Sunday 14/8 (contd.)

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One person in the form of Göran was present, and I talked a little with him before examining the premises. In the end I opted for a spot between the other tents at the first site, where it was both open and sheltered at the same time; there were some more tents in the forest closer to the Pårek hut itself. Putting up the tent turned out not to be quite as simple as it looked, for while the ground was nicely soft and all on top, there were a lot of stones underneath, so I had trouble getting the ground pegs down properly.

As I was finishing up Håkan, the leader of the course, came back from cloudberry picking, and I introduced myself. Then I walked over to the brook passing by the hut to have a much needed wash, and proceeded to check out said hut, which Håkan and his wife Marita resided in at the moment – and the contrast to the observatory could not be greater. After organizing some things in the tent more people came back from their respective cloudberry-related activities, which inspired me to launch one myself.

The Pårek hut...

...and its outbuilding

Old meteorological instruments...

...still in usable shape

Pitched

Inside the hut

Håkan the Course Leader

I followed the path leading towards the Boarekjávrre ford, walking mostly in shadow, and ahead of me Ola had had the same idea. In a strip of forest I noticed a lot of blueberries, so I started with those, and at the subsequent mire-with-duckboards there were golden knobs off to the side as expected. There were also some mosquitos, so I applied a bit of repellant before setting about picking; many of the berries were pale or loose in texture, so they had obviously matured early, but there was nothing wrong with them taste-wise. I walked around the mire, and after a while I hit an area where I could just move from one batch to the next, and I ended up getting about a liter in total. Now the sun was returning and I was getting a bit warm, and having gotten what I came for I felt that it was time to return.

Result

Looking over Boarekjávrre

Boarektjåhkkå

Back in the tent things were nice and cool – and speaking of tents, David had come down from Bårddetjåhkkå in the meantime and erected his. A communal dinner around the fireplace ensued, during which Kerstin returned from another excursion of hers. Conversation followed, and a small fire was lit to ward off the mosquitos. The clouds were slowly breaking up again, and it was getting colder, so it was nice to have the fire. Håkan and Marita strolled over to conduct a presentation round, and a bit later the last participants arrived from Kvikkjokk. A general evening snack and talk later it was time for bed, and save for the new arrivals I was the last one to turn in around 21:45.