotel, so there’s no worry about Mexico City safety, which is nice. The airport hotel was a bit of a splurge, but given our wrecked, jet-lagged state, it was SO worth it. The next morning, we slept in, ate a sort-of-Mexican breakfast at the hotel restaurant, and took the subway to the bus station. Needless to say, the subway, with most of the lights burned out in the wagon, was a bit of a contrast to the airport hotel! We had learned from last year’s experience and were better prepared for the weekend-before-Christmas chaos at the Mexico City bus station and had pre-booked tickets. Our bus was only a half an hour late leaving the City, and we made it to San Miguel without too much ado.
Once in San Miguel de Allende, we were quite busy. You wouldn’t think that packing up a relatively small apartment would be so much work, but questions like “where do you buy moving boxes in Mexico” took a good bit of time to solve. Also, we did a good bit of other running around the city closing my mom’s bank account, doing a last pharmacy run, taking Mom’s dog to the vet for an international travel checkup and travel papers, finding plastic pots to repot Mom’s numerous terrace plants so that she could keep her collection of Mexican pots, returning stacks of books to multiple libraries, reserving a moving truck, donating clothing, etc.
The Mexican moving truck was quite a cultural experience. We had made a reservation with the driver of a “taxi truck” but didn’t have any idea how big this taxi truck would be. We ended up moving the moving date because we didn’t quite have enough time for packing, and that was no problemo. The truck showed on time and proved to be a regular pickup truck with wooden rails extending the sides upward, so that the bed of the truck was about four feet deep. We had thought that the truck came with a driver, but it turned out that it also came with two additional moving guys.
Between the five of us, we relayed Mom’s boxes out of the apartment and into the truck in no time. As the movers were strapping down the oversized load to the truck bed, there were a few odd pieces—a couple of pieces of artwork in frames with glass, a floor fan, etc—still sitting on the sidewalk. Thinking that five adults, artwork and a floor fan wouldn’t fit into the cab of the truck, Carl, who thankfully speaks Spanish, told the driver that we could take the odd items and follow the truck in a taxi. No no no! The moving truck driver was aghast at such a proposition, that we would think him so un-service minded. The two moving men would ride in the back of the truck holding the art frames and the fan, and we would ride in the cab with the driver. When in Rome... We made it safely to the storage unit, thankfully since any accident probably would have killed the moving guys who were standing on the bumper holding onto the loose odds and ends more than the truck. They helped me unload and stash everything in the storage unit while Carl signed paperwork with the manager, and then they even drove us back into town. Including an extremely generous tip, the entire three hour, three mover ordeal cost us about $75. Amazing.
 |
| Mexican moving truck |
We didn’t have time for anything touristy while in San Miguel, but we did enjoy breakfast, lunch and late afternoon breaks on my mom’s wonderful roof terrace. The view was fantastic, and it felt so exotic to sit out in the warm sunshine in the middle of the winter. Not to mention the peach juice and fresh, local avocados! The bougainvillea was at the height of its yearly performance, making our errand-running around the pretty town an extra beautiful experience. Also, Mom’s neighbor and friend treated us to a Christmas turkey dinner at his friend’s restaurant. And the night before our flight out, the same neighbor invited us over for a lovely dinner and even had a cake made for my mom that said, in Spanish, “return soon.” What a lovely send-off!
 |
| San Miguel de Allende |
Our trip from San Miguel to Fresno was long and grueling but luckily without hiccups. First, a four hour shuttle to the airport in Mexico City. Then a four hour wait for our flight—the airline had warned us to be excessively early since we were checking a dog for international travel. Checking in the dog and the extra suitcases took a good bit of time, but there were no problems. The next stop was the immigration office since my mom had overstayed her visa by more than two years. We had read online on various blogs that the max fine was about $250 but we couldn’t find any official information, so we were pretty nervous. But it ended up being a breeze—I don’t know if the immigration officer was taking pity on my aged mother or if the fines are usually so low, but we only had to pay about $25 to get her out of the country!
We ended up having an extra two hours by the time we got to the gate, but it passed pretty quickly as we played Hearts. Soon enough, we were on the six hour flight to San Francisco, watching movies and snoozing. (The reason we were flying to SF, and not to Fresno, was the dog—airlines are now super conscientious about flying dogs in the hold, and if temperatures anywhere along the route are too cold or too hot, they won’t allow the dog to fly. Because Fresno can actually get chilly, it was safer to fly to San Francisco which has a pretty reliably warm winter temperatures.)
Once in San Francisco, we got to zoom through the immigration line since my mom was in a wheelchair, and we had no problems getting her dog through customs, one of the main stressors of the whole trip. Phew! By the time we got our luggage, it was after 1 a.m., and we were all exhausted. We took a taxi to the hotel, waited forever to check in, and then crashed in our rooms.
The next morning, after a hotel breakfast, Carl and I took the hotel shuttle back to the airport to pick up our rental car. We then picked up Mom, the dog, and our luggage, and headed out of San Francisco toward Fresno. It’s a three hour drive without traffic, and while we did have a few slow-downs, we ended up being really lucky and didn’t hit any major traffic jams out of the Bay Area. The middle hour of the drive was absolutely gorgeous. Carl’s sister Emma had mentioned that the drive was pretty, but I still wasn’t expecting much. I’m not really much of a beach-and-palm-tree kinda gal, so aside from the Sierra, I’ve never been super intrigued by California. But the drive over Pacheco Pass with its gnarled oaks and green, rolling hills was a whole new side of California that I had never known existed. I am in love.
Mom had never really wanted to leave Mexico, but for health insurance and visa reasons, she needed to go back to the US at least for a while. She was so uninterested in moving back that she couldn’t really decide where in the US she wanted to go—nothing was as good as San Miguel, and most places were just too cold. She ended up asking me to decide for her. Because Carl’s sister Emma lives in Fresno, we decided to move her there—it was a big relief to know that Emma was around in case there was some kind of emergency situation. Also, if Mom ended up staying in Fresno long term, Carl and I were excited to be able to visit with his sister and her family in addition to visiting my mom since they always come to visit us and we’ve never gone to visit them. The proximity of the Sierra and Yosemite, Sequoia, and King’s Canyon National Parks was also a big bonus—we could easily combine future family visits with epic backpacking trips.
We didn’t really know how long my mom would be living in Fresno, so we rented a room for her at an extended stay hotel. In retrospect, we should have just rented an apartment from the get-go, but everything is clearer in hindsight. Emma and her family were actually in Sweden when we arrived, but Carl and I stayed in their cute little guest cottage for the week that we spent in Fresno. During that time, we were running around town getting mom settled, going to her first doctor’s appointment with her, hanging out with Mom at her hotel and going out to dinner etc, going on a daily run, and browsing REI and the bookstore (heavenly!).
 |
| Sometimes there's even beauty to be found in the Target parking lot. |
We did get out of Fresno for one beautiful day hike at the San Joachim River Gorge. This hike was in the lowest foothills of the Sierra Mountains, and the landscape was similar to the drive over Pacheco Pass with its oaks and pastures. In the gorge, the landscape was a bit scrabbly, not as green as Pacheco, but definitely not deserty like the hills outside of Austin and San Antonio. The day started out foggy, and some fog did drift in and out of the gorge over the course of the day, but we mostly had beautiful sunshine and clear views. It was an absolutely beautiful hike.
 |
| San Joachim River Gorge |
After being back at home for a few weeks, it was clear that my mom needed help in Fresno. So I took a two month leave of absence and flew back to Fresno immediately following our ski trip (see next post below). This was in early February, at the beginning of the Corona outbreak. I was really, really sick while skiing, and the sickness continued for the first week of my time in Fresno (it was probably just the world’s worst cold, but maybe it was Corona, who knows!). All told, I had a fever and was miserably sick with a wracking cough for over two weeks! But after sleeping for literally 13 hours a night for almost my entire first week in Fresno, I finally started to feel better.
Once I felt better, I established a great routine: I woke up at my normal time, went for a run (most often along the San Joachim River on one of Fresno’s various hike-and-bike trails), came home and showered, ate breakfast in the sun on Emma’s beautiful patio, and then worked remotely for 3-4 hours. I then went over to my mom’s hotel and hung out with her—sometimes we ran errands, sometimes she had appointments and sometimes we browsed the bookstore, but we spent quite a lot of time in her room watching episodes of Nashville. I spent a good number of the evenings doing internet research and reading, but I also enjoyed hanging out with Emma and family.
