Wednesday 26/8

I slept in bursts, and at times it was rather chilly. When I awoke at 06:45 the sky was mostly clear with a high bank behind the massif to the southwest. Since the night had been windless the tent was rather wet from condensation, but as the sun started warming things it gradually dried. There was barely anyone else up when I exited the tent, but as I was having a calm breakfast outside the first summiters of the day passed by and more people arose. I prepared for my own little expedition and left at 08:30, by which time the cloud bank had mostly moved off.

I followed the marked trail towards the massif, noting a few good campsites along the way, and it was still and warm. It was my intention to follow the ridge all the way around, and when it came time to choose between the southern and the northern arm I went for the former, which meant a clockwise direction. I passed the stream from the glacier above on nothing but rocks and then passed a single hiker by who was getting water from said stream a bit higher up.

Trailing

Goal of the day

Up I go

Base

Steeper

Rise after rise

Rocky

The Helags glacier

I was now up in the lower niche where I broke off for a bit and plodded over watery ground for a better angle. The map has this as a couple of small lakes, but in reality it was more of a distribution of interconnected pools and overflow – all mixed with grass and cotton. The sun was now partially hidden by small clouds that were forming, but as I climbed back towards the trail across a grassy slope of moss and dirt it mostly reemerged. A cool shifting wind had picked up as well as I reapproached the other hiker, who had stuck to the trail and was now leaving her larger pack to continue with a smaller one.

In the niche...

...with its collection...

...of pools...

...and isles

More sun

No glacier there anymore

Opening

Next level up

Flow

More pools

More views

I had some chocolate just before passing the reindeer fence, one of the gateposts of which was leaning markedly, and then passed another hiker who was photographing at the edge of the ridge. The ground was now stony but still easy to walk, especially as I tried sticking to more gravelly well-trodden bits. A flatter section of pleasant stone-bound ground followed after which I wound my way up onto a rocky rise, where I left the trail markers in order to get a spectacular close-up side view of the summit wall, keeping a safety distance to the actual edge – and what a view it was, with a strong alpine feeling of exposure.

Gated barrier

Rock art

Getting higher

Far-reaching views

Panorama over the glacier

Rocky rises

Tarn-riddled highland

Another glacier panorama

Locals

Last stage ahead

Lake after lake

Predikstolen (Pulpit)

Wow!

Also wow

Beyond the bend

Skarsfjället and Predikstolen (Pulpit) had already risen in the other direction, along with more peaks on the Norwegian side of the border. I met a single woman coming down the trail, which now stretched over larger rocks necessitating a good deal of care in the appreciable upward slope. I had a look through a sharp crack in the wall and then covered the last distance up, where the little pyramid building I knew from my previous visit suddenly appeared over the very near horizon.

Final slope

A look down

Uneven

Rock fortress

Cracked

Summit reached

There were two other people up there, and after signing the summit book at the voluminous top cairn I walked over and joined them for a quick chat and a good deal of photographing, such as of the quite distant Sylarna massif and the glacier bowl far beneath. After noting that the pyramid is actually a radio station according to a sign on its base I returned to the cairn, where I sat down on an adjacent rock of suitable shape at 10:45.

Pyramid with Sylarna

Cairn with Härjångsfjällen

The niche below

Sheer drop

Closeup of Sylarna

Skardsfjella across Sylsjön

The station far below

While I sat there in near-windlessness the other hiker from before also came up, but both she and the other two soon left again. As I was bringing out my lunch a bare-chested fellow came up and parked himself against the cairn – such was the weather – and then the photographer also arrived and started doing his thing. More people were making their way up the southern ridge, and soon the lightly clad guy started going down the northern one while the photographer took out his own food pack.

