A long walk down the Vistas Valley

Ok,
this is the first proper post since our northern adventure. As mentioned in our last post we have been to the north of Sweden, trekking and counting birds for the University of Lund. Claudia will explain more about that in a later post.

I'll start with the end - the Vistas Valley exit. Initially we had intended to take the scenic (western) route from Abisko to Kebnekaise, but bad weather and a lot of snow in the Tjäktas pass forced us to re-route at Alesjaure and take the lower Vistas Valley out (click for map). The Vistas Valley can be described as a luscious green valley. That would be wrong.


The valley is indeed a green valley, but hard to force, filled with mosquitoes and generally mostly a long swamp. As we descended down to the valley floor, heavy rain set in and continued for the coming 24h hours without interruption. Rain can be cooling at times, but the temperature up there is not more than around 8 deg C, so it was cool enough without the rain...

There were no suitable places to put up a tent in the swamp land so we decided to press on until we eventually reached the Vistas cabins were we could seek shelter. The first night we shared a cramped room with five exchange students from Gothenborg and the next day was spent drying out our clothes and recuperating from the trip so far.


The cabin was great and we left it reluctantly to continue down the swamp valley. Two long days and a many ice cold streams to cross lay ahead. The valley was however full of birds and wildlife and we saw and heard Blue Throats all over the place. An elk was a steady visitor at the cabin and around it and we saw reindeers on the mountain sides.

Leaving the Vistas Valley we left the Swedish fells for this time and returned to civilization at the small village of Nikkaluokta.



Bird of the day: Bluethroat -- Blåhake -- Blaukehlchen -- Gorgebleue à miroir -- Luscinia svecica