It was such a relaxed way to spend time with Emma and her family—an hour or two over dinner most days, sometimes more, sometimes less. It was such fun to be a part of their daily routine and to get to know their kids on a deeper level than the yearly summer visit. Emma was hesitant to ask me to pitch in and make dinner or pick up the kids from school, but I really loved being a part of the family like that, and I was so glad to help when needed, especially considering that I was staying in their guest cottage and using their extra car for free!
One of the major goals of my trip was to hire a Geriatric Care Manager for my mom. It had proved impossible for me to arrange everything for her from Sweden, and additionally, my mom needed help getting to the grocery store and library and such. When she heard that I was investigating such a service, Emma volunteered to help. If I was going to pay someone to help, why not pay someone that I could trust and that I knew would do an excellent job? I was pretty wary at first—family relationships are just so complicated to begin with, and mixing family and business is always tricky, and I just didn’t want to cause any potential friction between Carl and her sister. But after talking about it a lot, I became convinced that Emma wasn’t just being nice and that she really was interested in the job as a job, and we came to an agreement that felt right for both of us.
I cannot even begin to express what a huge relief hiring Emma has been. Although my mom’s situation is far from “resolved,” it is such a relief to have someone “on the ground” hounding doctors for follow-up appointments, getting my mom to appointments and to the grocery store and such, and relaying information back and forth. My mom has someone to call if she needs something, and Emma is seriously the sweetest, kindest person to my mom. My mom raves about how great Emma is every time we talk, and I feel a freedom and the energy to live my everyday life that I haven’t felt in quite a while. I’m still spending a couple evenings a week doing various internet tasks to help my mom, but the pressure and weight of the situation is hugely lessened.
While in Fresno, my weekdays were mostly taken up by work and doctor’s appointments and such, but I did have a couple of great outings on the weekends. The San Joachim valley is one of the US’s most extensive and important agricultural areas for fruit and nuts, and my trip coincided with the blooming of the fruit trees. I spent one afternoon driving around the countryside outside of Fresno looking a peach, pear, apricot, and cherry blossoms. There’s an official Blossom Trail, but I soon discovered that the smaller roads paralleling the blossom trail were even better because the trees were closer to the road and because the slower speeds gave more time for enjoying the blossoms. I stopped frequently for photos, and even had a fruit-blossom picnic on the side of one deserted road.
The valley’s citrus was also in season, and I stopped at a couple of roadside stands to buy fresh squeezed orange juice and various types of oranges. It was literally the best citrus I have ever tasted.
Another weekend day, I did a little easy dayhike at Kaweah Oaks Nature Reserve. After falling in love with the hilly oak landscapes at Pacheco Pass and at the San Joachim River Gorge, I was pretty intrigued by a whole nature reserve devoted to Valley Oaks, but the scenery turned out to be not as amazing as I had hoped. I still had a nice day, a nice hike, and a nice sunny picnic but I just didn’t fall in love with the flat, wintery landscape. Perhaps the scenery is lovelier in the spring once the trees have leafed, but I suspect that the lack of hills would never be particularly appealing for me.
 |
| Kaweah Oaks Nature Reserve |
Another weekend ended up being quite the amazing surprise. Emma and Co. were supposed to go to San Jose for a robotics tournament, but it was canceled due to Corona. They couldn’t cancel the hotel reservation and didn’t really want to hang out in San Jose for no reason, so they asked me if I wanted to use the hotel room. Why yes! I emailed my best friend from high school, Hunter, who lives between San Jose and San Francisco with his family. While we’ve loosely kept in touch, we hadn’t seen each other since about 2005 or so, so it was definitely time for a reunion. Hunter and his kids had planned a camping trip for the weekend and would be in a nearby redwoods reserve, but I could come join them for a picnic lunch and a little hike before leaving them to their campfire and checking into the hotel room. Perfect!
I had a pretty drive over Pacheco Pass again and stopped for a gorgeous but short walk in Henry W. Coe State Park (which definitely deserves more exploration).
 |
| Pacheco Pass |
 |
| Alviso Marina County Park |
On Sunday, I had originally planed to go into the city and check out the architect-rite-of-passage architectural bookstore and the de Young Museum, neither of which I have visited before. But when I realized that the architecture bookstore isn’t open on Sundays and that the current exhibits at the de Young didn’t really spark my interest, I just wasn’t feeling the city any more. Since I had missed seeing the redwoods the day before, I decided to spend the day walking in a magnificent forest instead of in the city and drove up to the nearest redwood preserve. The drive up to Portola Redwoods State Park was incredible—first up a steep, winding road bordered by probably magnificent estates hidden deep in the redwoods. After a while, the road became one lane and wove through individual redwood trees, and it was impossible to drive more than 15 or 20 miles per hour. The entire drive was only 30 miles, but it took well over an hour.
At the park, I did a 13 mile hike through the redwoods, and it was one of the most magnificent forests I have ever experienced. The towering trees block out most of the sunlight, and the forest floor was dark with a cool and humid microclimate. The forest felt like a sanctuary, hushed and secreted away from the world. I only saw two other people on the entire out-and-back hike, reinforcing the otherworldliness of the landscape. It’s hard to describe just how majestically tall the redwoods grow and how wide their bases are, and my cellphone photos really don’t do the trees justice. But even without good photographic documentation, the peaceful but stately feeling of the forest stays with me.
 |
| Portolo Redwoods State Park |
From Portolo Redwoods, I took the long, long way back to Fresno, passing wineries and following Highway 1 along the Pacific for a ways. I stopped at one of the many state beaches and walked up a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean and then down onto the sand. I then headed back over Pacheco Pass and onward to Fresno.
All in all, it was an incredible weekend, the best weekend I had had in a long, long time. Emma’s promise of help was already starting to lighten my psychological load, giving me the headspace to actually be in the present and to truly and actively enjoy myself for the first time in many months. Catching up with Hunter and meeting his smart, imaginative, and well-mannered kids was such a highlight—it’s amazing how some friendships just pick back up despite decades of hibernation. And walking through those redwoods—what a privilege! It’s too bad that the robotics tournament was cancelled, but thank you Emma and fam for the hotel room and a wonderful surprise weekend in the Bay Area!
 |
| Portolo Redwoods State Park |
Just three days after I got back to Fresno from the Bay Area, Trump closed the American border and I decided that it was now-or-never—I had to get out of the US before I was trapped on the “wrong” side of the Atlantic for months. After I read the news about the closing borders, I spent a good 10 hours, overnight, trying to get through to my airline to change my ticket. At around 7:30 am I got through, and by 8:30 the agent had found seats for me from Fresno all the way to Stockholm. The catch was that the flight left in 4 hours and the agent couldn’t change my ticket with such short notice. The only way was for me to go to the airport and hope that the seats were still available when I got to the ticketing counter.
In a whirlwind 30 or 40 minutes, I showered, packed everything, and picked up in the guest cottage as best I could. Emma drove me to the airport and we said a hasty goodbye. Once in the airport, I realized that there was no ticketing counter, so I had to wait until the check-in counter opened two hours before the flight out of Fresno. I was a nervous wreck, but after searching for about 20 minutes, the agent was able to find empty seats for me through to Stockholm. Phew!
In the remaining hour before my flight, I called my mom to say goodbye. I hated that I hadn’t even gotten to give her a hug goodbye, it was so sad! I also called my friend Mia in San Diego—I had planned to visit her the next weekend, but alas, I had to cancel the visit. Also so sad. I also sent Emma tons of information about my mom’s upcoming doctor’s visits and such—I had thought we’d have more time to go through everything before I left, and I hated just dumping everything on her so last minute, but I did feel that leaving was the right thing to do since I did need to get back to work sometime!
From Fresno I flew to Salt Lake City where I was supposed to catch a flight to Paris.
 |
| Leaving Fresno and flying over the Sierra |
An hour before the Paris flight, I discovered that it was canceled and that I was rebooked onto a flight to Atlanta, and then was on standby from there to Paris. But then I saw that the Atlanta flight was delayed and that we’d land after the flight to Paris had taken off...I called the booking hotline and managed to get myself booked onto an earlier flight to Atlanta, but it left from another terminal in just 20 minutes. I sprinted through the airport like a maniac and managed to get onto the flight in time. I relaxed for the flight but knew that another sprint marathon was ahead of me—once we landed in Atlanta, I’d only have about 30 minutes to change terminals. But since half the plane was also booked on the Paris flight, the captain managed to get a gate change for us and we parked one gate away from the Paris flight. What service! The next hurdle was actually getting onto the Paris flight as the standby list was something like 50 passengers long. But miracle of miracles, I made the cut! Once on the plane to Paris, my journey home to Stockholm went pretty smoothly.
 |
| So glad to be back in Stockholm! |
I was so, so thankful to be home. This trip was the longest time that Carl and I had ever been apart, and I missed him terribly. I was so incredibly glad not to be stuck on the other side of the Atlantic—Emma and Co. were incredibly hospitable, and it was hard to leave my mom, but there’s really nothing like home.
