On the morning of the third day of our eight-day ski traverse through the vast Arctic landscapes of the Swedish North, we woke up to fully overcast skies. As we prepared our breakfast in our stormproof tents, we noticed the winds picking up, and the sky became more animated.
Swapping my wide angle for the 70-300, I looked north towards the Áhkká Massif, the monumental highlight of the Stora Sjöfallet National Park. Sitting between Padjelanta and Sarek National Park, these areas combined are often referred to as Europe’s wildest and most remote landscape.
The clouds shapeshifted and draped across the sweeping mountains in front of us, obscuring the peaks, until one serendipitous moment of a clearance revealed the crisp Arctic light illuminating the 2000m summit of the frozen mountains. The horizontal banding of clouds divided the scene into two different worlds: one of abstracts and one of clear, piercing lines.
This moment did not last long, but it remained one of the highlights of the entire trip.
