Sweden to Norway - Roadtrip, Forest & Such - 3

The 18th of August we started off by exploring the Rista fall. There was a nice trail walk along the river. The walk was not very long, but we spent hours looking at the different parts of the waterfall and rapid.


The weather was warm and moist and generally pretty ok for this kind of excursion.

After having spent quite a while in the forest we drove to Åre, a winter and summer adventure area. Ben has been there skiing as a youngster. I've never been there before, but have been wanting to see it in summer.
The larger ski resorts have a mutual webpage for all kinds of activities, Skistar. We saw loads of mountainbikers descending along the hillside, all muddied up and happy. Most of them took the first lift up again. It all looked fabulously fun! Dad had never been in  a cable car so we decided to hop on one up to the Åre plateau, close to the summit, Åreskutan. The summit is actually another 300 m ascent and we didn't have time to go there, so we enjoyed the view at an elevation of 1020 m. Besides, with the via ferrata of the day before and the hike down along the Rista river and back up again, I was quite exhausted and another 300m ascent was pretty much a no go.




We enjoyed the view from the plateau for a while and grabbed the last cable car back to ground level.

We had time for one more stop this day. Tännforsen, the highest water fall in Sweden. Its 37 meter from top to bottom. It has a perpetual rainbow on one side. The rocks in the fall are jagged and the very thought of falling into the water there is quite horrifying.

The walk from the parking lot to the water is a slight descent and I actually had to skip going to the bottom of the fall, due to some Braxton-Hicks contractions. Had been way too active the last couple of days. Well, Ben and dad did the whole tour and took loads of pictures.

Camping that night was at a spot quite nearby right at a road off the main one. We found the perfect spot for the tent and built a closed space between the tent and car with the tarp and mosquito net.

We went to bed in a dry, fabulous night, but woke up in a cloud. Phew it was wet and chilly. That day was a transportation day. We got up in a chilly and moist forest. Actually it had been so chilly that condensation had water dripping off the inside of the outer tent, onto the roof of the inner one and down on us. The shade was quite chilly, but luckily the sun showed up over the treetops within just a little while and within moments my car was steaming off the drops of water. By the time we'd had breakfast and packed our gear the tarp and tent were more or less dry.



This day we crossed the border to Norway, heading west on route E14. We had planned to stop at Brudesløret waterfall on the way (its right at the border), but the place was so small we missed it and drove passed and decided to just keep going.

We did some border shopping in Storlien- prices differ quite significantly between Sweden and Norway and the grocery store was filled with over border shoppers.

After making coffee at a pit stop we drove to Trondheim, a town on the coast. Here we had a break for an hour or so to make further plans. We will be working our way back to the South now. Tomorrow the plan is to visit Trollkirka. More on that in the next post.

The evening and night was spent on something like a marsh land in a no name place situated between tiny villages called Vinjeøra and Orkanger. A gravel road led to an abandoned exit overgrown with small pine that my car just about could drive over without scratching. A flat space at the end was perfect for the tent and car with a tarp.

We saw not one single mosquito during this evening. It was silent and calm. We had dinner and a walk and tucked in for the night.