Bohusleden Walk #12: Lysevatten-Grandalen (Friday 06/10-17)

And now time for the final walk in 2017 (and probably also one of my favorite Bohusleden walk)! After more than a week's break I decided to go on my final walk in 2017, namely between Lysevatten (roughly where I had ended Bohusleden walk #11 between Store-Väktor and Broan) and Grandalen. The main reason for the relatively long break and for why I didn't go on any more walks in 2017 was because I was pretty busy with practice driving (at the time of writing I've had a driving license for about 1.5 months). Once this walk had finished I had walked all parts of Bohusleden from Lindome in the south to Vaktarekullen north of Hedekas. What remains of Bohusleden at the time of writing is roughly 120km from Vaktarekullen to the northern end of Bohusleden in Strömstad. I will most likely split up the remaining parts of Bohusleden into 4 walks and I will probably go on these walks sometime in March or April (the main requirements for me to accomplish this is long enough days and enough free time). But enough about my future plans, lets get into the details for this walk.
Once again I was practice driving to the start of the walk. The travel time by car was 1h2mins and I started the walk at 08:42. I relied on public transport for my travel back home from Grandalen once I've finished the walk at 16:37. I actually arrived at the Grandalen bus stop 12 minutes before the bus came.
In any case, the walk was 20.1km in total, out of which 0.1km was required to in the beginning to walk to reach the Bohusleden trail and at the end the distance to the Grandalen bus stop was 0.3km. The total duration for the walk was 7h55mins. Thus my average speed was approximately 2.54km/h. This is in fact my slowest average speed for a walk to date. Why was my walking speed so slow? Well, there are several key reasons for this, including that the trail goes through very demanding terrain (in fact this part of Bohusleden has the most height variations and has the most places with ropes added to make the walking up or down easier) and goes through footpaths to a high extent and also because I didn't want to rush it and because I took a large number of photos.
So why is it probably one of my favorite Bohusleden walks? Well, one of the reasons is actually the demanding terrain mentioned above. Another reason is that it goes through a beautiful Svartedalen forest region and has many beautiful lakes near the trail. The walk goes through not one but two (albeit related) nature reserves: Svartedalens nature reserve and Svartedalens natur- och friluftsområdets nature reserve. Svartedalen is actually southwestern Sweden's largest connected forest- and wilderness area. There is a large number of beautiful lakes near the trail as you will see in the photos below. There are other notable highlights which I will show in the photos but before I do that I will mention a couple of other things.
Firstly, in contrast to the previous Bohusleden walk I was only attacked by 2-3 deer flies. Either the cold weather had killed off most of them or I just happened to have good luck in not coming across that many of them. On the other hand I got luckier in seeing other types of wildlife compared to the previous Bohusleden walk: I saw one squirrel and one grass snake. It can also be noted that the weather was sunny most of the day so it was a great opportunity for nice photos. It was however a bit cold in the morning (although it wasn't a problem as I dressed accordingly). Finally, despite the terrain being somewhat wet it didn't lead to any significant problems in getting across certain parts of the trail and I did only get my shoes wet to a minor extent (I didn't need to change my socks). Anyways, the photos will give you a better idea of the characteristics of the walk. Enjoy the photos!

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Rödvatten. Rotated the photo slightly and cropped it. Also darkened the brightest part of the sky using the levels tool. Finally I used the hue restorer plug-in to reduce the cyan-ish sky color.

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Rotated the photo slightly and cropped it.

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Stora Hästevatten. Rotated the photo slightly and cropped it.

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Lagsjön. Used the hue restorer plug-in to reduce the cyan-ish sky color. Also rotated the photo slightly and cropped it. Then I increased the contrast for the non-sky parts slightly using the brightness-contrast slightly. Finally I sharpened the non-sky parts slightly using unsharp mask.

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Stora Holmevatten. Used the hue restorer plug-in to reduce the cyan-ish sky color.

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Måkevatten. Used the hue restorer plug-in to remove the cyan-ish sky color. Then I darkened the sky slightly using the levels tool. Finally I increased the contrast slightly using the brightness-contrast tool.

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Härsvatten. Used the hue restorer plug-in to reduce the cyan-ish sky color.

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Hållesjön. Rotated the photo slightly and cropped it. I also sharpened the non-sky parts slightly using unsharp mask.

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Bottenstugan. Brightened the sky slightly using the levels tool. I also used the levels tool to darken the non-sky parts slightly.

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Ålevatten (view from Stora Kattås). Used the hue restorer plug-in to reduce the cyan-ish sky color. Also used the levels tool to darken the sky slightly and to brighten the non-sky parts slightly.

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Holmevatten. Rotated the photo slightly and cropped it.

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Nedre Långevatten can be seen in the background.

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Grass snake (a very small one as you can see!).

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Sharpened the photo slightly using unsharp mask.

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Övre Långevatten. Rotated the photo slightly and cropped it. Also used the hue restorer plug-in to reduce the cyan-ish sky color. Then I darkened the sky slightly using the levels tool. Finally I sharpened the photo slightly using unsharp mask.

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Stora Sörsjön. Used the hue restorer plug-in to reduce the cyan-ish sky color. I also sharpened the photo slightly using unsharp mask.

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Tvängen. Rotated the photo slightly and cropped it. Then I used the hue restorer plug-in to remove the cyan-ish sky color.

