The dev team at Urb-it celebrates major achievements with cake, and also mourns major losses (due to people leaving the team) with cake. Cake goes fell with all kinds of feelings.

Apparently it’s cinnamon bun day today. I’ve become blasé about most holidays and celebrations and traditions, especially the more commercial ones. But Ingrid, young and full of energy and enthusiasm, baked wonderfully fluffy cinnamon buns for us.

Second session of my embroidery course. The focus today was on different embroidery stitches, at a very basic level. The course had no prerequisites so we’re really starting from almost zero here. I have used all of the stitches in the past so I didn’t learn anything new today. It didn’t feel polite to just skip the exercise, and I tend to be polite towards people who deserve it, so I kept following along, but I switched to my self-portrait from last week when it all felt too slow.

The self-portrait was meant to be our homework, but with me gone hiking for four days and spending the night before packing, I really had no time to work on it. There will be new homework for the upcoming weeks, so the self-portrait will have to wait until the course is finished.

Trummelsberg to Skinnskatteberg, 15 km.

I woke up to rain today.

Actually I first woke up several times during the night because of my mattress, which apparently still has a slow leak, even after my repairs. The first night I only noticed it when it was almost morning. Yesterday and today, though, it kept waking me. Given the choice between being cold and uncomfortable for the rest of the night, or getting off the mattress and pumping it up again before spending several hours in hopefully uninterrupted comfort, I judged it absolutely worth the effort. So I really haven’t had the best sleep these past few nights. I’ve been spending nine or ten hours in bed but still not feeling fully rested by morning.

It rained off and on all night, and was still raining when I woke up. The weather report promised rain all day, so there wasn’t much to be done. I packed everything except the tent itself without getting out of the tent (except to water the pines). It felt like packing took about twice as long this way. When I finally crawled out, the rain had mostly stopped, although everything was of course still wet and the trees were dripping. But at least I didn’t have to pack my tent in actual rain, which was nice.

The landscape was a bit more open today, and the flora was more alpine. Beautiful views that reminded me of my hikes in Jämtland.

Lingonberries abounded again, which I utilized for breakfast of course. I’ve never seen so many lingonberries growing so densely anywhere before. I can now understand how it’s possible to harvest and sell them on an industrial scale.

There was a bit of walking along a road. No traffic, and scenic views of meadows made it quite pleasant. Plus it took me past some houses where I could ask for a top-up of my water supply again. I might make it without, but why take the risk.

The constant rain I was threatened with never actually materialized. The air was saturated with moisture, though, and most everything was wet, so technically maybe this counted as rain. It didn’t affect me much, except for taking shorter snack breaks and timing them so I could find some kind of roof over my head.

At Bockhammar the trail passed Ebba Brahes lusthus, a noblewoman’s gazebo from the early 17th century. Structurally it was in surprisingly good state, for a small wooden construction, and currently under renovation. The inside looked more worn. I wonder if the murals are four-hundred-year-old originals.

I don’t think I saw a single other person on the trail today. That’s one clear benefit of hiking in less than ideal weather. Instead I spotted a tiny little mouse, who ran into the low shrubs next to the path when it heard me approach. And then it just stopped there. Its survival method was to make itself as small and quiet and immobile as possible, so any predators watching out for movement wouldn’t see any. I could see it only because I knew exactly where the movement stopped.

And then I was back at the car and my hike was over.

Learnings and evaluation:

The Bruksleden was a pretty pleasant trail to hike. Doesn’t beat Kinnekulle or the Fells, but definitely more to my taste than the Kuststigen. Nothing spectacular or particularly memorable, but nice all the way. I might come back and do some other sections of it at some point.

The new pack had its pros and cons. The light weight was definitely nice. The lack of pockets wasn’t hard to get used to. The few features it had all worked very smoothly. And the pack sat much better on my back than the Lundhags Spirit I’ve used in the past. The Spirit always feels like it is leaning away from me, no matter how carefully I pack the heavy items close to me and how much I adjust the straps. I especially notice it when skiing: when my torso swings back and forth, the Spirit keeps slapping my upper back.

The only downside I noticed was that it has stiffer straps with harder edges, compared to the softer straps on the Spirit. I got some really sore spots on my hips where most of the weight rested on the hip belt. When I got home, I saw actual bruises and even a slight rash where the belt rubbed my skin through all the layers of clothing. Maybe I need to find some seamless underwear for next time, or add some extra padding somehow.

My packing list has reached perfection. I packed nothing that I didn’t use, apart from the first aid kit and compass, both of which I’m happy to not need. The amount of food was just right.

From around Morbyn to past Trummelsberg, 18 km.

