Mountain with a view

It was a nice and sunny Sunday in May, a great day for a hike in the mountains. We went up in the ranges on the coast.

Down in the valleys the fields and trees were dressed in the light green colors of spring. Up in the mountains, there were still patches of snow, and large areas of brown grass from last year, places were the snow melted just a few days ago.

The view from the top was great; fjords, islands and ocean. The coast is nice. Mountains are great. But there’s nothing like a mountain with an ocean view >:)

(I took the picture today. Can you see the wrecked airplane in the front of the picture? It’s a German plane from the 2^nd World War. In April 1940, the plane was hit by shell fire from a British navy ship, and crashed into the ranges by the fjord, with three men on board. The first died immediately, the second lived for a couple of days. They were buried next to the wrecked plane. The third soldier walked down fro the mountain, in hiding, and was able to re-unite with the German Nazi forces.)

Biscuit poker

It’s school’s summer vacation, but parents are still at work, at least we are.

Therefore, little boy spent a week in our family cabin in the mountains, with his grand parents. This weekend we drove up to the mountains, to pick him up and bring him back to town.

When I met him, I asked if he had a good time.

"Yes, we've been on long hikes in the mountains. I found a reindeer antler, and carried it myself, for two hours, back to the cabin."
"Good. We can keep it here, right? We don't need to bring it home?"

And then it was all the regular stuff about fishing, bow shooting, rowing on the lake, rock climbing, tree climbing, making a slingshot from a birch branch, and so on.

Finally, he said:

"Grandpa taught me how to play poker."
"Great. You’re 10 yo, so it’s about time you learn it."
"We only played with biscuits."
"Did you win?"
"I got all the biscuits in the end."

Grandpa’s summer camp is always a cool place to be >:)

(In the picture is little boy climbing an old pine tree outside the cabin. The pines are 2-300 years old and grow very slowly in the mountain climate. I climbed the same trees many years ago, and still do, sometimes.)

Third River

We hiked along the main river for about an hour, to the place where a stream comes in from the side. Some places the trail was wet and muddy. We jumped from rock to rock to keep our shoes dry. On the narrowest point, we crossed the stream on a bridge made from two logs close together, only a foot wide.

We went down to a pool under a high waterfall and started fishing. A big trout (as seen with kids’ eyes) was hooked on the first throw. After a couple of hours, we had thrown 3 small trout back to the river, and put 4 in the bag.

I guess you’ve got the point now? Where to get the easy catch. Yes, of course, it’s in a big pool, under a high waterfall, where the fish are waiting for food to pass by, and the waterfall is too high for the trout to jump up.

Second River

In the morning, we went up to an old cottage to dig for earthworm. That’s the bait that gives the easiest catch. With 40 earthworms in the box, and some soil on top to keep them alive, we were ready for fishing.

We hiked for ten minutes from the bridge were the gravel road crosses the river. By a pool under a big waterfall, we stopped and made the rods ready. Little boy and his even smaller cousin was fishing. I was watching from the background, clearing nots on the fishing line, and threading the worms on the hook.

The result, after a couple of hours of fishing, was 2 small trout thrown back into the river, 2 lost between the boulders and 6 in the bag. Then we gutted the fish. We cut them open from the hole under the tail where the poop comes out to the jaws, and pulled out the entrails. We studied the liver and heart and bowel, and determined the sex (looking for the caviar, as the kids say it). We got 2 girl-fish and 4 boy-fish.

It was a warm and sunny day. We stopped by the cabin and picked up our swimming shorts and towels and soap, and went down in the lake to swim and wash ourselves.

First River

We started from the trail head around noon, a long line of people walking on the trail; the boys, their cousins, uncles, and grandfather with his stick made from juniper. We hiked for an hour and a half, first through birch forest, then above timberline. The grandfather ran off on sidetracks to check out the cloudberries on some marshes that he is keeping an eye on.

On a place were we cross a small stream, we stopped by the canyon to eat lunch. We had a lunch package with 30 sandwiches and a bottle of concentrated black current syrup. Then we just add cold water from the stream before we drink it. All the time a golden-eagle couple was circling above us, screaming and complaining since we were close to their nest.

We climbed down in the canyon, to let the kids fish trout in the river, in a pool under a white waterfall. We were apparently the first people climb down this summer, as seen from the grass growing in the trench where we decent. After an hour, the kids had pulled 19 trout out of the water. The trout are still flipping for a long time after they’re dead. That’s why we load some rocks on, to avoid loosing the fish between the boulders.

To the mountains

I have been in the mountains for a few days, with the boys.

Early in August is the best time to go. Late in the summer the water in the lakes is often warm enough to go swimming. We can eat blueberries and cloudberries and black crowberries by the trail when we go hiking. The trout fishing in the rivers is very good.

Our mountain cabin is very simple; no electricity, no cell-phone, no tap water (we carry drinking water in buckets from the river), and no internet of course. I had no chance to post the stuff I wrote, on a sheet of paper, under a candle light at night. I'll type it in, and post it together with some nice pics from our fishing trips in the next few days >:)