Etikettarkiv: sweden

Mindxpander – Triumphant Return

Vänner på Amigalistan släpper en ny platta och den tycker jag att ni kan lyssna på och köpa om den faller er i smaken. Sådär 30 spänn är inte för mycket för en skön  platta med space-synth på.

Friends from the Swedish Amiga List have released a new album and I think you should listen to it and then buy it and download… About €3.50 is not too much for this piece of work.

Have fun!

Stockholm Photo Walk 2011

Scott Kelby är väl inte ett okänt namn i fotokretsar direkt. För några år sedan ordnade han en Photowalk i några utvalda städer, bland annat stockholm. Ja inte personligen då, det var lokala förmågor som höll i varje fotovandring i varje stad. Bästa bilden kunde vinna fina priser bl.a. Scotts egna böcker.

I år håller Tommy Lund igen i denna fotopromenad i Stockholm. Jag tänker gå med och här är några bilder från det året jag var med tidigare när den ordnades för första gången.

Anmälan kan göras här >>>

 

 

 

 

3 day hike in Sälen with friends

I love mountain hiking but I have not had much time to do it in the last few years so when I heard from a friend in Walesthat is also keen on climbing and mountaneering I thought that it would be brilliant to go hiking in one of the most beautiful places I know.

Now the Sälen Highlands is not a very remote place, actually it is smack in the middle of one of the most touristy parts in Sweden (for outdoorsy tourism that is) and therefore all the trails are well marked and some are even properly paved with blacktop to minimise the wear on the sensitive terrain. But even so, the last time I was there it was breath taking beautiful and the trip is just a long trip of nicely shifting landscape.

I am therefore planning a nice and not to strenous trip where slow walking, stopping to admire the view or taking a photograph or even just sitting in the sun is well planned. And of course, after setting camp it would be very much possible to go on a night hike to one of the peaks, I have planned this for day 2.

All days have been divided into two stages of about 2-3 hours of walking, suitable between breakfast and lunch or lunch to dinner. But I think we will actually make good time the first stages so there will definitely be time to get the binoculars out and view the surroundings.

Expect altitude cooking about 1 km MSL which should not really have that much impact on the cooking temperature. Water boils at 96°C at this altitude.

Route guide

We are starting on the south end and walking north the first day, then west the second day and north again the third day. We are passing the following peaks:

  • Köarskarlsfjället 870 m
  • Östsfsjället 840 m
  • Källfjället 903 m
  • Synddalskläppen 880 m
  • Lägerdalsfjället 890 m
  • Stornärfjället 920 m
  • Östra granfjället 940 m

Not all peaks are climed to the top, but these are: Köarkarsfjället, Källfjället and optionally Stor-Närfjället.

Day 1: Högfjällshotellet to Källfjället summer farms

Distance 8 km Altitude variation +230/-205
Highest 892 m Lowest 736 m
Peaks to climb 2 Difficulty Easy

The entrance is well marked with a portal and information sign about Kungsleden (the King’s trail). It starts here and ends up in Abiso in Lapland, a thousand kilometers from this place… it is a grand trail and not a lot of people have walked the whole thing.

We start by walking the well paved road up the Köarskarlsfjället (grouse mountain) 1.5 km where we will pause and perhaps make tea and coffee and admire the view. Best view is to the east and to the North. After that there is a descent towards Östfjällsdalen (east mountain valley) and the Östfjällstjärn (East mountain tarn) where there is a hut that can shield us from wind and rain if necessary. This is a good place for lunch and a good place to refill water for the second stage.

The second stage starts by taking us west 1 km through a more wet area and then takes us through a birch forest up again on the peak of Källfjället 900 meters above sea. Again if not too windy a good place for a snack and a beverage before descending down to the old Källfjället summer farm. A number of scattered old houses here. We will set up camp here likely tent is the best option, the hut open for wanderers can be a bit crowded this time of year.

Day 2: Källfjället summer farms to Närfjällstugan

Distance 10 km Altitude variation +300/-170
Highest 890 m Lowest 663 m
Peaks to climb 2 Difficulty Medium

First stage is going through Synddalen (sin valley), crossing Syndalsån (the sin valley river) on a small bridge. The river sinks down in a large ravine called Lördagsgraven (the saturday grave) but we are taking the other route,  preparing to ascend the Syndalskläppen mountain.  Just before the ascent is a wind shelter which could work for lunching in, but if we want to lunch out we can give it another hour and ascend to the top of the mountain before doing lunch. I say it depends on the weather. Some spectacular views from the top is guaranteed if it is not too cloudy.

Second stage is a descent again into the next valley called Lägerdalen (Camp valley) but we will not set up camp here but walk through the valley and then ascend about 100 m or half-way up the Stor-Närfjället. Here is another hut and a good place to make camp. Plenty of water both in the valleys and in on the mountain here.

After setting camp in a suitable spot we might want to do some evening hiking shedding the backpacks and just get straight up to the peak. It is about 1,5 km so it is not that far.

Day 3: Närfjällsstugan to Görälvstugan

Distance 9 km Altitude variation +100/-400
Highest 885 m Lowest 410 m
Peaks to climb 0 Difficulty Medium

Fiurst a small ascent but we will miss the peak of Granfjället (Spruce tree mountain) mountain and just pass by on the east side. Then we will follow the ridge to the north and start the descent down to Granfjällsätern where there is a nice hut we can stop for lunch. This is probably one of the most beautiful parts nature wise.

Second stage after lunch is passing through the forest until we meet and cross Görälven river. There is a place we can stay there as well waiting to be picked up.