The first morning’s lingonberry brunch spoiled me for all other ways of eating porridge. Both yesterday and today I waited with breakfast until I got to a good lingonberry patch. Of which there is no shortage in this region. I’m not a lingon expert so I don’t know if there are good years and bad years, like there are with cherries and apples, or if they’re robust enough to give a good harvest regardless. But the berries have been truly plentiful.

Also, the time it takes for porridge to cook is just about the same it takes for me to pick a generous heap of berries.

As usual it’s taken me several days to really get into the hiking flow. The first day or two I always think too much about kilometres and hours, worrying if I’m making a good enough pace, if I’ll get there by dark, etc. After a while that all settles and I know that it’ll all work out, and I can enjoy myself even more. So today was the best day of walking.

Today was a Saturday so there were more people on the trail. Yesterday I met a single hiker; today there were two hikers, four berry-pickers, two trail runners and seven day trippers. The runners and day trippers were all in the same area around Landsberget which is apparently a popular destination. There was a picnic area, a bunch of hammocks in the forest, and a viewing tower.

The tower was unfortunately closed and the bottom ladder removed. The runners climbed up anyway along the structure itself and I was just contemplating doing the same – it didn’t look too hard – but just then a family with kids arrived and I didn’t think it would be a good example to set. Eh, the views probably weren’t that special anyway.

Near Trummelsberg I passed the grounds of an old ironworks with the rather strange field of black and white pillars. It looks like it could be a modern art installation, but turned out to be the (restored) remains of a coal warehouse. The pillars look like they’re made of sloppily cast modern concrete blocks, but it’s apparently old slag bricks.

I had difficulty finding a camping spot for tonight. I walked past a spot right in Trummelsberg because I thought it was too close to houses and other people, and after that it was all dense, rocky pine forest, with not a single flat patch of ground. When I thought it was getting too late and dark I just left the path and wandered around until I found enough flattish rock-free space for my tent. There was not enough for anything else, though, so I set the stove on a rock and perched myself on another rock next to it.

From Främshyttan to just past Morbyn, 20 km.

A day of lovely lakes. I spent the night on the shore of lake Storsjön (“Big lake”). Wikipedia lists 79 lakes in Sweden with that name, by the way. It mentions no interesting features for this particular Storsjön.

I did see something swimming in it this morning just as I was packing up. Larger than things I usually see swimming in lakes, so not a snake. Sort of dog-sized, but with a rounded head. I couldn’t immediately think what it was. I barely had time to grab my camera and get a single photo of it before it dove underwater.

I got my answer soon after I finished packing and started walking, and spotted a large beaver’s nest on the other side of the road where it crossed a stream debouching into the lake. Of course the dog-sized swimming animal was a beaver.

The morning’s walking took me across several very depressing clear-cut areas. I cannot comprehend how this kind of forest management can be allowed in this day and age. It’s disgraceful. A dozen trees remain, and a few stumps still stand here and there, but they’re barely enough to mark the trail across the clear-cut. It’s all churned-up, barren ground, bleak and sad.

Luckily most of the trail went through actual forests, and even nature reserves where the trees get to fall wherever they fall, and are only removed where they completely block the trail. Often the path just adjusts and rounds the fallen tree, or simply keeps going across it. There were quite a lot of fallen trees here due to spruce bark beetles.

There were several beautiful lakes along the Bruksleden today.

The last one I passed in the afternoon was called Abborrtjärnen or Perch Tarn, which is among the top five most common names of lakes in Sweden and had clearly been set up with fishermen in mind. There were plank walks around its boggy edges, leading to various nice fishing spots, and even a wide wheelchair-friendly boardwalk right across it. The fishing spots also made for nice snack break spots, now that there were no fishermen around.

I ran out of water in the late afternoon. Abborrtjärn was the last body of water I passed, and as close as it was to civilization (with even a small car park next to it) I definitely didn’t trust its water for drinking. I kept walking for longer than I had originally intended, until I came to the village of Morbyn where I could knock on doors and ask for drinking water. The first house had barking dogs and a man sleeping whom I happened to see through the front door window, but he wasn’t woken by the dogs or by my knocking. The second didn’t open either, but the third one had a friendly lady who filled my flasks with fresh well water.

At this point I was feeling quite ready to make camp, but I couldn’t put up my tent in someone’s back yard so I had to keep walking past the village. Then I crossed both a railroad and a large road and I didn’t want to sleep next to those either. By the time I got away from the main road and the smaller road after it, and the path turned into the forest, it was rather late. No scenic lakeside camping spot for me today – as soon as I got 20 metres away from the road and found a flattish patch of ground, I put my stuff down. I got the tent up in daylight but finished dinner by the light of my head torch.

