Scandiroads #12 Climbing the fall

By the end of yet another beautiful hike that showed me the pearls of Swedish Lapland, I found myself in this strange, mysterious place. There I stood, it was rather intimidating to suddenly be surrounded by, hopefully, empty wooden cabins, purposely hidden away from the already so hidden world Abisko was. It was a small open spot in the middle of the forest, where the gathering of the cabins took place. All of them camouflaged themselves in their own way, with moss-roofs, grass-walls, or even leaning on wooden poles to protect themselves from the predators of Lapland. Little signs explained the purpose of each creation, variating from hiding food from bears, till fireplaces, till storage for hunting gear. I was grateful for my wide imagination allowing me to see it all happening, as if history came back to life in front of me. It was beautiful to realize how incredibly respectful these people were towards nature and how this allowed them to live there in harmony. I felt a little pinch in my heart as I realized it was a secret dream of mine to some time, for a while, experience this lifestyle as well, although I would probably never be able to kill an animal, mentally and physically. I hugely respect the people that build such a beautiful friendship with nature and treat it so respectfully. It makes me feel incredibly spoiled yet also grateful, for the life that I’m living.

Still, realizing people had actually lived, and died, here, made me not want to hang around the quiet for much longer, and I headed back to the road, following the train track back to my cosy, pleasantly dark room. As I rested here for a few hours, I already had to start repacking again. As much as I love that feeling of zipping open my suitcase to prepare it for its new adventure, I just wasn’t ready to leave Sweden behind yet. Maybe it was the spark of joy I felt thinking of my next destination, that kept the excitement pumping through my veins. The excitement was enough to not sleep until I headed for the road again, but have one last hike. This was a matter of pick-your-pick, I just chose one random hike out of the endless possibilities the park offered. The fact that I would be passing trough a so called bird-hole cut the decision for me. This time I did drive my car up to parking spot, clearly noticing it was daytime now. The difference lies within the sounds. The cars are driving, the train is passing, the people are hiking, the birds are singing. All those are absent during the night, but it felt safe having them surrounding me again.

My hike started at the Abisko canyon again, but this time immediately swallowed me into the open green forest with its low trees, curling up into the funniest possible shapes. I think I laughed for like 5 minutes when I recovered from the tiny heart attack a bird in action caused me, I’d better get used to the world in action again, recover from the stillness of the night. The path went deep into the forest, I sometimes looked back nervously just to see if the path was still there, if I still can go back. I think it’s healthy that, for the ones seeking for a harmonious relationship with nature, you also realize whose the stronger one. Although my fear for disappearing paths just comes from too many scary movies. The trees moved out of my way and I could see an open spot appearing, and drawn to the light I ended up at a little wooden fireplace on the edge of a cliff. The sign told me this was the bird-hole, and then in tinier letters mentioned I would probably need a proper looking-glass to actually see them. I grinned as I realized this cliff was a 50 meter fall into a hopefully bouncy pillow of green, slowly sliding down to Tornetrask lake. The big black lake supported several little islands, and was home to a few little feathered floating dots, probably ducks. The lake turned darker and darker as it flowed towards the mountains, being the peaceful walls around Abisko, forever.

For a while I just listened to the river further down the road that brought its fresh and wild waters into the deepest lake of Sweden, and I still laughed realizing I wasn’t going to get more jumpscares as there absolutely weren’t any birds around. Why would they come to satisfy us humans when there’s so much undisturbed, abandoned nature around. Still, a beautiful view, any place here is worthy a visit. I even threw some bread in a desperate last attempt to lour a bird of any kind, pigeons and crows were welcome too. But nobody really seemed to care, it might still be there by now as the park is big and interesting enough for the animals to not be seduced by silly human tricks. My path continued again in a small wooden version safely guiding me over the soggy, yellow-green fields with its stiff grasses and bush. And then the road slowly turned steep, and started going upwards. It got so sandy and slippery that I apologized to the innocent little trees for grabbing their branches in an attempt to not fall backwards. I tried to get a grip on the rocks and at some point climbed like a monkey using each limb I had. The waterfall turned up its volume but was keeping itself hidden for now, the only thing I could see was an innocent little stream falling down the slippery rocks on my right. Finally the wall I was climbing started going back to a normal, still steep, hiking path, and I could catch my first glimpse of mother nature’s pearl: a waterfall. And it was a massive one, it was the one I’d been staring at when I tried to figure out the source of the clear canyon-waters. But then again, what’s the true source of the waters, they all start somewhere far away from us. And this one fell down from a mountain that was at least 100 metres high, which forced the silver water to jump of its edge and violently crush everything on its way. In the summerbreeze cooling my face I could feel its fresh waterdrops, and that was a gift after this climb. I now saw that I could climb all the way up to the top of the fall, where tiny coloured people-dots where probably enjoying an amazing view. But to be honest I was too tired. ‘I have to reach my next destination before it turns dark’ I told myself as a lame excuse, before I realized that this was not going to be a problem for the next month.

Okay, I would just admit to myself, with pain in the heart, that I was really too tired to continue that climb, and I would just sit halfway the waterfall to say goodbye to Abisko. I found myself a perfect platform of stone that leaned over the river, allowing me to refill my bottle as a, probably very, temporarily souvenir of Sweden. It was finished before I even left the platform, the water was so fresh, I wanted to breath it in. I didn’t though, instead I just let it swirl in my mouth while I stared at the view. The waterfall was so far behind me it seemed like a slow-motion stream, a silver fog, falling down the green rocks, finding its way to me by means of a cristalclear river, with so many rocks that the course of the river changed all the time, and sometimes had to take outrageous jumps into the deep. The view in front of me was, again, as always, wonderful. It was an ocean of green bush and trees colouring brightly under the endless sunrays. At the end there was the majestic porch to Abisko, Lapporten with its perfect saddle-shape. It was surrounded by the mountains that were designed like massive hills and still seemed somewhat comfortable after the knives that the Lofoten mountains shaped. This nature looked innocent and peaceful, in harmony with its life, supporting it instead of challenging it. that of course was nature’s trick you cannot fall for, it’s just as beautiful as it is tricky, which to me makes it even more beautiful. All these poems and quotes about nature’s true beauty kept buzzing trough my head, all fighting to be heard, to be remembered and immortalized. And I let them be, as I took one last look at the stillness of the mountains, the green valley below me, and the powerful river beside me. I was mentally preparing for a terrifying descent back to my car, on to my next destination. And that was exactly what gave me that mental power to slide, fall, or roll back down.

- It's an amazing life