Author

Lofty

Stora Härjångsstöten et al

Handölan and patterns

Sylsjön et cetera

Öjön and friends

Ice

Signatures

More ice

Walked there

Having absorbed the summit views to my content I set off along the northern ridge myself, noting that the ground here mostly consisted of naked bedrock, which was a sharp contrast to the loose, fragmented makeup of the southern ridge. Since the slant was still to be reckoned with I picked my way downwards carefully lest I slip – and this whole stretch cannot be recommended in rainy weather because of this. Almost at once I met a couple of Germans, and I could see the other guy further ahead. The sun was passing into smaller clouds again, more of which were forming directly above the massif, but visibility was entirely unhindered as everything was still high. There were small cairns here and there as well as fragments of a gravel path between the rocks, which brought me straight to a much larger cleft in the wall.

Sylarna across barren rises

The way down

Slightly tricky path

A look behind

What a wall

Great cleft

Having circumvented this I stretched out my steps on more level stony ground that gradually gave way to more grass and moss. The wall was equally impressive from this direction – and it really is a wall, with its vertical drop of almost 200 meters. Two zigzagging grassy portions later I approached a third, and here it was almost entirely heath between the outcrops. The slope was rather steep and I had to use my hands at times to reach. At a split in the path I chose the right one, which actually turned out to be the wrong one as it was even steeper further down, resulting in more hand action. Once below the crux it was still somewhat steep for a bit over loose gravel, but finally I reached more level ground close to the glacier stream.

Last look at Sylsjön and Skardsfjella

Easier to walk here

Wall and ice

Northern tarn

Softer ground

Close to a crest

Glacier in full

Water below

Kesudalen over there

Sylarna way over there

Station in sight

Came down there

I went down to this and got some more water and then crossed it on wet rocks just below a threshold on the other side, landing on another lesser-used path there. After very nearly slipping on a long and very wet duckboard I instead elected to walk on the mire itself, which was no problem, and then followed a section of packed mud bearing many a reindeer print. The path, such as it was, led to a flattened hill next to the bath where there were more campsites – some of which I had examined when I arrived the day before – and as I walked over to my own tent around 13:45 I noted that about half of the other ones were now gone.

Upstream

Downstream

Costream

Common room

It was very warm, and still not much in the way of wind, but more clouds were amassing at a quick rate, soon placing the area in shadow. I sat on the rock seat for a while, chewing some reindeer meat, and then crossed the stream in the slippers. There were people outside the station, of course, and I went inside the main building to have a look around. The shop I found to be quite scant in terms of choice, and also more expensive than those further out in the cottages, so I just paid the service fee to gain access to the kitchens, showers and – most importantly – sauna. I dropped off some fresh things in the refrigerator in the least occupied guest building and then went for a photo circuit, waiting for the return of the sun before heading back to the tent.

The bath

The clouds were now mostly moving off, and it was a fair afternoon as more people arrived or returned from the massif. After a while I packed for a visit to the sauna, where I was alone at first, but soon more people came in. Said sauna was quite large and suitably warm, but as is often the case the view was in practice somewhat lacking due to the angles involved, even though the windows were facing the massif. I made one excursion down to the bath, which was some distance away – and quite worth it, being admirably cold, calm and sunny – but otherwise cooled off several times out on the sizeable porch.

Calm

Next up, after a shower, was dinner, and this time I used the nearby bridge after having been back to the tent once more. I put the towel into the drying room and then prepared my food in the rather warm kitchen, after which I relocated over to the porch of the main building to eat it. Quite a few people were sitting there enjoying the sun, some of which were waiting for the paid dinner inside which soon commenced.

After washing up I retrieved my now dry towel – effective drier, that – and returned via the bridge, while the youngsters occupied the space around and in the bath. After preparing for the coming morning's departure I read for a while out on the seat, and now the sun had passed into thick clouds that were spreading again. There were some gnats out and about, so before long I went inside the tent and continued to read, and then rested for a bit as the sauna had had its usual effect. After an evening snack outside the bottom of the clouds started to glow, so I walked around photographing until it faded, noting that few other people were still up. It was fairly warm as I lay down to sleep after 21:30, and there was no moon today due to the clouds.