Thank you for everything Emma and family!
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2020
Skiing Flaine, France
 |
| Ski map of Flaine |
 |
| Skiing with our friends really made me laugh out loud sometimes. Jessica on the funniest lift ever--kind of felt like a Disneyland ride--and Jessica with her unicorn helmet. Sorry everyone else: your faces are too recognizable in the more up-close photos to post! |
The week began with a flight and transfer from Geneva (which was crazy, scary warm at 12 degrees C!) then a giant celebratory meal of tartiflette, a French country dish of potatoes, ham, and crazy amounts of cheese alongside carafes of house red wine. It was just about the best meal ever, and a great start to a great week.
In addition to hanging out at the center, our group also had a blast skiing together. Our first day was several degrees above freezing with a solid downpour—not the best skiing conditions to say the least! But despite the wet, the snow was actually fairly good and the visibility was decent, so we had a great time skiing the mostly deserted slopes. Our Gore-Tex layers eventually couldn’t stand up to the rain, and after a couple of hours, we were all pretty wet and cold. My gloves were sopping wet and streams of water ran out when I wrung them. We went in to the center for lunch and spent most of the rest of the afternoon by the fireplace.
This year, I decided to stay on-piste to hone my technique in preparation for more off-piste skiing at a future date. Ulrika, Jessica and I started in the same group and we skied a good part of the week together, though there was a little bit of mess with our groups. We had signed up for a level 4 (of 5) group, but there ended up being a level 3 group and a level 5 group, but no group that was right at our level. We had the choice of a slow pace in the level 3 group or a slightly too fast pace in the level 5 group—neither of which were ideal. I spent most of my time in the level 3 group, and it actually worked out fairly well. Our instructor was really good at giving personalized tips, so most of the feedback I received was aimed specifically at me. He also often gave Jessica and me more advanced exercises to do while the others in the group had easier exercises.
 |
| My instructor giving us tips mid-slope |
Tuesday morning, all but one of the lifts were closed because freezing rain was weighing down all the cables. My instructor tried to make the most of the one run that was available to us, but since everyone in the resort was using the one tow lift, the lift line was 45 minutes long. The morning was a bit of a waste but it was the only time we had to wait more than a couple of minutes for a lift all week.
It snowed quite a lot on Tuesday and during the night leading to Wednesday. We had a free morning on Wednesday, and our group of friends decided to ski in the powder together. Carl, Johan, Patrik and Patrik were in the same off-piste group and led Ulrika, Jessica, and I on a morning of easy, off-piste powder adventures. The terrain was fairly gentle and there was no avalanche danger in that area, so it was easy to relax and just enjoy the powder. I skied slowly but surely through the powder and didn’t fall which was a relief.
 |
| Jessica and Patrik at the top of the powdery off-piste run |
 |
| Off-piste through the trees (one of our friends took this photo) |
Flaine doesn’t have the steepest terrain in the Alps, but the area is fairly extensive with some long, luxurious runs. The views to Mont Blanc and to the jaggedy massif are just stunning, and we had several sunny days in a row to enjoy the mountainous landscape. Flaine felt a bit less crowded than many of the more popular Alp resorts, and given that it’s only 75 minutes from the Geneva airport, it seems like a really excellent spot that’s even doable as a long weekend from Stockholm.
 |
| Mont Blanc on the left, and the continued Mont Blanc massif on the right. |
My group skied a lot of distance on both Thursday and Friday, covering all of the more distant slopes and villages. I was disappointed that the resort’s longest run at 14 kilometers (!!) was closed—at the top due to avalanche danger and at the bottom due to a lack of snow. But we covered just about all of the other slopes, except for the blacks. While I was ready for some more challenging slopes, it was actually nice to take a break from pushing myself all the time and to just relax and enjoy the easier slopes and to work on my technique. One afternoon we really relaxed and our group stopped for vin chaud, or warm spiced wine, on a sunny terrace. What luxury!
Our very last day, our group of friends skied for a half day before packing up our rooms and getting our transfer back to the airport. The last day of skiing was magical with untouched slopes, incredible views, and bright Alp sunshine. Another memorable detail was the music—Patrik has speakers on his ABS backpack and has a tradition of starting off each day with a theme song while walking out to the slope. I’m not usually a fan of music on the slopes, but Patrik always chose such wonderful goofball toons that I just had to smile and bob along. On our last day, we rode a long gondola together and it was a bit of a free-for-all of requests for silly music—some of the requested tunes were just hilariously ridiculous and we had such a fun time laughing and singing along together. It was a perfect, happy, contented moment that will stick with me for a long time.
It turns out that Flaine isn’t just a skiing destination, but it’s also known in the art and architecture worlds. I had had no idea before we got there!
 |
| Car tunnel through the central area of Flaine--fine details even here! |
Marcel Breuer, the architect, was born in Hungary, educated at the Bauhaus in Germany, and then was a very successful architect in the US and architecture professor at Harvard. It was during his US phase that he was asked to design all of Flaine, quite the commission!
I think that there are three particular elements to Breuer’s work in Flaine that make it more palatable than the average French brutalist composition. First, he played with depth in the facade of prefabricated concrete panels to give them life, variation, and visual interest.
The most iconic of Breuer’s buildings in Flaine is the Le Flaine Hotel which cantilevers over a cliff face. I was also awed by the fireplace at the UCPA center (which was originally a hotel). The board-formed, cast-in-place concrete chimney flue curves in several directions! Having the crackling, glowing fire in the center’s bar was definitely a high point of the trip.
In addition to hiring the best planer and architect around, the resort also invested in art. The center of town features a Picasso, a Vasarely (also a Hungarian expat), and other modern sculptures.
 |
| Picasso! |
And that was our week of skiing in Flaine. The skiing exceeded all of our expectations, especially given the dismally rainy start to the week. Hanging out with our friends was really fun, despite my illness. My skiing technique improved, and I had SUCH a good time riding lifts and swishing down the slopes with our group. Thanks everyone for a great week!
 |
| Carl and I skiing on and off-piste. |
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2020
Sharing Gotland
We spent Saturday visiting two prehistoric sites and two churches. First up was medieval Lärbro Church which is unusual because of its octagonal tower and because of its defensive tower.
Carl and I have visited the church before, but we enjoyed taking a second pass, slowly moseying around the church, the defensive tower, and the grounds again. This time I was struck by a couple of interior details where two-dimensional painting emphasizes three-dimensional features. First, the cabinet holding the Holy Sacraments is built into the thick stone wall. The various cubbies and all of the hinges are an amazing creation in of themselves, but the whole composition is heightened by painted-on “stone” fretwork and pinnacles. On the same wall, a painted dragon’s body becomes a three-dimensional, sculptural head which transitions into a column base.
Being winter, Gotland’s churches are generally closed, but I had emailed the diocese ahead of time to have the church opened for us at an appointed time. We never saw the person that opened the church for us, but thank you!
Around the corner from Lärbro Church is the prehistoric site Kauparve. Again, Carl and I have visited before, but our previous visit had been in the fading evening light. This time we were able take our time and investigate the Bronze Age structure in the daylight.
Our next stop was Gothem Church, which I had also arranged to be opened for us. Carl and I hadn’t been to Gothem before, so it was fun to explore a new-to-us site.
Gothem’s medieval parsonage was demolished in the 1800’s, but the parsonage’s original medieval farm gate remains.
The interior of Gothem is filled with original, medieval details. Like many of Gotland’s medium-large churches, a central line of columns marches down the middle of the nave—the span was too wide without exterior buttresses, necessitating the columns and their clumsy middle placement. It’s an awkward arrangement that wouldn’t have been accepted on the continent, but in rural Gotland, it was probably the most technologically advanced solution available.
The main panels of the murals along the walls depict Christ’s story, but the smaller panels depict activities according to the farm’s monthly calendar—timber felling in February, reaping hay in June, slaughtering livestock in December. Fantastical creatures fill the church including centaurs and dragons in the ceiling.
Gothem is obviously a provincial church, but given its remoteness and the fact that it was probably funded by a single private estate, the level of artistic and architectural accomplishment is literally incredible. The church speaks to a level of wealth, a level of religiosity, and a striving for cosmopolitan sophistication that surprises given its rural location on a small island in the middle of the churning Baltic Sea.
