hike to Skarð

The break in rain lets us wait and so we start off over the wet landscape through some rather wet air. The path crosses a waterfall more or less every ten meters. And the rain has encouraged the waterfalls, it looks as if strips of lace were blown down the mountainside. Sun appears together with some pieces of rainbow first on our left and the over the water on our right. In all directions is the Faroese special kind of soft light. Some waterfalls are a hassle to get across, we have to climb higher, step over sheep fences and look for a suitable place. It would not be wise to climb downwards. There is the sea and waves hit the rock with a loud bang. One mottled horse and four geese live on the mountain.

From an especially angry stream I continue alone because my companion is already too wet and turns back. I’m telling you, rubber boots … For a while there’s less water but then an especially massive waterfall stops my progress. It would be possible to cross but I figure that on the Faroe Islands probably not the fittest survive but the most fearful ones. Skarð is around next corner, maybe half a kilometer or so. Then again, the next corner is rather steep and I’m a bit glad not having to walk over it. Twice. So I pretend that this was the destination and have a short picnic.

The village itself was abandoned in the winter of 1919. It was because right before Christmas in 1913 all the grown men in the village were lost at sea, and the only survivors where the women and children, a 14 year old youth and an old man.

The way back somehow feels shorter and safer. It starts to rain once I reach Haraldssund. The Brazilian is nowhere to be seen. I don’t know what he had planned to do either. Wait for me here, hitchhike back or perhaps he’s having coffee in someone’s house. I don’t want to leave unless I’m 100% sure that he’s off the mountain so just in case I wait a bit, then go back. Rain and dark clouds have dimmed down the light and I’m not very anxious to get back on the trail. Instead I ask the boys in the harbor if they have seen a guy coming from the path. First they have seen me but then they claim to have also seen a man walking towards Klaksvík. We agree that this was the Brazilian and I drive home.