Drove over to Milford Sound for a boat trip out on the fiord. The 4 hour drive from Queenstown along state highway 94 has some pretty spectacular scenery, especially passing through the forests and across the alps onto the west coast.
After passing through the Homer Tunnel, the highway exits onto the western side of the alps and is surrounded on all sides by really steep cliffs.
Down at Milford Sound. The temperature this day was about 14C. As beautiful as this spot was, I couldnt have lunch here as the swarms of sandlfies are insane and will attack. Apparently they like to live in places that rain 6500mm in a year.....
Heading out to the Tasman Sea looking back inland. The wind really picked up here as the fiord pretty much acts as a wind tunnel.
Last Edit: May 22, 2024 6:58:12 GMT -5 by longaotian
Post by psychedamike24 on May 22, 2024 14:43:01 GMT -5
Unexpected rainbow this morning. There was some chilly rain showers yesterday afternoon but I expected today to be around 15-16 C and rain-free with sunbreaks here and there.
Flew to Swiftholm on Sunday. As soon as the plane took off there was such a visible gradient of leaf progression according to distance to the sea. The immediate coast off of Umeå was pretty much completely bare.
Arlanda airport outside Stockholm was very green in comparison. Of note is that there were a lot of spruce that were completely dead. Spruce like wet environments, I wonder if it was during the heat and drought of the 2018 summer that they died.
Lots of EU election posters in Stockholm. This one from the Christian democrats says "Borders and freedom". I'm not quite sure those go together.
Metro art (camera doesn't show it but the lights were pink)
Still multiple hours until the concert was to start and this is what the metro station looked like.
There are like a dozen gates to the arena, and it was really difficult even getting to your assigned gate (the metro pic was a couple hours before this).
Record attendance of this arena with 60k people. Apparently the absolutely cheapest tickets to her concerts in USA were going for 1800$, but EU has laws regulating demand based ticket prices so our tickets only cost like 150$. A lot of Americans choose to fly to Europe and watch concerts there instead of in their hometowns because it's so much cheaper even including flights and multiple nights at expensive hotels.
The observatory hill in the dead center of the UHI, where the Stockholm weather station is located.
Weather station sits behind that hedge to the right.
The hill is actually quite high, I'd estimate at least 30-40 meters, with quite steep slopes to the side. I think it's hard to find a park or patch of grass in Stockholm with warmer nights than where this station is located. However, daytime temps in sunny weather is probably significantly cooler compared to "down on the ground". The hill juts above all the buildings in the area and in a way I think it gets exposed to similar type of "free air" as a 10 m station on a mast. It felt noticably cooler up on the top compared to down at ground level at least when I was there.
I wish more buildings and areas/places would make plant walls with the help of automated irrigation systems.
Famous square
Idk why but this particular place reminds me a lot of the outdoor floors on the top of skyscraper malls in Bangkok (and south/east asia in general) (I'm imagining this picture was taken on like the 50th floor of a skyscraper).
Stockholm is pretty hilly, but in a flat-steep-flat kind of way rather than an undulating kind of way. Because of this they have a lot of these small stair sections squeezed in between buildings, and I think they're pretty cute.
Out of all the cities I've been to in Europe, I think Stockholm has the prettiest oldtown actually.
Cute tree. Not a cute man though. I overheard him in a grocery store making grumpy and racist remarks about a group of asian tourists.
Typical view on Stockholm postcards. Tbh it looks nearly identical to Prague(and also Krakow, and Riga, and probably a dozen other European old towns).
Some church chapel.
Stockholm's metro system uses one single ticket for several different types of transport including subway trains, commuter trains, buses, trams and also metro boats.
A nice lakeside park pretty close to the inner city. Not quite fully leafed out, some oaks and especially ashes had small leaves still.
I took the train from Stockholm back to Umeå and I was able to get a good idea of the leaf-out progression. Gävle at 60,6'N was still fully green but with generally smaller leaves compared to Stockholm. Sundsvall at 62,3'N was remarkably similar to Gävle, and so was Kramfors up at 63'N. Once I passed Örnsköldsvik at 63,3'N it started getting dark and was hard to tell but it looked pretty much fully green, couldn't really see any bare trees. But just 10 minutes later by train and there were pretty much no leaves whatsoever along the coast.
Umeå today looks barely any different to when we left on Sunday.
We've really been cucked this May I feel like. This is Umeå university station in red vs a roadside station in Örnsköldsvik (green) which normally has pretty much the same May averages.
Nope, it's further west, further away from downtown Portland. I'm kind of glad this spring has been cooler than average; it's made May pollen less of an issue.
forest kinda dry-looking, but decently green understory since it's late spring
forest smelled nice
next went to castle crags state park just south of town. the rock formations were impressive but a fairly dull forest trail without much views until I got to the crags, and couldn't go far on the crags safely unless you were a climber. Though someone said they made it to the top of the crags but I had no clue what the correct route was
saw a bear on the drive out of the park, told the park rangers and they didn't care. bear was on the road and then jumped out of the way of my car and when he saw me coming and stared
climbed up Shasta part of the way. started in the morning so the snow won't be too slushy. by 8000 feet it was icy and I put on microspikes. almost everyone else who was starting in the morning were trying to go to the summit, most "tourist" hikers started in the afternoon. I wasn't planning on going that high but just keep going hoping the clouds would break. which was bad, as I didn't have sunglasses with me. ended up with a mild sunburn and aching eyes. eyes were fine 10 minutes after I left the snow slope thankfully; had a much worse time on Rainier where I spent a lot longer in midday sun on snow. Indian guy I met on a roadside pullout who climbs a lot said cascade volcanoes are the only place he uses sunscreen.
views weren't the greatest but memorable experience
driving out to the Trinity Alps for hiking there the next two days. took a scenic mountainous backroad that google maps said would be shorter time-wise. most of the way up a narrow winding mountain road, I waved a local and asked what the road was like ahead. "snow on road as of last week, don't know if it's gone yet". I turned around, didn't want to risk wasting more time. campsite I had found, learned from another camper who also tried the road that it was blocked by downed trees before she got to snow. from that closed road (not that far up)
Stuart Fork trail, extremely long trail. nice forest and river noise but after pushing thru 8 miles of viewless forest, I was getting tired and frustrated. meadow views. most people backpacked and went to the lakes a few more miles, but 26 miles in one day felt like too much and didn't want to find a campsite in the dark
next day hiked the canyon creek trail. stopped in weaverville. old gold rush town, might be the oldest non-coastal california town I've seen
nice drive to the trailhead, sweeping views, nice canyon, river and forest. forest was already on the dry side at the lowest elevations (trailhead 2900 feet, road went below 2000 feet). Summer highs at 2000 feet are 95°F, dry season is long, forest looks quite thick. all very flammable. road side view, not the best wish I took more
lots of views at the start of the hike, unlike the day before
dogwood everywhere in the lower elevation of california mountains
could loud waterfalls fed from snowmelt on the slopes; reminded me of the north cascades
nice meadow
some shrubs had just budded out
mmm granite mmm water on granite
(not shown) long stretches of mud, standing water, stream on trail, downed trees and hard to follow trail near the end
continuous snow above 5500 feet, mountain in the background is the highest peak of the range at 9100 feet. on its other (north side) there is a glacier at a bowl around 8000 feet, lowest elevation glacier in california? besides the very high winter snowfall, must have good topography for catching snow
the strong sun was bothering me + reflection from snow. not the prettiest time of day with the glare