Map

Use terrain or satellite image for more details.

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Swedish National Day – June 6

There is actually a lot of Swedish people who could not answer straightly why we celebrate the national day. Face it, we aren’t the most nationalistic people, we are getting more multiculturalistic every day — which I think is a good thing done properly — and it is also the day of the Swedish flag. We have not have war in a century, we have never really been occupied in modern times, except the Danish who we warred with for a long time ago and they never really occupied the whole country.

Until 2005 we actually did not have a proper national day. We had the day of the Swedish flag. However a proposition was made and put in front of the government stating that many people who came to Sweden found it strange we did not have a national day and so it was made into a national day, a national bank holiday, remains the day of the Swedish flag as well.

To give it a proper holiday the Swedish unions and the merchant associations sat down to discuss how to make it without losing too much money on it. It was not possible to create a new holiday said the merchant associations and so a trade was proposed, changing the Whitmonday into an ordinary day and instead making the 6th of June a proper bank holiday, which it wasn’t before.

The day has been called the ”Gustaf Vasa day” when Gustav Vasa was elected king of Sweden and the Kalmar union finally ceased and Sweden became a sovereign state. This was 6 june 1523. The Kalmar Union was a union between the kingdoms of Sweden, Norway and Denmark, established in 1397. It allso encompassed Finland (part of Sweden at the time), Greenland, Faroe Islands, the Orkney islands and the Shetlands. After Sweden left the Union Denmark and Norway remained until 1536 when it was finally dissolved. The union was formed in Kalmar in Sweden and thus the name.

The connection with the day is fairly loose. Most Swedes enjoy it as a day off mainly, it’s not celebrated by far as much as the norwegians do on their 17th of May. I have never been very nationalistic so I am not very bothered about this.

First bath outdoors today

Went to the beach today, to Ängsjö, a really nice place about 5 km north of where I live. I sometimes run there and then finish off with a bath and then run back home again but not today.

It was however cold in the water, barely 13 C and it was not something you wanted to stay in for an extended time. In fact it felt a bit like ice was still on the lake…

Lake Mälaren

The picture is from this winter when I went on a photo trip to Ängsjö. I realized I did not have any summer pictures so I will have to remedy that next time I go.

Usually the water temperature is fine this time of year. But this spring has been really cold and not sunny enough, some years the temperature is fine even at the beginning of May. But it’s been a mostly miserable spring though it has had its advantages. It’s much easier to go running when the air is a little cool. Heat is a bit of a problem for me really so taking a dip in 13 degrees water is quite refreshing…

I love Swedish summer, nature and everything about it really!

Photosafari at Eldgarnsö

Five of us set out on the photo walk arranged for by fotonen.se to Eldgarnsö and with cameras at the ready we got quite a few pittoresque Swedish summer pictures there. We had vary varying weather but not rain to speak of, and the landscape on this island is very interesting and varying, from naked cliffs down by the waterline to pine and spruce forest to oak and other such nice trees.

It also boasts a farm in the middle of the island and some other houses where people still live and this makes for open fields and a very nice general area.

See all photos here.
See a slideshow here.

 

 

Underground Stalagmites

During tuesday night we took a test train out from Work to check the radio communications equipment in the tunnels of the blue line on the Stockholm metro. During these tests we found at one of the turning points these incredible stalagmites formed by water frozen to ice. This water drips from the ceiling of the tunnel and forms incredible shapes.

Today I believe they started melting again because the temperature has gone from sub-zero to just above now and just walking down the street is really a perilous business these days…

The photos below are not taken with my ordinary camera but with my work cam which is a Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3:

Abiogenetic Petroleum Formation

A couple of days ago on Swedish television (channel 4) evening news was a kind of revelation to me. It turns out that KTH (the royal science academy in Stockholm) supports research of abiogenetic formation of petroleum.

Basically this means an alternate theory about how the planet’s oil reserves came to be. The generally accepted theory is that biomatter have transformed over time in the bedrock with heat and pressure into petrochemical compounds that we today are pumping (crude oil) and then refining into gasoline, diesel, kerosene, grease and so on.

But the alternate theroy says that there are coal deposists down in the earth that in the lower parts of the mantle are subjected to high temperature and pressure in the absence of oxygene and that all the necessary compounds are there to form oil in large quantities that are then pressed upwards through cracks in the earths crust to the oil deposists we today are tapping in to.

The interesting with this theory is that if it is true then we will probably not have much problem finding and using oil in the future. We may however not chose to do so for other reasons.

Looking around on the internet it seems that this abiogenetic theory of petroleum formation is not so new after all, it has been popular among certain scientists in the Soviet union from the fifties and the scientists here att KTH who do this reasearch are also of russian heritage.

Frontal figure here is professor Vladimir Kutcherov som tillsammans med Anton Kolesnikov och Alexander Goncharov that have shown a process in a laboratory where oil may form without the biomatter compounds that most mainstream scientist believe must be present.

Shoddy Bålsta

Bålsta is about 25 minutes from where I live by car or by the commuter train. Parts of it really should be just torn down and re-built…

The Future is Bright
Lotsen means "the tug boat", I guess it is a name chosen that they are supposed to help people through unemployment and to find new work but the area seems everything but helpful. In fact there where quite a few strange loiterers about that I did not want to strike up a conversation with so I moved on quickly.

Storage
Storage silos in Bålsta. Shot straight from the road, hand-helt at 200 mm.

Bålsta Ju-Jutsu
Large facilities, cheap rentals and a Ju-Jutsu club.