After Gothem, we continued driving a bit southward to visit the prehistoric fort at Torsburgen. Again, Carl and I have been here a couple of times before, but it’s one of Sweden’s best prehistoric sights and is worth repeated visits. We didn’t have time for a long hike so we concentrated our time at the most impressive area with two kilometers of wall. This visit I was struck by how the constructed wall is not a continuous, even arc but is instead riddled with small concavities and convexities. I imagine that these waves are for defensive purposes like the points on a 18th century European fortress. We had a chilly picnic and then walked along the walls a bit before heading back into the warmth of the car.
Back at the house, we caught the tail end of a gorgeous sunset before starting a fire and starting dinner. Other than a bit of cooking, we spent the entire evening in front of the crackling fire.
The next day, we cleaned up the house and then went down to the beach for a short walk.
We spent most of the day in Visby to show Melinda the picturesque town with its walls and towers, ruins, winding alleyways, and cottages.
While wandering the town this time, I was of course still oohing over the picturesque lanes and the half-timbered buildings, but I was especially making note of Visby’s textures.
All too soon, it was time to head over to the ferry and sail back to Stockholm. Gotland and Visby never fail to amaze, even in the middle of January, and it was really fun to share this special spot with a special friend. Thank you for the use of your house Ylva and Anders! And thank you for a great weekend Melinda and Carl!
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2019
Christmas Markets on Gotland
 |
| The low light of winter makes for dramatic landscapes when the sun in shining. |
It was a relatively low-key weekend, and Carl and I walked along the coast both mornings and enjoyed the sunlight which we hadn’t seen in weeks.
The afternoons were spent at various Christmas markets, and first up was the Bläse market in the historic cement factory. The giant, open halls and limestone ovens are worth a visit in of themselves, but the spaces were extra cozy with all of the market booths and bustling activity.
We then headed to a nearby farm in Fleringe for a smaller, more intimate Christmas market in the gorgeous attic of a farmhouse and in the barn. Many of the stalls were selling products directly related to the sheep farm—lamb skins, sheep skin jackets, yarn, wool sweaters, sheep-skin slippers, and the like. In the barn, we enjoyed a fika of waffles and whipped cream.
We enjoyed our Christmas marketing a little too much and realized that we were cutting it close to get back to the house, change into our warmest clothes, and make it into Visby in time for the Christmas concert that we had already procured tickets for. We did make it in time to get into the concert, but not in time to get a seat. It was actually probably pretty ok that we didn’t have seats because it was probably warmer to stand—the concert was in one of Visby’s church ruins: filled with atmosphere but not with warmth. It was a windy evening and the wind frequently gusted through the ruin, adding a chilly and whiningly eerie touch to the evening.
The ruin was lit mostly by flickering torches and lanterns, but bright red lights flooded the stage with Christmas light. Once the audience was situated, the acapella choir started toward the ruin from a nearby building, their voices getting a bit more distinct with every step. They circled around the audience and filled the ruin with exquisite sound, and between the flickering torchlight in the atmospheric church ruin, the echoing choir song, and the blustery wind, my skin began to prickle—not with cold, but with feeling. It was an incredibly powerful experience to be surrounded by the echoing sound and the flickering light in the stone ruin, and to look up into the starry night sky. Occasionally clouds rushed past overhead, but for most of the performance, we could see hundreds of stars blinking overhead.
The choir sang an assortment of Christmas songs from the US, England, Sweden, Germany, Africa, and probably more parts of the world. Short snippets of moving poetry verse were interspersed between the songs. The choir sang on the stage for an hour before once again surrounding the audience, forming a 360 degree circle of song that danced around the ruin’s stone walls and columns. The choir then left the ruin, still singing, and lined the walkway from the church ruin out onto the street. They continued to sing as the audience made their way out of the ruin and homeward. The concert was a truly remarkable and memorable experience.
And as if that wasn’t a full enough day, we went back home to Carl’s parent’s house and to a fire and a gourmet pheasant dinner! Delicious!
The next morning, after another coastal walk, we headed into Visby for the traditional “Julskyltning” or “Christmas signing.” The medieval city’s stores have a tradition of covering their windows the week before Advent so that they can create their Christmas window display without the competition seeing their ideas. All of the stores reveal their windows on the same day at the beginning of Advent, and it’s the city’s official start to the Christmas shopping season. In conjunction with the “Christmas signing,” there’s a small Christmas market in the central square and a number of the stores have free warmed spiced wine (glögg) and gingerbread cookies on offer.
We started the day at the local gourmet deli and enjoyed a fantastic “Christmas plate”—a slightly more moderate version of the traditional “Christmas table.” We then wandered around the scenic city, stopping in at a few stores, and enjoying the medieval architecture. The only disappointment was the absence of snow as I would have loved to see the city walls and towers blanketed in white, but it’s just one more reason to go to Gotland again in the winter!
At dusk, it was time for us to head to the ferry terminal and to get on the boat back to Stockholm. It was the end of another lovely Gotland weekend, thank you Ylva and Anders!
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 06, 2019
Industrial Norrköping + Medieval Castle Ruins
 |
| Norrköping and Stegeborg Castle |
Ironically, while many Bronze Age rock carvings are still visible, there’s no trace left of the medieval city because it was successively demolished and replaced during the industrial glory days from the mid 1700’s to the early 1900’s. Factories in Norrköping were dedicated to the processing of wool to yarn, weaving the yarn into cloth, and later, making wool garments. Norrköping was called Sweden’s Manchester— in the mid 1800’s,there were over 100 factories clamoring for space along the river, and Norrköping accounted for 89% of the country’s garment production (as well as a significant percentage of European production). Factory jobs in Norrköping were one of the strongest attractive forces luring country folk to the cities, and for a short while, Norrköping was Sweden’s second largest city.
By the late 1800’s, the city’s industries were already feeling the effects of offshoring. As Swedes became better paid, organized into unions, and started to demand shorter work weeks and more vacation, Norrköping’s factories became less and less competitive. Factory owners invested heavily in new, more mechanized technology and laid off workers to try to compete. World War I and the almost complete cession of trade—Sweden couldn’t import the raw wool needed for the factories and the finished product couldn’t be exported to the rest of Europe—was more or less a nail in Norrköping’s industrial coffin.
None-the-less, after the war, factory owners continued to heavily invest in the latest, most efficient technologies and even built new, modern facilities to enable efficient production. Despite the Great Depression and its dampening effects on the garment business, over half of Norrköping’s work force were still employed by the factories. In the 50’s, factories started to close one by one. The last factory closed its doors in 1986, and the city found itself in a crisis situation with the country’s lowest level of education, the lowest employment levels, and the highest levels of welfare reliance.
Most of Sweden’s other formerly industrial cities tried to solve the problem by razing the industrial districts which were always located on the waterfront and building new, fancy apartment and office buildings. This was proposed in Norrköping as well, but miraculously, the city decided to exploit its industrial past—to keep the beautiful building stock, renovate it into other uses, and build a system of public waterside boardwalks linking the various industrial complexes together.
Today, the buildings are rebuilt into museums, concert halls, entrepreneurial spaces, research labs, university buildings, bars, cafés, restaurants, schools, theaters, hotels, and offices. We visited in cold, grey, rainy November, but the multitude of really cool-looking but hibernating outdoor bars, restaurants, and cafés makes me think that the boardwalks must be hopping with life during the summer months. It’s hard to tell if all the spaces in the vast industrial buildings are rented out, but I didn’t see any for-rent signs or other indications of emptiness.
The area’s popularity and success seems to be confirmed by the number of infill apartment buildings that have recently been finished or are still under construction—some of them quite daring and different, others, not.
Carl and I spent a really great day wandering the city’s boardwalks and admiring the beautiful historical industrial building stock. Every era and industrial style from the mid 1700’s to the mid 1900’s were represented, and all of the buildings were in good repair. I had known that Norrköping’s industrial landscape was impressive and worth a look, but I was still blown away by the sheer size of the area, how well maintained and well used the buildings are, and the extensive system of boardwalks.
We really could have entertained ourselves for three full days just by staying in Norrköping, but we were also itching to see a bit of the surrounding countryside so we rented a car for a day to explore some of the region’s many (ruined) medieval castles. Despite being a grey, November day, the fog dancing over the scale-scale agricultural fields was very scenic. It felt like a great day for a woodsy, atmospheric hike, especially if one could later warm up with hot chocolate by a fire. We didn’t have either in our near future, but we managed to have a lovely day nonetheless.
 |
| Fall! |
Our first stop was 13th century Stegeborg Castle, which is today a ruin except for the tower. The castle sits on a small island guarding a narrows in the navigable channel between the Baltic and the town of Söderköping (“South Market Town”). Today, Söderköping is a small and relatively insignificant place—neither the highway nor the train pass through, and there’s no major tourist draw, either. But in the Middle Ages, Söderköping was of highest importance as the region’s port town. The status of port town was entirely due to Stegeborg Castle which controlled the channel into the port and kept the town safe from pirates. Today, Norrköping is a major port with its more direct access to the sea, but the direct access made it vulnerable in the Middle Ages—then, Söderköping was much more significant than its neighbor Norrköping.