Bruksleden loop north of Skinnskatteberg. Today I walked from Skinnskatteberg to Främshyttan (ish), 15 km.

Before I could start walking, I had to drive to Skinnskatteberg and find the trailhead and park. By the time I’d done all that, it was 10:30 and I was hungry. I don’t normally eat breakfast on weekdays any more these days, but that won’t work for a full day of hiking. After half an hour, when I felt I was in the forest rather than just off the parking lot, and I had found a lovely lingonberry patch, I stopped for a porridge brunch. It was delicious.

The trail was very well marked, with orange painted rings on trees and orange-topped posts where there were no trees, with the occasional signpost where needed. Very easy to follow. Even so, I missed my first turn-off. The trail was following a forest track and the walking was easy so I wasn’t really paying attention, and suddenly I realized I couldn’t see any orange markings anywhere. I only had to backtrack about 200 metres though.

The forest around me was relatively similar to what I’m used to from around Stockholm. Pine forest, spruce forest, or pine and spruce with some birch and aspen mixed in. It’s nice to walk through and pleasant to look at, but doesn’t make for good photos, because it all looks very much the same and there’s nothing much for the eye to focus on. So my photos of today are of the highlights, the things that weren’t just forest, and thus not entirely representative.

The one thing that was new and unusual to me was the mushrooms. They were everywhere. Walking around Stockholm this time of the year, you might spot one or two large fly agaric mushrooms and take notice. You might even see a whole clump of them. But here, today, I saw hundreds along my path. And loads of other kinds of mushrooms as well, of various species and colours and edibility. I’m going to have to do a whole separate mushroom blog post, otherwise the mushroom photos would totally overwhelm everything else here.

On a cloudy Thursday in late September, there was nobody else on the trail. I saw two walkers near the parking lot, but on the trail itself I was entirely on my own. Which I like. I like hiking on my own and I am honestly not the least bit interested in meeting any new people on the trail.

The trail went past several lakes, and those views were the best parts. Bog lakes look so tranquil and also kind of spooky. Especially these ones, with their abandoned hunting blinds and dilapidated jetties.

Packing for a long weekend of hiking. Adrian and Eric will be on a scout hike, so I thought I’d take the opportunity and go on a hike as well.

This will be the inaugural hike for my new high-tech lightweight rucksack. It felt a bit strange to pack nearly everything in one giant compartment, but wasn’t as awkward as I had feared. The pockets on the hip belt turned out to be larger than they looked and swallowed a lot of the small stuff, as did the top pocket. And the camera, as always, goes in my not-at-all-stylish but very practical waist bag.

I had vaguely thought I’d go back to the fells again this year, but the Knowabunga threw those plans out of whack by occupying a long weekend in the middle of September, and after that the mountain huts were all closed. Looks like they had a shorter season than usual for some reason.

So it’ll be a lowland hike again. The Kinnekulle trail two years ago was stunning; Kuststigen last year was rather a disappointment. This year I’ll be walking a chunk of Bruksleden. It’s within easy reach (less than 2 hours by car) but far enough to feel like “not home” I hope.

Adrian finished building the massive Lego set he got as a birthday present. Sanctum Sanctorum is from the Marvel cinematic universe and is the location many an important scene and battle.

This was Adrian’s first 18+ build. It had a more intricate construction than the models he’s built in the past, and was less stable and robust than the models for younger builders. If you’re not careful, you can knock things off.

It’s also modular – you can lift off the top floor, and the second floor, and parts of the interior, to access other parts. There are chunks that can be moved from one floor to another, or from the inside to the outside and vice versa (notably a large tentacle monster, which I see I didn’t capture on any of the photos.)

Another aspect that Adrian really liked was the large number of attachment points that allows for the staging of elaborate fight scenes.

The embroidery course I signed up for as one of my habits and commitments started today. The theme of the course is “free-form embroidery”, i.e. embroidery without a pre-prepared design. Making things up as you go.

For this first session (out of five) our teacher threw us in at the deep end and tasked us with embroidering a self-portrait. Take a selfie with your phone and then translate it into embroidery – as if we were drawing a picture with needle and thread instead of a pencil. The task felt very challenging beforehand, since I don’t think of myself as particularly good at drawing even with a pencil. But we were there to have fun and, as the teacher kept reminding us, it’s not like middle school where we will be graded on our work. Nobody will check the tidiness of the rear of our embroidered piece; nobody will comment if the stitches are uneven.

We had just over an hour of stitching time and by the end of it I just had a few contours. No eyes, no mouth, no hair. But it’s clearly the beginnings of a face, and a reasonable likeness – if a stranger had to pick the model out of the whole class, they would likely pick me. So I’m pretty pleased with it. I had expected to get much further in the time we had. I’ll have to finish it at home.