Weather conditions right now makes the south of Sweden to a skating paradise. Today we experienced a sunny, calm, – 4 degrees C day in total wilderness on lake Långvattnet (Bohuslän) on black ice framed by a rocky conifer forest landscape.
The surface was just perfect! Along the huge rocks by the lake nature has formed enormous icicles.
There are many lakes and tarns, and the exiting thing with nordic skating is to skate around one lake and then walk to another one. We heard a drizzling sound and followed the creek by foot. Wonderful ice sculptures in the running water showed up. A dipper showed itself on the iced stones. Down stream we skated round a little woodland tarn – not bigger than 1 km circumference. We had a feeling of March when we sat in the sun for our packed lunch.
As always in our part of the world we find traces from our last ice age. Grounded rocks and bare stones from old sea level, before the land rised after the high pressure of the inland ice 10 000 years ago, shows up. Before sunset we headed back home and hoped to observe some animals. This morning we had a wonderful meeting with a giant elk just by the road!