Just as Söderköping is a bit of an unknown town, I’m guessing that most Swedes have never heard of Stegeborg Castle. I myself was surprised to learn about just how much history took place in the castle, and just how strategic it was in the throne-grabbing Middle Ages. If an aspirant to the throne didn’t control Stegeborg, there was no real chance that they would succeed and win the throne.
I had seen a photo of Stegeborg, but I wasn’t prepared for just how large the structure is. Three stories of living quarters were built against the outer wall and encompass a large bailey. The tower was much higher than I had imagined. And the best part was that you can still climb up into the tower! Not all the way, but enough to get a sense of the height and of what a great look-out it was.
Since we were in the neighborhood, we also stopped at the very ruined 14th century Skällvik Castle which is on the mainland coast within sight of Stegeborg. Carl and I can’t really make sense of why Skällvik was built, but it seems to be more related to the church than to the state since the castle lies on the Bishop’s estate. Medieval bishops weren’t shy about protecting their interests—Läckö is a prime example (see “Läckö Castle +” here).
We then drove inland to the nature reserve at Norsholm to visit more ruined medieval castles. The castles were built at a strategic location to control another important waterway, this time Motala Ström—the same stream that goes through Norrköping, connecting the Baltic with Sweden’s extensive network of inland lakes. As I wrote above, Motala Ström was the region’s most important “highway” and there have been fortifications at this narrows for millennia.
The prehistoric fort atop a high cliff overlooking the stream was a permanent residence with buildings with stone foundations—this is unusual as the majority of Sweden’s hilltop forts seem to have been used only in times of trouble and have no sign of being used for longer periods of time. The residential function at Norsholm points to the probability that the fort was used to control this narrow point of the stream, not just as an escape from attack.
No less than two medieval castles were built at the narrows by the Bishop. The first one we hiked to, like the prehistoric fort, was built atop a high hill in the 1400’s. The second, also probably built in the 1400’s, was out on a small hummock in the reedy marshland beside the stream. It was at least three stories high and was preceded by an outer ward and gatehouse. The navigable stream was blocked by an underwater stone wall, and a very narrow channel was dug into the marsh near the castle. This gave the castle full control over all boats that passed through the narrows. Archeological finds point to both castles being used at the same time—perhaps the hilltop one was a residential fortification while the streamside castle was used for extracting tolls and controlling passage. Both castles were burned at the end of the century, probably in Sweden’s protracted war with Denmark.
A little on Norrköping’s Bronze Age rock carvings: There is a high concentration of carvings in the area. To my untrained eye, they’re pretty similar to the ones at the UNESCO World Heritage Site in Tanum, (see “3000 Year-Old Rock Carvings in Tanum” here) but there were a couple of new-to-us depictions including a series of paw prints depicting a bear walking across the site
I’ve already mentioned how impressive I found Norrköping. It made me think a lot about the city of Pittsburgh where I spent a considerable amount of my time as a child visiting my grandparents. Just think what Pittsburgh could do with all of its steel mills! Imagine: The Broadway version of Flash Dance performed IN a steel mill cum performance center!
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2019
Quick Trip to Gotland
 |
| Scenery from the ferry ride to Gotland |
As usual, Carl and I spent most of a day looking at prehistoric landscapes. First up was Gålrum, a very large graveyard with burials spanning from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age. The graves are quite varied, from huge stone mounds to small stone mounds to mounds of earth to rings of concentric stones to standing-stone ships. We had a fika break sitting on top of one of the huge Bronze Age stone mounds looking out over the various prehistoric constructions. It’s not every day that you have coffee sitting atop a huge Bronze Age monument!
 |
| Gålrum. Left: Stone ship setting. Right: cocentric circles in stone. |
We re-visited one of the sites that we had loved on our previous visit, Visne Ängar or Visne Meadows which was inhabited in the Bronze and Iron Ages. The Meadows were the grazing and domestic areas for four farms and were surrounded by agricultural fields. It’s a gorgeous landscape of rolling hillocks, a seasonal stream, towering oaks, hazel groves, and grassy meadows under the mighty oak branches. It’s a very open landscape, and its beauty appeals on a visceral level. It feels very natural, but the entire landscape was in fact methodically planted and cultivated by the farmers. Oaks provided building materials and acorns (feed for pigs) while the hazels provided hazelnuts (feed for pigs) and hazel branches (winter feed for livestock). The grassy meadow provided summer grazing for the livestock and a beautiful setting for everyday life.
 |
| Visne Ängar |
Last time, we had visited the Meadows after all the leaves had fallen from the trees so this time we made a point to go while the trees were still green. The meadows were achingly beautiful this time around, too, but I am eager to visit again in the spring wildflower season: after the trees have leafed out but before the brush has grown very high.
Visne Ängar was abandoned for unknown reasons around 500 A.D. We visited another abandoned farm “next door” at Fjäle. Fjäle was cleared for farming around 100 A.D. and abandoned in the 1300’s, probably in conjunction with the plague which killed about a third of Gotland’s population. More beautiful meadows, more prehistoric relics. And lots of very cute and extremely fluffy grey and black sheep.
 |
| Fjäle. Left: meadow. Right: an Iron Age building foundation--huge! |
We spent a good while chasing down a “random” prehistoric monument way back in the forest that was marked on the map but that we knew nothing about. I was willing to bet that it was relatively invisible or relatively uninteresting, but I was pleasantly surprised by the stone ship at Liffrideskeppen. Not only was it visible, but there was even a sign way out in the middle of the forest!
Carl’s parents indulged us with a gastronomic feast of native crawfish which were procured live from a local fisherman and boiled at home in a traditional dill bath. Traditionally enjoyed outside despite the August chill, crawfish is THE festive late-summer party, a sort of bittersweet last-blast. Swedish decorating is usually very, very understated and reserved, but there’s one particular exception to that rule: Crawfish. It’s not unusual for a crawfish feast to be served on special crawfish-themed plates set on a special crawfish-themed table. Special crawfish-themed songs are sung at intervals throughout the meal, and each song is followed by a sip of snaps. Crawfish-themed party hats and crawfish-themed bibs complete the non-lagom ambiance. What an incredible feast!
The next day, we helped Carl’s parents with a couple of projects around the house (well Carl helped!) and then walked down to the beach. (It was at this time that our camera’s battery ran out, but we didn’t realize it because of the camera’s broken screen. Definitely time to get a new camera!) But anyway, due to high winds, the waves were crashing on the beach with quite a lot of force, and there was a good bit of foam flying in the wind.
On the way to the ferry, we stopped at a couple of churches that have been on our touristing list—the first because of its well preserved stone sculptures and the second because of its funny shape. No photos to share, however—I don’t think that this visit “counted,” I think we’ll have to go again!
Because of the strong winds, we were worried that the ferry crossing home would be a nauseous affair, but it was surprisingly smooth sailing—we’ve definitely experienced worse when traveling to Gotland in the winter.
 |
| It's always hard to take a photo of a boat while you're on the boat. But this time, just a few days later, we saw the Gotland ferry boat from a different boat! |
Thank you Ylva and Anders for yet another great weekend on Gotland, this time even with a feast of native crawfish!
 |
| Taking a cue from my friend Brantley, The End. |
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 09, 2019
Söderåsen National Park
Susanna and Johannes have visited the park a few times before, but only as day trips from the city, and they were eager to stay at the too-cute Villa Söderåsen, a Victorian hotel catering to park tourists. Today the hotel is a very affordable “hostel” with private rooms, a breakfast buffet, a playroom under the stairs, a well-equipped kitchen, a generous common room with wood stove, grills and tables in the garden, and amazing balconies. The only “hostel” thing about the place is that the bathrooms are shared and out in the hallway. Located on the park boundary, it was the perfect, comfortable base for a weekend of day hiking.
Not only was the hotel a great find, but Söderåsen National Park is just beautiful. Like most of the parks in the southern half of Sweden, the park is a relatively small chunk of nature amidst a landscape that has been intensely cultivated for millennia. The park is not virgin nature, either, but the ecosystem is intact enough and the landscape has grown back enough from pre-industrial agriculture to give the illusion of untouched nature.
