All day he draws and imagines

Salla 1

Salla 2

Salla 3

Salla 4

The photographs were taken on July 1st while visiting the Sallatunturi fells in Salla, Lapland.

While traveling to London with the children I have got three to five hours of walking each day. In six days I learned Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park and Holland Park quite well.

One thing which felt a bit strange was the people who rode the bicycle within the car traffic, changing lanes rapidly, not even minding the wet road surface making it slippery. I wonder how many traffic accidents hit the cyclists each year.

(Posting title is from the poem Apparition of the Exile by Bruce Weigl.)

The two absent ones: you and I

Bug

The photograph was taken on July 1st while visiting the Sallatunturi fells in Salla, Lapland.

I have explored the parks in London. Today morning I visited Holland Park, having a look at Kyoto Garden. This is a place I really liked. After noon it started to rain, and this will continue for some time. I guess it might be worthwhile to take a walk when the rain eases a bit.

(Posting title is from the poem The Horse Fell Off the Poem by Mahmoud Darwish.)

Praise the great windows where immigrants from the kitchen

Salla 1

Salla 2

The photographs were taken on July 1st while visiting the Sallatunturi fells in Salla, Lapland.

Once again I walked around Hyde Park in the morning, looking at riders, runners, cyclists and other walkers. At noon we explored Kensington Gardens. Later today there are Harry Potter things to see.

(Posting title is from the poem Alabanza: In Praise of Local 100 by Martín Espada.)

How many reels exhaust the image history of the person

Salla 1

Salla 2

The photographs were taken on July 1st while visiting the Sallatunturi fells in Salla, Lapland.

Early this morning I had a look at horse riding at Rotten Row, getting 1 1/2 hours of walking. Then we went to London Zoo, checking out especially the reptiles. Some of them reminded me of Trump and his minions. No, not really, it is unfair to compare reptiles with the awfullness of the Orange One.

(Posting title is from the poem “I Came Out of Habitations Where Warmth Filled My Feet and Loins” by Calvin Bedient.)

Would expose the holes in the soles of his shoes

Salla 1

Salla 2

The photographs were taken on July 1st while visiting the Sallatunturi fells in Salla, Lapland.

Today I got quite a lot on walking in London, early in the morning at Hyde park, and later on visiting Sea Life aquarium, and King's Cross (Harry Potter stuff, of course). Two batteries of the LX100 were exhausted in the process.

(Posting title is from the poem What is this about losing respect? by Mark Rudman.)

When we embrace, we are not an island

Salla 1

Salla 2

The photographs were taken on July 1st while visiting the Sallatunturi fells in Salla, Lapland.

I'm currently in London, traveling with the children. We did some shopping and sightseeing. I plan to take some photographs later today.

(Posting title is from the poem Confluence by Yusef Komunyakaa.)

I mean, outside the raw experiences of your life?

Malla

I'm jumping ahead to July 18th 19th, when we walked for 4 1/2 hours in Malla Strict Nature Reserve, all the way to Kitsiputous, which one of the highest waterfalls in Finland. It was hot, over +25 °C, and almost no wind at all. Big biting insects were interested in the hikers.

I don't usually do panoramas, and the technical merit of this one is far from flawless, but I feel that this photograph hints at the open vistas all around us when we were walking on the Malla fells. The fells you see near the horizon, behind Kilpisjärvi lake, are part of Sweden.

The panorama was stiched from 22 portrait-orientation photographs in PTGui. These days some cameras have software which allows stitching panorama photographs straight in the camera, which might be rather nice to use in situations like this one.

Next, I'll return to the scheduled program with the postings, using photographs taken in Norway on July 17th 18th.

(Posting title is from the poem Beautiful Poetry by Camille Guthrie.)

Stuff of dreams: everywhere I inquired

Clouds

Sign

Water

Blue

Saana

Saana

On July 17th there was some rain, but that cleared by evening, and I went for a walk with my daughter to lake Tsahkaljärvi. Saana fell was mostly covered by clouds, but otherwise it was sunny and the sky was clearing up.

A 50 km trekking path leads from Kilpisjärvi to Halti fell, which is the highest fell in Finland, at 1,324 meters, and thus the highest point in the country. The path was rather busy. Hikers were carrying big backpacks, walking towards Kilpisjärvi village.

(Posting title is from the poem Blue by Carl Phillips.)