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Abborrevatten. Used the hue restorer plug-in to remove the cyan-ish sky color. Also darkened the sky slightly using the levels tool. Finally I increased the contrast for the non-sky parts slightly using the curves tool.

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Grandalen

Bohusleden Walk #11: Store-Väktor-Broan (Wednesday 27/09-17)

After one day's break I returned to the Bohusleden walks. This time I traveled by car to Ekehålan south of the lake Store-Väktor, actually as part of practice driving (I started practice driving a bit more than one month before this walk). Well, there was no way to drive any further and therefore I started the walk at Ekehålan and walked to the place where Bohusleden splits near Store-Väktor (a distance of approximately 1.3km) (I've mentioned this split in the blog post for Bohusleden Walk #8 between Glimmingen and Backamo) and rather than walking north towards Vassbovik, I took the southern route to Hasteröd (a distance of 7km). After that I walked 12.3km of Bohusleden stage 10 between Hasteröd and Lysevatten. Then finally I also walked 0.5km to reach the Broan bus stop. The walk was thus approximately 21.6km in total. The total duration for the walk was 7h32mins, which means that my average speed was approximately 2.87km/h. There are several reasons for my slow speed, the primary one being that I took a large number of photos. The two secondary reasons are that the trail goes mostly on footpaths (and mostly through forests) and maybe more importantly: It was wet and hard to walk past certain points without getting wet shoes (or more wet shoes). In fact I changed my socks three times (and as I often do I put plastic bags on my socks to prevent them from getting too wet)).
In either case, the travel back was with regular public transport. I first took bus 333 to Lilla Edet and there I changed to bus 424 and traveled to Trollhättan. In Trollhättan I took the train to Göteborg. The travel back home took 2h37mins in total. By contrast the travel time by car in the morning was 1h24mins.
Overall it was an interesting and enjoyable walk going almost entirely through forests (the main exception being near Hasteröd and Myrtuvan where the trail goes through small scale farm land). The walk can roughly be divided into the part before Hasteröd and the part after Hasteröd. The part before Hasteröd feels goes through forests which remind me of the forests during the Bohusleden walk #10 between Glimmingen and Bovik or Bohusleden walk #8 between Backamo and Glimmingen and although interesting the forests are more dominated by forestry. After Hasteröd the walk goes through a marsh and lake rich terrain that feels more wild compared to the first part of the walk before Hasteröd. The autumn atmosphere certainly made things more interesting. Walks in the autumn are great although the two main issues for autumn walks are the deer flies and the shorter days. The colder weather and wetter terrain doesn't necessarily worsen the situation, in fact these things might give a more interesting atmosphere.
Returning to the topic of deer flies it can be noted that there were even more deer flies than usual and it was really annoying. Maybe they get more aggressive in the mid part of the autumn or I just happened to stumble upon places that had many of them. And speaking of wildlife: I saw one squirrel this time. It can also be noted that the weather started off as cloudy but that the sky got clearer during the day. Finally it can be noted that I got a bit lost near the lake Hällsvattnet. I was probably lost for about 20 minutes.
Enjoy the photos!

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Old barn from the 1800s (or built in the style that was common here in the 1800s, not sure). Increased the contrast slightly using the brightness-contrast tool. Rotated the photo slightly and cropped it.

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Store-Väktor

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Källevattnet. Sharpened the photo slightly using unsharp mask.

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Sharpened the photo slightly using unsharp mask.

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Darkened the sky slightly using the levels tool.

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Brightened the non-sky parts slightly using the levels tool. Then I increased the contrast slightly using the brightness-contrast tool. Finally I increased the contrast slightly for the sky using the levels tool.

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An old milestone. Rotated the photo slightly and cropped. Increased the contrast slightly using the brightness-contrast tool.

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Hasteröd

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The trail goes through a primeval forest between Myrtuvan and Stora Gunnarsvattnet. Sharpened the photo slightly using unsharp mask.

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Stora Gunnarsvattnet. Increased the contrast for the sky slightly using the levels tool. Also increased the contrast slightly for the non-sky parts using the brightness-contrast tool. Finally I brightened the non-sky parts slightly using the levels tool.

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Djupevatten. Rotated the photo slightly and cropped it. Also darkened the sky slightly using the levels tool.

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Medjolingen. Darkened the non-sky parts slightly using the levels tool. Then I increased the contrast for the non-sky parts slightly using the brightness-contrast tool.

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Mörtevatten. Rotated the photo slightly and cropped it. I also sharpened the photo slightly using unsharp mask.

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Brurevatten Rotated the photo slightly and cropped it. Also sharpened the photo slightly using unsharp mask.

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Sharpened the photo slightly using unsharp mask.

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Increased the contrast slightly using the brightness-contrast tool.

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Stora Hällbovatten. Sharpened the photo slightly using unsharp mask.

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Västersjön. Sharpened the photo slightly using unsharp mask. Also increased the contrast slightly using the brightness-contrast tool.

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Hällsvatten. Used the hue restorer plug-in to reduce the cyan-ish sky color. Also darkened the sky slightly using the levels tool.

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Rödvatten. Rotated the photo slightly and cropped it. Increased the brightness and contrast slightly for the non-sky parts using the levels tool. Also used the levels tool to slightly increase the contrast and brightness for the non-sky parts.

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Broan