Just a few months ago I posted about our trip to Tiveden National Park (see below), also a swath of relatively untouched forest. In my post, I mentioned how I enjoyed the forest, but being coniferous, it didn’t really feel like genuine forest to my southern Appalachian soul. Söderåsen, however, is a beech forest and deliciously deciduous. It was just gorgeous. I don’t think I’ve actually ever been in a beech forest before, and it was a revelation of beauty. The canopy was so dense that the filtered light underneath had a visible green tint.
We went for a longish day hike on Saturday, climbing up onto and following the plateau for a while before dropping back down into the humid, more verdant river valley.
I definitely preferred the open forest of the plateau to the denser forest of the river valley, but the river valley did have a number of charming bridges and bog bridges that made the hike delightful. Four year old Agnes was especially enamored of all the bridges and bog bridges.
Johannes and Susanna walked with and carried the kids (4 and 1), exhausting work, while Carl roamed the nearby forest looking for mushrooms. It turns out that the pace of mushroom hunting and the pace of a reluctant four year old hiker are about the same. We found a good number of mushrooms—a few porcinis (Karl Johan) and chanterelles which became a super yummy sauce for our Swedish meatball dinner as well as lots of Scarletina boletes (Blodsopp) which we ate (well cooked) on a baguette after we got home to Stockholm.
On Sunday, Carl and I went for a short day hike, walking straight out from our hotel and following the trail in a wide loop through the gorgeous beech forest. There were visible remnants of the land’s previous agricultural use—stone walls, an old graded road—but the signs of this previous land use are slowly melting back into the forest.
We met up with Susanna and Co. at a lake after their even shorter day hike. The lake is in an old ice-age cirque and is surrounded by a ring of steep slopes; it is fed by springs from underneath. We took a dip before eating our picnic lunch. It started to rain in the middle of our picnic, but we just sat and finished eating before heading back to the hotel, the car, and the train home.
As usual, the weekend felt all too short. I really could have stayed and wandered through that beautiful beech forest for a few more days. Thank you for sharing such a beautiful spot with us Susanna and Johannes! I’m looking forward to visiting again, next time in the fall when the beech leaves are changing color.
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 03, 2019
Visiting Friends in Denver: Summer Vacation 2019 Part III
 |
| Clyfford Still Museum by Allied Works |
I’ve (we’ve) visited Hilary a number of times in Denver, and together we’ve done quite a lot of hiking, skiing, snowshoeing, backpacking, ice skating, baking, bathing in hot springs, crafting, wine imbibing, and touristing. I’ve spent some time in the city with Hilary, but mostly we’ve gone up into the mountains for various adventures. But despite all my previous trips, Hilary managed to pack our stay with a whole new itinerary.
We explored a bit of Arvada and Golden, both independent small towns that have been more or less gobbled up by metropolitan Denver by this point, but they both retain their own charismatic, walkable downtowns. In Golden, we watched tubers pitch down the rapids—I didn’t even know that there was tubing in the area, next time we visit in the summer we’ll have to make sure to have enough time for it!
I also had never been hiking out at Red Rocks, and we enjoyed a relatively short but lovely dayhike—it was too intensely hot and sunny for any longer endeavor! By the end of our 3 mile loop, I was really, really ready for the shade and the breeze of the overlook.
Another day, we drove up into the mountains and enjoyed Breckenridge by summer—in the past, we’ve always been so focused on the skiing that I’ve never walked around the too-cute downtown. We took Hilary’s kids out to see the new forest troll (Danish artist Thomas Dambo) and to ride the free gondola. Lots to do in crazy expensive but beautiful Breckenridge without spending a dime! (Well, except for gas. And our ridiculously expensive lattes. But you know.)
In downtown Denver, Hilary took us to see the Clyfford Still Museum. Clyfford Still was an acclaimed abstractionist admired by the likes of Jackson Pollock and Rothko, but because he refused to play into the game of galleries and museum exhibitions, he never became part of the abstractionist cannon. The collection was interesting and I especially enjoyed Still’s color combinations in some of the paintings, but I did not fall in love with Still’s work.
 |
| Clyfford Still's work |
The museum building, however, is beautifully conceived by Allied Works and painstakingly constructed; it is a monument to concrete: the building is almost a museum of concrete and all the ways you can use it. Even the holey, light-filtering ceiling is made out of concrete. The level of detailing was just amazing—not only were all the details drawn, but they were even executed!
 |
| Now that's detailing: Clyfford Still Museum by Allied Works |
In a true gift of friendship, Hilary and Chris invited me to invite a slew of other Denver-area friends and their significant others to their house for a grill party one evening. I had worked with Kim, Tana, and Brandon (and Betsy) at Lake | Flato in San Antonio, and while we don’t exactly write long letters to each other every week, we still keep tabs on each other. It’s a testament to how special the Lake| Flato family is that we all keep touch ten or more years after leaving the firm. It was a fantastic evening of catching up on the preceding few years of everybody’s lives—from teaching adventures to child-rearing adventures, and from firm opening adventures to bar owning adventures—everybody has been busy and there was a lot to catch up on! The evening passed all too quickly, I could have kept chatting for hours or perhaps days!
And like our evening grill party, our Denver visit also passed all too quickly. I didn’t want to overstay our welcome—fish and guests and all that—but I would have loved to stay and continue catching up. But we had to leave on our jet plane and arc our way across the Atlantic, back to our beloved cat, back to our lovely apartment, back to our beautiful city, and back to our pretty darn great daily lives of work and kayaking and wandering and such. We were pretty sad to leave the Rockies and our friends and vacation adventures behind, but did at least have an autumn of mushrooms to look forward to!
Thank you so much for everything, Hilary and Chris! And Kim, Tana, and Brandon—it was so, so lovely to see you and to meet your families! Sorry to have missed you Betsy!
SATURDAY, AUGUST 24, 2019
Backpacking the Wind River Range: Summer Vacation 2019 Part II
 |
| Cirque of the Towers from Jackass Pass and Titcomb Basin |
First, the elevation: We parked the car at 9,300 feet (2830 meters) and most of the nine days were spent at 10,000 feet (3050 meters) and above. Our journey topped out at 11,750 feet (3580 meters) and we climbed over at least one major pass every day.
Pack weight: on the first day, both of our packs weighed 57 lbs (26 kg) WITHOUT water. While I admit that we did have a couple of luxury items (camp chairs, journal/sketch pad, an extra camera), much of the extreme weight had to do with other factors. First of all, the local ranger gave us the impression that we’d be walking through a LOT of snow, so we had snow shoes and ice axes with us. While the ice axes did come in handy on the steep, snowy passes, we never used the (very heavy) snowshoes. Also, we were carrying way too much food—between the elevation which suppresses your appetite and the mosquitoes which made stopping miserable, we just didn’t eat as much as we would have on a similar hike in Sweden. Another contributing factor was bears: one is required to store all food and toiletries in bear proof containers, and they are bulky and heavy. Bear spray isn’t exactly feather light, either.
 |
| At camp, we stored the bear containers about 100 meters from our tent and tried to wedge them between rocks so that if a bear started to paw at them, the containers wouldn't roll down the mountainside. |
The trail: We started out hiking a variant of the Wind River High Route, a mostly trail-less, very high, very exposed, very strenuous route. After three days, we decided that we just didn’t have enough time. Given the strenuousness of the terrain and our extremely heavy packs, we were already exhausted, and we were clearly going to need a rest day or two before reaching the other trailhead.
Not only did we not have time for any rest days, but we also didn’t have time for any bad weather. And given the fact that the route was so high and exposed, the weather would have to be perfect for nine days straight; otherwise, we’d have to do a double day in order to catch up to get to our shuttle and our flight in time. So on the third day, we made the hard but probably wise decision to descend from the high route. We bushwhacked down to the Continental Divide Trail / Freemont Trail / Highline Trail and mostly followed that trail for the rest of our journey.
But even when we had descended to the CDT, the going was still physically tough. We were still above 10,000 feet, our packs were still crazy heavy, we still didn’t have time for any rest days, we were still physically exhausted, and we still had to cross at least one major pass per day. A couple of days on the CDT found us crossing several major passes in the same day, which meant that we did a lot of yo-yoing up and down and up and down. Also, neither the high route nor the CDT featured a lot of bridges, so we did a lot of wading in sandals through rivers from our knees up to our crotches. The cool water on my throbbing feet actually felt really good, but the stopping to change shoes and take our pants on and off all the time was both time and energy consuming.
