Day 5 : 20 July 1991, Sotsbäckgrottan - The lake at Svalågabre
 
I open my eyes and look up, The worlds is blue and small terrible looking creatures are crawling around all other the blue world. I blink, still the same. What is this all about, a dream? I then realise that the blue world is our blue tent, and the creatures are thousands of mosqutios crawling between the inner and outer tent. For a short moment do I almost panic, have they finally taken over the world? I wake up completely, open up and look outside. There is sunshine,  everything look as it did when left we left yesterday evening. There are no mosquitos, except for all poor creatures caught between the inner and outer tent, desperately trying to find a way out. No attack from the insects yet. Our tenting site is even more beautiful than we saw yesterday, the meadow is decorated with flowering Mountain avens. This makes it difficult to leave the place, but we have to do it. We expect more flowers at our goal Sattevierra. We walk slowly up towards the cavern Sotsbäckgrottan. The sunshine, a comfortable wind keep the mosquitos away, and slope is gentle. Except that we forget about the cavern and miss it. We do not return to look at it, we can do that on the way back, and continue instead the first of the lakes Gertrudsjtina. At the end of the lakes is Tjålle (1181) blocking the view. Here we have lunch and let the remaining snow fields cool us down, it is getting hot in the sunshine. Dressed in shorts do we walk the right of the hills. Here we find a place with the beautiful Glacier Crowfoot, all flowering with their white flower facing the sun. Långfjället, the long low mountain that runs from north to south, is facing us. Some remaining snow fields are scattered around. At a small lake do we have a long break, coffee, resting, relaxing. The wind whisper: welcome, welcome. Everythings seems to join in the whisper.  Gertrudstjina and Tjålle

Långfjället

At Sattevierra, at the of Långfjället is a gorge which is the goal of out tour. Before the gorge is a lake, where we plan to have our base camp for a few days. My girlfriend has knee that is hurt somewhat, so we walk slowly the remaining kilometers to the lake. We find good tenting sites at the north end the lake, nearby a locked hut. The lake is still partly covered with ice, broken up into pieces, stuck together and slowly drifting around in the lake. My girlfriend is a fish, she runs into the lake. I'm not a fish, especially not in wintertime, so I enter the lake more slowly, take a quick bath, and get up event more rapidly. It is COLD! Smoked reindeer meat is the reward. The sun is setting behind Långfjället, sleep well. When we are about to fall asleep, do we hear the sound of motorbikes! Looking out do we see people on motorbikes, collecting reindeers into the fences on the other side of the lake. Reindeers, they will mark the calves, let's go and have a look, my girlfriend shout, and disappear from the tent. My only choise is to follow her. Despite her bad knee, does she seems to fly over the stones. I struggle to keep upright among the stones, and I can see her disappear far in front of me. Finally I find her sitting on a stonce, looking fascinated on the work of marking the reindeers. The poor animals run around and arounde inside a fence, while the people try to catch them with by throwing the lasso. Also the small children particpate, the have to learn the job. We sit at some distance from the fence, not to disturb or worry the reindeers even more. Two dogs come running towards us, sniffing. If you not come closer you may stay, the say and sit down together with us for a few minutes. It is over midnight when start to walk back to our tent, they have still not finished and will probably continue for a few more hours. The lake at sunset

Reindeers at midnight