Day 14: Another Gloomy Day....

August 29: It rained a bit during the night, but nothing particularly noteworthy. The morning started foggy and overcast, but the sun popped out for a couple of much-too-brief moments before hiding behind the gloom again. It would be the only sun we would see all day.

At least I had fresh blueberries with my breakfast that Karolina had picked the day before to cheer me up. =)

The trail wound its way through rocks on the high plateau for an hour or so before dropping to lower elevations where we traveled through trees and brush the rest of the day. The ground was super wet and muddy which proved to be the biggest challenge of the day. My feet became so waterlogged, the nail on my left pinky toe was on the verge of falling off and when Karolina took off her shoes and socks later in the day, they looked like they'd been soaking in a bathtub for about a week too long.

In the afternoon, there was a little excitement when we finally spotted a moose! It was a short-lived sighting, however, running through the thick brush and trees as we tromped down the trail. We only saw the magnificent beast for two or three seconds before it was out of view--not even time to pull out my camera.

I hoped the moose jogged just far enough away to be out of view but stopped nearby, however, so I dropped my pack and pulled out my camera with the zoom lens. While Karolina watched our gear, I went off trail to shoot a moose. (With my camera, of course!) I wandered down the hillside, pushing through the trees and thick vegetation. Then I crossed a creek until I arrived at a viewpoint overlooking a fairly large meadow, but the moose was nowhere to be seen. Defeated, I headed back towards Karolina--although I did take a different route back up hoping I'd still stumble onto the moose, but he was too well-hidden and I never figured out where he went.

Late in the day, examining the topo map, we identified a likely place for a campsite--near a bridge next to the Falesjahka River, but we never did see the bridge. The trail wasn't supposed to cross the bridge--just pass by it near an intersection with another trail--but our trail eventually started following the river upstream and it became apparent that we missed the intersecting trail. It looked like a real trail on our map, so I'm not sure how we missed it, but we did.

So we continued following the trail upstream looking for the next descent place to camp, but the pickings were slim. The trail came back out of the woods and the campsites we found were very exposed well above treeline, but eventually we found one just below the lip of the plateau that provided a little protection from the wind.

And we found it not a moment too soon--it started raining within two minutes of when I finished getting my tarp up! I ducked under my tarp, glad to have avoided the rain. Although the scenery was nice at times, it was a pretty dark and gloomy day and I was glad it was over.

Once we headed downhill an hour into our walk, we would mostly be in the trees and bushes.

It's a wet, wet trail!

This was a particularly nice campsite which even include a grill and a pan! Too bad we didn't stay here....

I just love bouncy suspension bridges!

It's a very long boardwalk... one of the driest sections of the entire trail today!

So very muddy!

These are some very interesting mushrooms....

 
They explode!

Here's a new style of gate that I've never seen! This is a reindeer fence and the gate is for hikers to get through it.

Karolina works the gate.

For snacks, Karolina and I purchased some local wildlife--including reindeer and moose! =)

I'm eating tortillas during this snack break.