Photo: October snow flurries over Moskenesøy and Sund, Nesland, Flakstadøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. October 13, 2020. 16:32

The brief Indian Summer which I wrote about last week now seems to have come to an end and the normal cool-ish weather of mid October has now arrived. While no snow has made it down to sea level year, Himmeltindan is showing a light coating of snow in what is otherwise a cold, misty rain down below. It has been cloudy for the last week, but I think finally the sun is below my mountains for the year, not to return again until late February next year.

The trees have more of less lost their leaves for the year, and most of the small plants seem to be quickly turning to winter brown as well. But there are still hopefully some days left in the hiking season for the year – and by hiking, I mean in normal conditions and not winter hikes. So far over the summer I was able to get 5 new routes hiked for the next update of ‘West Lofoten Hikes’ ebook. There’s still a couple more mountains on the list, so maybe I’ll manage a few more.

I was a little late to hike on this day, last Tuesday. I can feel the days getting shorter, but somehow I haven’t realised that sunset is now at 17:30 already! After a few days of wind, the weather was finally a little calmer as I headed up Neslandsheia, overlooking my old home in Skjelfjord. Misty clouds were floating around and what initially was a light rain as I began the steep hike up an old sheep trail turned into a blowing snow as I reached 400+ meters elevation. Initially the sun was shining bright over the sea, but upon returning to one of the view points on my way down, it had moved to behind the mountains as another wave of autumn snow floated by.

Camera Info:
Nikon D850
Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8
58mm
ISO 100
f 11
1/40 second
WB Daylight

Photo: Snow dusted autumn mountains over Skjelfjord, Flakstadøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway. October 20, 2019. 16:01

The snow comes and the snow goes. It’s the last Friday in October and that time of year on Lofoten where we begin the long, slow wait for winter. I think it’s safe to say that autumn is gone by now, along with the leaves from nearly all the trees. The first ‘autumn storm’ swept over the coast of northern Norway earlier in the week – though pretty late in the year for the first proper storm – and the snow seems to creep a little lower down the mountains more regularly.

In just over 6 weeks the polar night will begin and our days here at the moment are already shorter than most people in Europe experience even at mid winter. And with a loss of nearly 1 hour of daylight per week, we need to head out hiking a little earlier each day, not to get caught out in too much darkness.

But of course, the weather here is as unpredictable as always. And while the temperature is generally on a downhill trend, it tends to fluctuate in cycles, so we never know when we’ll get the first day of summit to sea snow turning the islands white. At this time of year though, I generally prefer a bit of snow to be falling while I’m in the mountains than a cold 2-3˚C rain. That is miserable!

Hopefully there is still a bit more time in the hiking season – I don’t like to push things too far into snowy hikes/photos for the guides. I’m still mostly focusing on west Lofoten and before next year’s hiking season I’ll have a good sized update for the West Lofoten Hikes Ebook. But those of you who follow me on Instagram know that I’ve also spent a lot of time over in Sweden this summer and autumn. The results of one of those trips is getting the final edits and should be out next week. The other project I’ll announce a bit later, as I’m also planning a long overdue Seasons on Lofoten: Spring and Autumn guide for Lofoten, so not sure which one will get priority – and I doubt I can finish both before my winter guiding season begins. Either way, I’ll be spending a lot of time at the keyboard over the next months!

Camera Info:
Nikon D850
Nikon 24-70 f/2.8
24mm
ISO 250
f 13
1/20 second
WB Daylight