{"id":2036,"date":"2019-04-14T16:52:15","date_gmt":"2019-04-14T16:52:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jamesorrphoto.com\/?p=2036"},"modified":"2019-04-14T16:52:19","modified_gmt":"2019-04-14T16:52:19","slug":"spring-in-swedens-high-coast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jamesorrphoto.com\/?p=2036","title":{"rendered":"Spring in Sweden\u2019s High Coast"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After spending a week in Uppsala for a DNA barcoding workshop as part of\nmy PhD I decided to delay my flight home by five days so I could do some hiking\nand nature photography in Sweden. I rented a car on the Friday afternoon after\nthe workshop ended and drove 500km north up to Sweden\u2019s High Coast.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I traveled along the coastal motorway by the Baltic Sea the low sun was flickering between the pine trees towards the west and I could hear the frost crackling underneath my tires. More and more snow began to build up on the roadside and the lakes became frozen over the further north I went. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Skuleskogen
Birch among the pine<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I spent four days in the wilderness of Sweden\u2019s High Coast,\na UNESCO world heritage site. It\u2019s where the glaciers from the last ice age were\nthickest \u2013 3km tall! As the 3000 meters of ice (that\u2019s almost the height of\nthree Carrauntoohils) melted away, the land below began to \u201crebound\u201d. This is\nknown as isostasy\u2013 the crust of the earth lifting back up because of its\nbuoyancy in the mantle. <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result of this uplift – which is happening at about 1cm per year (!!) \u2013 there are old beaches halfway up mountains and there are ancient fishing villages kilometers away from the coast. The area has some impressive fault lines that were filled with sediment when they were under the sea but the softer sediment has since eroded away and all that is left are impressive crevasses like the famous Sl\u00e5ttdalsskrevan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"High
These islands are slowly rising up out of the Baltic Sea because of the glacial rebound<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I spent my time on the High Coast exploring\nSkuleskogen National Park, which is pretty remote (especially at this time of\nyear). A twenty-minute drive from the nearest town along snow-covered roads\ntook me to the entrance of the park. It felt like a real wilderness. Over my\nentire trip I only saw four people. The only time I spoke to another human\nface-to-face was to say \u201chej\u201d to these passing strangers.  <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Sl\u00e5ttdalsskrevan
Moss growing on the red granite walls of Sl\u00e5ttdalsskrevan<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Apart\nfrom the rocky hills, thick forests of birch and pine cover the landscape. The\nwoods were filled with birdsong and had levels of wildlife similar to a Disney\nfilm! Woodpecker drumming echoed through the valleys and red squirrels jumped\nfrom tree to tree above my head making weird squeaking noises. The snow made it\nreally easy to follow tracks of animals like elk and deer and the area has a\nreally healthy population of lynx. The bears were just waking up from\nhibernation as well, so I was extra careful.. <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Skuleskogen
A red squirrel squeaking over my head<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

There were vast areas of the park still covered in thick layers of snow!\nIn the mornings I could skip over the snow because it was covered with an icy\ncrust but in the afternoons, when the sun had been out all day, the snow had\nturned slushy and I would sink in as far as my hips. Because I didn\u2019t bring any\nsnowshoes or skis I had to be really careful about the routes I took. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Skuleskogen
Untouched snow meeting the sea<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The thick forests covered in snow made navigation a bit\ntricky. If I had been taking photographs of a subject for a while I would often\nforget where I was exactly so I had to use my compass to get me going in the\nright direction again. <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Skuleskogen
Air bubbles beneath a frozen pond<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On my last morning in the wilderness I got up at 2am\nto climb up to the highpoint of the wilderness area for sunrise. I stood at the\nsummit of Sl\u00e5ttdalsberget looking towards the east as the sun rose over the\nGulf of Bothnia. It was -4\u00b0C, with a serious wind-chill, and the moisture in my\nnose was freezing solid. A grouse flew over my head, the sunrise turned the\nclouds bright pink and the islands continued to rise slowly out of the ocean. <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Skuleskogen
Frozen wilderness<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After spending a week in Uppsala for a DNA barcoding workshop as part of my PhD I decided to delay my flight home by five days so I could do some hiking and nature photography in Sweden. I rented a car on the Friday afternoon after the workshop ended and drove 500km north up to … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2050,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[66,50,68],"tags":[45,77,82,76,51],"class_list":["post-2036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ecology","category-hiking","category-photography","tag-hiking","tag-photography","tag-scandinavia","tag-wilderness","tag-wildlife"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.jamesorrphoto.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Skuleskogen_High_Coast_Spring_April_Sunrise_Baltic_Sea.jpg?fit=1200%2C573&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesorrphoto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesorrphoto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesorrphoto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesorrphoto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesorrphoto.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2036"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesorrphoto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2036\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2055,"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesorrphoto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2036\/revisions\/2055"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesorrphoto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesorrphoto.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesorrphoto.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesorrphoto.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}