Vålåstugorna to Lunndörren, 16 km.

This is what I woke up to this morning. Snow everywhere. And although you can’t see it in the photo, there is more snow coming, and it is accompanied by a fierce wind. Knud is apparently staying here a bit longer.

The hut host came in with the weather report: continuing storm winds from the west and more snow all day. My planned route would take me straight west, heading straight into the teeth of that wind, plodding through deepening snow. At best this would be a very unpleasant hike; at worst it could be deadly since I have no winter safety gear with me.

Nope. I’m not going to fight this weather. If the wind is from the west, then I’ll head east, and my plans can go… wherever abandoned plans go. Not only will I have the wind at my back this way, I’ll also be heading down rather than up and get some shelter from the forest.

Whenever I got out of the forest, though, the full force of the wind hit me again. But I had it at my back so it mostly didn’t bother me, as long as I kept moving. (Glad I packed my warm gloves and buff and fleece hat.) It snowed much of the time but I was just below the snow line and heading even further down as time passed, so the path remained clear and easy to walk.

Stopping wasn’t pleasant. My lunch break was brief and took place when I came across the one and only rock along this day’s route that was large enough for me to crouch behind. I wasn’t the first one to crouch there; the moss on the ground on the eastern side of the rock had been worn down by many hikers.

This side of the park is criss-crossed by rivers. The bigger ones have bridges. The smaller one I first thought I’d have to wade across, but then I found an almost-bridge of fallen trees so I crossed with dry feet after all.

I arrived at the hut at Lunndörren with plenty of daylight to spare. The hut was beautifully situated on the shore of a little lake. Once I’d gotten warm and had a meal, and spotted a break in the snow, I took a photo walk around the lake.

Day 1 of a four-day circular hike in Jämtland. I’m starting out from Vålådalen like last year, heading to Vålåstugorna and then to Gåsen, Stensdalen and finally back to Vålådalen. Half of my route overlaps with last year’s, but then instead of heading further west after Gåsen I’ll turn back north and stick to the quieter eastern part of the national park, away from the “Jämtland triangle”.

The weather forecast for today promised storm-strength winds from the west, from Knud the Norwegian storm. At Vålådalen there were no signs of the storm; cloudy and just a bit windier than most days, maybe.

The autumn colours are really at their peak this time. Just two weeks later than last year, and what a difference it makes!

When the trail left the forest and got up onto the plateau, Knud was waiting for me. The wind was so hard that I was nearly blown off my feet at times. Mostly I could see the worst gusts coming and braced in time, but at one point I turned towards the east to take a photo and the wind hit me from behind with no warning and actually blew me off balance. For my next photo I hooked my arm around a signpost to stay upright.

There’s no real shelter to be found up on that plateau. My breaks were brief, huddled in the lee of some little hump of grass. Guess I won’t be taking any macro photos this year.

But in the photos it all looks quiet and peaceful.

North-western Stockholm has an acute shortage of swimming pools. The city grabs the best time slots for its own swim school, and other swimming clubs are left with odd times and places, or none. So Adrian’s swimming lessons take place in what used to be an outdoor pool but now has a giant tent erected over it. The showers are ridiculously cramped, but it all kind of works, and the swimming lessons themselves are great, so we make do.

Attending a full-day workshop about applied machine learning. Interesting stuff, and there’s less black magic in it than I had expected.

Chocolate balls (made of cocoa powder, butter, sugar and rolled oats) are a traditional Swedish sweet. Super easy to make, and (done right) quite delicious. For an adult version, add some espresso and rum. The one in the photo is a kids’ version: Adrian and his friends rolled their own chocolate balls during his birthday party on Sunday. Some of the boys made bite-sized balls; other balls were nearly fist-sized. The last and largest one we cut in two for Adrian and Ingrid to share.

That wall was meant to be climbed.

Adrian got a bunch of Pokemon-themed gifts: a Pokemon game for Nintendo, a Pokemon t-shirt with one of those reversible sequin pictures, a Pokemon key ring, and a box with Pokemon cards. Also a mini Rubic’s cube, and a cactus.

Adrian wished for a cactus for his birthday.

Ingrid loves drawing. In the evenings she often disappears into her room for hours and stays up late, drawing. Currently she likes drawing cartoon-style girls, practicing various poses, clothes, hair styles and backgrounds.

This is why I have so few photos of Ingrid doing anything other than reading. All the other things she does in a little dark corner in her dark room!

Waiting for swim school to start.

Adrian goes to Spårvägen swimming club’s swim school, just like Ingrid did when she was the same age. I really like Spårvägen – their approach to teaching kids to swim seems very sensible, and the kids generally enjoy their lessons. Even if Adrian isn’t always overjoyed to go there and sometimes tells me he’d rather not, by the time the lesson is over he is almost always having fun.