As if sliding down the green, scuffed face

Larvae 1

Larvae 2

There were plenty of these little green things at Kilpisjärvi, eating birches and other green stuff. Some years the Epirrita autumnata moth larvae have defoliated square kilometers of birch forests in the fells of Lapland.

(Posting title is from the poem Möbius by David Gewanter.)

How often have I paused on every charm

Silene acaulis

Cassiope hypnoides

Lake

Down

Birch

Here are some more photographs taken at Saana fell. Climbing to Saana was something to remember. And there were a lot of other things to explore near Kilpisjärvi.

I think we'll return there next summer, if at all possible, and preferably a bit earlier so that we can see how spring and early summer look like. We only explored a tiny corner of the wilderness, there is so much to see within a couple of hours of walking.

(Posting title is from the poem The Deserted Village by Oliver Goldsmith.)

And that ideas were governments turned into men

Saana 1

Saana 2

Saana 3

Saana 4

Saana 5

Saana 6

The clouds started to get thinner when we came back from the summit of Saana fell. We explored spots of snow and the little lakes, and had picnic, before walking down from the fell. In all, we walked for over 4 hours, gaining a little bit of understanding of the landscape in Lapland.

(Posting title is from the poem i wanted to overthrow the government but all i brought down was somebody's wife by Charles Bukowski.)

To pace the ground, if path be there or none

Saana 1

Saana 2

Saana 3

Saana 4

Saana 5

Saana 6

Saana 7

Saana 8

These photographs were taken on top of Saana fell on July 16th, while walking to the summit which was inside a cloud. The fog allowed 50-100 meters of visibility, so there was no danger of getting lost provided one stayed on the marked trail.

The moisture condensed on clothes, hair, and other cool surfaces, but the rocks were dry. I discussed this with my daughter, and we realized that the rocks were rather warm, because of the warm weather earlier, and thus the air was cooler than the ground. And because the rocks were dry it was easy walking, no danger of slipping on wet rocks.

Today we had +27 °C. I rode the bicycle for two hours and 35 kilometers. It wasn't bad, but I don't like weather this hot. In any case, at some point it will get cooler.

(Posting title is from the poem Most Sweet it is by William Wordsworth.)

And the fog from the ocean is cool, for once again it is July

Saana 1

Saana 2

Saana 3

Saana 4

Saana 5

Saana 6

On July 16th I climbed with my daughter to the summit of Saana fell in Kilpisjärvi. The summit was inside a cloud, and you could see only 50-100 meters ahead. Thus we couldn't have a look at the splendid Lapland landscape at large from the summit. But being inside a cloud was interesting in itself.

Saana's summit is 1,029 meters above sea level, and the summit is 556 m above Kilpisjärvi lake which is next to the fell. For Finland this is quite a climb, as the Finnish landscape is mostly rather flat. Geologically Saana is part of the Scandinavian Mountains, and thus younger rock than elsewhere in Finland.

There is a nature trail by Saana, and our original intention was to explore the trail. But when we saw the steps ("longest steps in Finland") going up the hill, we decided to go up, and in the end - on my daughters insistence - we walked all the way to the summit, and wrote our names to the guest book there.

The trail was well marked, with the next marker always visible in the fog, so there was no danger of getting lost. These photographs were taken on the way up.

I've been a bit lazy since returning from Lapland, but yesterday I explored the forests in Vaakkoi for 2 1/2 hours. It isn't quite as hot as on the previous days, but we got some rain, which pushed humidity to above 80% 90%.

(Posting title is from the poem A Magic Mountain by Czeslaw Milosz, translated by Czeslaw Milosz and Lillian Vallee.)

The very soul in all my senses ache

River

Flowers

Saana

Birch

Lake

We arrived in Kilpisjärvi on July 15, driving there from Rovaniemi, where the night train from Helsinki stopped in the morning. When we arrived in Kilpisjärvi, there was rain and thunder.

Later that evening the rain eased up. The weather forecast promised about two hours of clearer weather near Salmivaara fell. I went for a walk with my daughter, walking to the top of the fell which was close to the place we were renting.

I'm posting here photographs taken during the walk to Salmivaara fell. There will be also a second posting of photographs taken during the walk.

Later we learned that a teenage boy had got hit by lightning on top of the Saana fell on July 15th. Saana is visible in the photographs; the profile of the fell is easy to recognize.

(Posting title is from the poem Laus Veneris by Algernon Charles Swinburne.)