09-Aug-2003 -- Set out from Boliden on Friday afternoon 8th August in attempt to visit the two remaining confluences on land in Sweden. Arrived in Nikkaloukta just before midnight in partly cloudy weather. Tented just east of Vistasjokk river, close to the main road, 15.4 km from the confluence, as the crow flies. In the morning it was 8 degrees C and I started walking, at 07:00, along the footpath on the east side of Vistasvagge. After about 3 hours and 12 km, just before the creek from Marfekårså ravine, I left the trail and went through swamps, bushland, and forest uphill to the tree limit at 760 m asl.
Weather was now windy, but sunny and rather hot for this time of the year. I had a lunch and continued across the sloping grasslands past Roukketjåkka. Highest elevation was 1195 m, then it was about 800 m distance downhill. 100 m south of the confluence I stopped and took an overview picture, but the ground at the confluence point was not visible from there, since it is located in a depression very near a dried out stream. When I came closer, I saw a small cairn. The GPS first indicated the point to be some 4 m south of the cairn, but after a while it ended up 40 cm south of the cairn. It was newly built, and the first storm would blow off the uppermost rocks, so some confluence hunters had been there already.
The confluence is at 1165 m elevation and the landscape type is mountainous rock- and grassland.
I took the pictures of the place and walked back almost the same way. I followed one of the many small creeks that join before Marfekårså and passed an area with palsas. Those are frost mounds, a few meter high domelike structures of peat that contain an ice core.
I was back at the main road at 23:16 and continued to Jukkasjärvi and Vittangi river in order to make an attempt on 68Nx21E.
Congratulations to those who were at 68Nx19E first!