And then there were the mosquitoes: The Tetons had been a mostly mosquito-free paradise, but the Wind River Range was one big mosquito swarm. I’ve experienced mosquitoes like this before, but never for more than a 24-hour period, and always in the vicinity of a wet, low-lying area. But the mosquito swarms in Wind River were relentless throughout the nine days and tended to be even worse the higher up we went. We apparently had really bad timing—with the late snow melt this year, the mosquitoes hatched late and while they are usually manageable by late July, this year they were, well, unmanageable.
 |
| Despite the mosquitoes, we did manage a few breaks. |
At camp, we spent most of our time escaping the mosquitoes in our tent. Luckily, with our rain fly off, we still get good views of the mountains around us. On the trail, we stopped as infrequently as possible because each stop meant that the omnipresent buzzing cloud of mosquitoes around us transmuted into a swarm. We were literally breathing mosquitoes. Many snacks, lunches, and dinners were consumed while standing up and circling around the area in an effort to escape the swarm. The mosquito swarms were not exactly inviting us to stop and enjoy the scenery along the trail.
Another factor that exacerbated the mosquito swarms was the lack of wind—I’ve never experienced such a lack of breeze in the mountains, and to think that we were in a range named Wind River! The puffs of breeze were so far and few between that we noticed each time that the air moved even slightly. Each time, maybe three or four times a day, we squealed, “AHHH, breeze!” I’ve never been so thankful for such insignificant breeze puffs!
And finally, the heat: The lack of wind made the unusually warm weather extra sticky. Some days were incredibly dry and our clothes dried in an instant, but other days were very humid. It wasn’t like hiking in Texas, but we are just simply not used to that kind of heat or that kind of searing, direct sunshine anymore. Generally, we welcomed the sunny weather—it made for extra beautiful landscapes and it was such a nice change from our rainy vacation in Scotland last year—but the heat did make the hiking just a little bit more exhausting.
But now that I’ve described the hardships of our adventure in the Wind River Range, let me try to describe the incomparable beauty. I’ve never seen so much spiky granite in my whole life, combined.
 |
| Wildflowers! |
While the Tetons, being a national park, are well known, the Winds are comparatively under the radar. I say comparatively because the range is celebrated among avid American hikers and climbers, but the range is hardly known outside of the US and the average American has never heard of it either. But if the range were a national park, I’m guessing that it would be just as known and visited as the Tetons. The Wind River Range boasts impressive statistics: 19 out of 20 of the highest peaks in Wyoming are in the Winds, there are almost 200 glaciers in the Winds, including the largest glaciers in the Rocky Mountains; at 728,020 acres, the Winds is one of the largest road-free areas in the continental United States. And then there’s the scenery—both the Cirque of the Towers and Titcomb Basin are phenomenally beautiful and dramatic.
 |
| Spikey granite in the Cirque of the Towers |
We started our hike at Big Sandy Trailhead where we left our car and began hiking up into the mountains with our giant, heavy backpacks. The terrain was fairly gentle at first, but after about five or six miles, the trail started gaining elevation in earnest.
 |
| Left: Trail from Big Sandy. Right: View behind us as we climbed Jackass Pass. |
 |
| View from Jackass Pass |
From Jackass Pass, the view into the literally incredible Cirque of the Towers opens up.
 |
| Cirque of the Towers from Jackass Pass |
 |
| Cirque of the Towers |
The next morning, we climbed over Texas Pass, crossing back to the western side of the Continental Divide. At the top, we stopped for a long break on a gentle, snowy slope to test out our new ice axes. After a few tries first without and then with our packs, we both felt reasonably comfortable self-arresting and glissading with our packs on. It was then time to descend the pass, and on the other side, the terrain was so steep and exposed that we were quite glad to have our ice axes in hand as we descended the snow fields. Luckily, we didn’t have to test out our self-arrest skills for real.
 |
| Left: Learning to self arrest on Texas Pass. Right: View back up to Texas Pass after descending. The actual pass is almost all the way to the right in the photo. |
An entire new valley lined with new serrated ridges and dotted with new glittering alpine lakes awaited us. After lunch on a rock over Shadow Lake, we realized that we really needed to get a move on it if we were going to make the designated daily distance, so we started booking it. We were slowed down by several stream crossings where we had to wade in sandals and then by a hail storm which we waited out in the shelter of a gnarled pine tree. In the end we did make it to our designated campsite beside Pyramid Lake, but we were both ready to drop by that point.
 |
| Left: Shadow Lake. Right: Camp Day 2 at Pyramid Lake. |
From Pyramid Lake, we left the trail behind and “bushwhacked” over the next pass. I wrote “bushwhacked” in quotation marks because the trail is so high that there aren’t really many bushes to whack through, and, given the clear weather and the dramatic terrain, the route was pretty obvious and easy to follow. But even so, we were off the grid and on our own. We didn’t see a soul as we made our way over to the pass below Raid Peak.
 |
| Going over a mini-pass before making our way over the the day's major pass |
The climb up to the pass started off well, but soon we were ensnared in a never-ending boulder field where I made agonizingly slow progress. If there’s a type of terrain that I’m not good at, it’s boulder fields; my balance is a bit shaky and I’m just not confident enough in my balance to bound through the car and house-sized boulders. It took me a good two hours to get through the boulder field, and as we got closer to the pass and saw the terrain above us, I wasn’t even sure that we’d be able to get up and over the pass. After the boulder field, we started up a snow field where we were able to make better progress. But above the snow field, it looked like we were going to have to climb up and over an overhanging rock wall—terrain that we were completely unprepared and unequipped for. But once we got up to the wall, we saw that we could actually pass up through a crack behind the cliff face. Carl took my pack and I was able to get up through the crack without too much ado. And suddenly, we were up on top of the pass!
 |
| Left: Almost to the top of the pass below Raid Peak. Right: The view back down the pass. All those stones are huge, car and house sized boulders--the landscape is larger than life and scale is hard to judge! |
We had managed the pass, but my slow progress through the boulder field just underscored the fact that we were hiking at the edge of our ability and that we didn’t have any extra time for any unforeseen circumstances such as a never-ending boulder field. It was a tough decision, but I think it was the right decision: we decided to leave the high trail and descend down to the CDT. It was a bit of a bushwhacking adventure to get through the forest and down to the trail, but Carl proved to be an excellent route finder and we stumbled down to the trail without losing our way for even a moment.
That night, despite having left the high route, we still had a view of spiky mountains in the distance. We also had a shower! We took turns fetching bottles of water for each other as we stood by a stream and washed with soap. So, so lovely to get rid of all the layers of sweat, sunscreen and bug guck!
 |
| Left: Descending from the pass below Raid Peak--from this spot we left the high route and descended down to the CDT. Right: Camp, Day 3. |
Our fourth day was comparatively tranquil. The trail skirted through a couple of forest sections, but much of the terrain was gently rolling highland. We made our way through gorgeous, flower-covered meadows and camped with more mountains in the distance.
 |
| Day 4 |
It was good that we had a bit of a “rest” on day four, because the next day was a yo-yo day where the trail crossed a number of high passes. The views from the passes were beautiful, but honestly, the highlight for me were the big, open meadows just below the passes. I just love open scenery and the meadows were truly Sound of Music epic, both in scale and in beauty.
 |
| Left: atop one nameless pass looking back to the previous nameless pass. Right: Frolicking in the meadow! |
I was doing fairly well climbing up to pass number one, Hat Pass, but by the time we were climbing up to unnamed pass number four below Baldy Mountain, I was struggling. However, once we got up to the top and saw the incredible basin of alpine lakes stretching below us and the incredible range of granite peaks framing the basin, my pack magically got lighter and I magically felt more energetic. There was a breeze and relatively few mosquitoes for once, so we stopped for an extended snack break at the top of the pass and just enjoyed the view.
 |
| View from the pass below Baldy Mountain |
We were loath to descend into mosquito territory and to lose the view, so we decided to cut the day a bit shorter than planned and to camp in the meadow just below the top of the pass. In a trip filled with extraordinary tent sites, this one was one of the highlights. Unfortunately, the breeze didn’t last into the evening and we were once again besieged with mosquitoes, but we still enjoyed the view from behind the tent mesh.
 |
| Camp Day 5 on pass below Baldy Mountain |
I started out day six pretty much exhausted, and I wasn’t in the best of moods as we yo-yoed up and down over a few passes. But my mood steadily improved as we neared the Titcomb Basin and as the mountain views became more and more promising.
 |
| Crossing over more passes, getting closer to the drama of the Titcomb Basin |
 |
| Left: View from Lester Pass. Right: After Lester Pass, there are still a few more passes to climb before reaching Titcomb Basin... |
After Lester Pass, we veered off the CDT and continued to yo-yo up and down a series of exhausting passes, but finally, we dropped into Titcomb Basin.
 |
| Getting closer to Titcomb |
 |
| Titcomb Basin |
It was literally rock hard and quite slanted, but we couldn’t resist tenting on top of the last granite pass that drops into the Basin. Our campsite did meet the wilderness requirements of being more than 200 feet from the trail and from the lake, but on top of the granite bulb, our orange tent was visible for several miles in both directions. It seems like maybe another appropriate wilderness area regulation would be to limit tent visibility!
 |
| Camp day 6 in Titcomb Basin |
After setting up camp, we left our packs and strolled further into the Basin. It was SO lovely and buoyant to walk without our ridiculously heavy backpacks; it was like walking weightless on the moon. We passed several lakes and stopped at the Basin’s last lake for a chocolate snack, enjoying the view, a steady breeze (!), and a near absence of mosquitos (!). We sat and gazed at the path that we would not take due to lack of energy and time—straight ahead, up over the knife-edge pass.
 |
| Titcomb Basin |
On our way back to camp, we stopped at a lake and took another swim/shower, helping each other by fetching bottle after bottle of water for rinsing. Unspeakably lovely to get clean!
It clouded over that evening, and after breakfast the next morning, we had quite the rain shower. We would have loved to have a rest day in Titcomb Basin, to sit and rest our weary bodies and enjoy the incredible view, but we had to keep going in order to make it out to the trailhead in time. So after sitting for an hour or so in our tent waiting for the rain to stop, we had to just bite the bullet and pack up and start hiking out of the Basin in the rain. The mist and the clouds swirling through the peaks were very atmospheric and it reminded me a lot of rainy Scotland. We had had a few quick afternoon thunderstorms and a bit of rain in the night, but day 7 was our only rainy day on our entire three week trip.
 |
| Misty Titcomb Basin |
I was pretty heartbroken leaving the Titcomb Basin. It felt like we had already experienced the best scenery, that the rest of the trip would be a relatively boring long slog out to the road. And until lunch, the rain and my exhaustion and the clouds of mosquitos and the less exciting scenery combined to dampen my mood. But after lunch, we rose back above treeline and the scenery was unexpectedly alpine and unexpectedly fantastic.
After hiking out of the Basin and around and about a good long ways, we joined back up with the CDT and started paralleling the backside of the mountains lining Titcomb Basin. The backside of the mountains were just as serrated and dramatic as the Basin side. The trail climbed steadily but not steeply, and we passed a series of lakes, crossed the same river twice (being almost up to my waist, it was too deep for boots, so we had to stop and change shoes a lot), crossed a number of snowy sections, and rose up into a landscape that became more and more alpine with every step. Just my kind of scenery! We weren’t really all that hungry but we couldn’t help ourselves from stopping for a snack break in order to take in the scenery.
 |
| Approaching the pass below Bow Mountain |
The pass was a gentle grassy one with no boulder fields to cross. We camped in the saddle with views of serrated ridges and soaring peaks in both directions. A bit of breeze allowed us to sit outside without being absolutely overwhelmed with mosquitoes, and we spent the evening marveling at the fantastic view and the dramatic light as the clouds began to break up. For dinner, we turned our chairs and faced the other direction, marveling at more dramatic mountains.
 |
| Relaxing in the pass below Bow Mountain |
It got windier and windier as the evening progressed, and somewhere around 11pm, it was blowing so hard that the tent started to collapse. After two weeks with no wind, we hadn’t been paying much attention to setting up our tent to correctly align with the wind, so we had to get up in the dark and twist the tent into a better alignment to withstand the wind. It was too windy to loosen all the tent stakes at once—we were afraid the tent would fly away despite being filled with our things. So instead, we had to twist the tent incrementally, loosening only a couple of stakes at a time. The whole process took twenty minutes or half an hour—so nice that it wasn’t raining! Back in the tent, the wind was still fierce but now the tent withstood the wind without much problem. The wind died back down through the night and by the morning, it was back to being the Windless River Range.
 |
| Camp Day 7 in the pass below Bow Mountain |
Once again I had fairly low expectations for the day—we would be dropping below treeline after all. But once again, I was wonderfully surprised. The alpine scenery before we descended below treeline was just gorgeous—yet more sparkling mountain lakes, more dramatic ridges, more breathtaking beauty around every bend.
 |
| Beautiful scenery at breakfast and along the trail, Day 8 |
At the bottom of our long, fairly steep descent, we heard rushing water. Then we could see the tumbling white water. I was starting to think that we’d never be able to ford the crashing, plummeting river, but then we saw a bridge! After fording so many rivers throughout our hike, several a day, I had a newfound appreciation for bridges.
After the bridge, we climbed back up into an unexpected Sound of Music mountain meadow landscape. Wide and open, the scenery was just beautiful, and I was surprised at how huge the meadow-land was—we hiked for several miles, climbing up and over an undramatic pass and dropping well down into the next valley before the mountains started closing in and the trees started taking over.
 |
| Meadows at Green River Pass |
Right before dropping below the treeline, we stopped for a sunny meadow lunch to enjoy the view out over the next valley and to the mountains beyond. The mosquitoes quickly found us, but we weren’t ready to leave the alpine landscape for good, so we set up our tent and enjoyed the scenery from behind the shield of the mosquito netting. We read, journaled, sketched, and played the harmonica for a long while before reluctantly packing up the tent and continuing down the trail.
 |
| Lunch at Green River Pass |
We decided not to descend all the way down to the valley floor and set up camp in a beautiful, sunny meadow not too far below our lunch spot. Even though we’d soon be back in civilization, we just couldn’t stand our stink any longer and jumped into the nearby river and even scrubbed all our clothes. Most of our clothes dried on the line before the sun went below the ridge, but a few things were still damp the next morning. Always lovely to put on damp hiking clothes, mmm!
 |
| Drying clothes at camp on Day 8. |
Day 9 was not my favorite day. I was exhausted and my feet were throbbing with shooting pains with every step. My stomach was bothering me and I had to take sudden, mosquito-y detours into the forest. The weather was warm humid and damp as it sprinkled on and off. Being mostly in the forest, the scenery was less spectacular. We didn’t see any moose or other wildlife down in the river meadows like we had hoped. There were a number of tiring, time-consuming river crossings. I was low on energy and sad to be on the last, long slog back to the road.
That said, we did get a few beautiful views of the mountains towering above us, and it was pretty cool to be walking along the headwaters of the mighty Green River—up in the Winds, it’s easy to understand why it’s named the “Green” River. And despite my complaints about the trail being long and about the tiresome river crossings, it was pretty easy and flat hiking. What’s more, toward the bottom of the canyon, we started having lovely, if misty, views back toward iconic Squaretop Mountain.
 |
| Left: Green River. Right: Squaretop Mountain. |
Obeying the regulation not to camp right next to lakes, we climbed up a small but steep rise and set up camp a bit away from Green River Lakes. We didn’t have much of a view from our tent, but just next to it we had a beautiful view across the turquoise water to Squaretop Mountain. It continued to sprinkle on and off throughout the evening so I alternated from the view to the tent and back again, but the humid weather gave rise to atmospheric, ghostly fog over the water.
 |
| Camp Day 9, overlooking Squaretop Mountain. |
Day 10 was a short day, only 3.5 miles, and we made it to the trailhead a couple of hours before our shuttle was supposed to arrive. I was so sad to leave the wilderness, so sad to be leaving the Winds. A scenic, abandoned homestead at the trailhead did make leaving a bit easier to swallow, and I was starting to really look forward to a hot shower, a juicy hamburger, and a real mattress.
 |
| Abandoned homestead at Green River Lakes Trailhead. |
We had no problems with the shuttle—it even arrived a bit early and we enjoyed talking with the driver on the almost six hour journey back to our car. It was interesting to talk to a local about what life is like in small town Wyoming, about the surprisingly uncommercial ranching in the area, about Wyoming politics, about fracking, and about the various land management agencies that have a stake in the area.
 |
| Road between Pinedale and Big Sandy. |
We stayed at the Sundance Motel in Pinedale—I just love the name of the motel, so American, so Western. Despite being basically in the middle of nowhere, Pinedale’s a surprisingly bustling town, largely due to all the nature-based tourism in the area, and it has a surprising offering of hotels, restaurants, and shops. The next morning, we took it easy and enjoyed strolling through town and popping into the various stores. The selection of cowboy boots and hats, ropes and lassos, Carhartts and work gloves was quite impressive. We drove from Pinedale back to Jackson in plenty of time for our flight to Denver and Part III of our summer vacation.
 |
| Cowboy boots and hats in Pinedale |
I had never been in Wyoming before this trip to the Grand Tetons and to the Wind River Range. I am now a fan for life.
No comments:
Post a Comment