I had barely swallowed the last sip of coffee before I headed to the gebirgsjäger camp yesterday morning. It was going to be a warm day so I brought an extra liter of cold water, and I also packed a little bit more food than usual. I began in the stable area and was planning to do some extra searching where I had found all the coins last time, before roaming a bit more randomly on the end of the day.
I dug up a small ditch full of the same bits as last time, the only thing that stuck out now was a bunch of keys. Moving towards the barrack foundations where I had harvested a whole lot of coins last week I took a slightly different route and got a strong and clear signal from the trusted old Fisher detector. I tore up a bit of the blueberrybush covered forest floor and saw a piece of metal with a rolled edge. Helmet!! What the heck?! I thought I had reached my helmet quota long ago. I removed more of the blueberry plants,; and behold! Another helmet!! I got them out in the air and saw several coins in the soil that filled one of them. Both helmets looked to have a nice and strong metal with little rust, and I could see parts of decals. One had the liner intact, and the second one was missing the leather and had two cracks in the dome. Under the helmets there were some broken porcelain and glass, a few bits of metal, a brass ring I at first thought was gold, a British razor and some coins.
Now this was a great start of the day. I went over the surrounding area a few times before I found my way to the barrack.
Searching around there for a while I picked up a few coins, a frame for hanging a bag on a motorcycle and a pip for a shoulderboard. I was very happy to find the latter as it was the first one I ever found.
For the rest of the day I found mostly food tins and junk. I spent a lot of time digging a couple of deep signals in a rock filled ditch. Another  place I found what looked like the foundations of a small building, 2 x 1 meter ca. There I had a strong and clear signal pretty close to the same as from the helmets. This soil was also full of rocks so it took time to dig. There I found metal. Same bowed shape as a helmet it looked like. Similar thickness as well. I managed to get all excited before finding it was just a barrell band. 
I was near the road now and it was getting late so I decided to locate my car and return home. I was warm and tired and pretty happy with the result. Two helmets, nine coins, one pip and three potential dumping pits for another day as they were frozen solid still.
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Just as last week, this one brought some beautiful spring weather and a few trips into the nature. The Girlfriend joined me for some hours trying to locate the site where a tent camp had been set up to accommodate German troops retreating from the North in 1944. Arriving at the starting point the Girlfriend waved me a goodbye as she strolled off to have a closer look at a waterfall that was growing large by the thawing mountain snow. I searched across the field and into the surrounding forest, up- and down the hills but the detector picked up very few signals. A while later all I had found was a few red plastic rifle casings from a modern military excersise. Maybe I`ll have better luck next time a little bit farther into the woods.
Later in the week I went to spend the day in the Gebirgsjäger camp. It was not a cloud in sight and already in the morning it was pretty warm. Right away the detector hinted about some iron deposits directly under the moss. Hoping for a bayonet or a Luger I uncovered horseshoes, chains, horseshoe tools, wrenches and all sorts of rings and clasps from horse equipment. Only a couple of things I dug up was made for humans, like a key, a spoon and fittingly enough a horse from a chess game.
​I moved out of the stables area and picked up some interesting signals near the corner of a barrack. Here I found a coin from the third reich. Using the pinpointer I had another coin, a 10 pfennig from 1941. It kept going like this for nearly an hour, or more maybe. The pile of coins grew and in between was a few buttons and a rusted lump that looked like a lighter. Tearing away a few roots I saw the bottom of a signal flare casing. I pulled it out from the soil and it happened to be two casings where one of them had been cut down and used as a lid on the other one. What had this container held? Cigarettes? Tobacco? Or the coins that lay strewn around it prehaps? It had a name engraved with cyrillic letters: " Micha". Did all these items once belong to Micha?, I wondered. Did he empty his pockets by the corner of this barrack sometime in the spring of 1945? Who was he? Would a released Red Army POW have thrown away all these things, or could he have been a HiWi ("Hilfswillige" Red Army soldiers that volunteered to help the Germans)? I was thinking about this as I continued to pile up some more items. The rest of it was another lighter and a pipe, both made from bakelite, a K98 muzzle cover, two chess pieces , a tent peg and more coins. In total I had found 38 coins, mostly Germans, but a few Finnish- and three Norwegian coins. 
After a rest and some food I searched the rest of the barrack. Other than nails, some material from the building, I found some 7.92 ammo, two or three 9mm casings, an ashtray and a tool to clear a machinegun barrel from a stuck casing.
Most of the day had passed by now and I moved slowly towards the car, but without any more luck with signals from the detector. Back at home I cleaned Micha`s flare casings and found a few more engravings, a face, a checkered pattern and what looks like a bottle. Too bad we`ll never know anything about him.
Tomorrow is a new week and I plan on picking up the search again, starting around the barrack I think. The weather is looking promising so I will bring an extra bottle of water and something good to eat :)

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Spring is such a lovely time to be in the forests. It is the time just before the mosquitos and gnats gets their taste for human :D 

17th May was the last snowfall ( so far) this year and Spring is finally embracing the north with her warm presence. In the middle of April we had a week or two with +16 degree Celsius and what looked like a total collapse of the winter. I was so sure the digging season was just around the corner, until that one morning where the zero degrees and heavy snowing hit us hard. Still optimistic I thought it would pass after a day or two, but it kept going for a couple of weeks. It was like a nightmare. Dont get me wrong, I like winter. I had lots of fun this season with skiing, trekking with snowshoes and Northern Lights gazing together with the Girlfriend. But May had come and it is not a month regulated for games and fun in the snow.
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Still, here we are. Most of the snow is gone and spring is happening. Monday the 16th May was the first day I went out to the forest to check the conditions. There was a little frost left in the top soil, and most places it was frozen hard like concrete below 15 cm. 
I spent the week checking out a few places that has come up during research, to check them out if there could have been any wartime activity there, so I got a lot of walking done. Like a soft start to let the old knees know that they are in for another season in forests, marshes and mountains, and to re-familiarize myself with the detector after these months not using it.

Already on these few days out with the detector I have filled a box with relics. Mostly M24 stick grenade parts. The metal fittings from the stick, and the porcelain balls for the ignitor pull cord. I wonder where they threw all the heads. Digging the M24 dumpsite I also found some 2 cm Flak casings and a couple of Anz. 29 zunders.
Searching my way through some kilometers of forest I didn`t have a signal from the detector for ages, and when it finally picked up on something it was usually an old casing from a hunter, or the red plastic nato practise casings. One signal surprised me. A very good signal quite deep into the forest. No signs of human activity around, I dig it up and it is an old sewing machine. Too heavy to lug it out of the woods though so I left it there to amuse other forest roamers that might pass it. 

I found two small sections of the forest that held some german metals. It was traces of a couple of barracks and some ditches even. And a good amount of signals. Most of them still under the frost and in water filled pits though, so I will visit there again later in june or july sometime. A few of the items I pulled out from the ground was vehicle parts, so interesting things can lay around there. Here I met a reindeer and a squirrel. I got very close to the squirrel but he made some light sabre like noises and ran off to the top of the tree and was gone.
Yesterday the Girlfriend joined me and after some strolling we found a patch of forest with some dumping pits. Of course most still under the ice , but it is something to look forward to. On this trip we saw six moose. Awesome animals.

Which brings us till today and our little expedition to our favorite forest with some really nice nature and a large german camp. Less than 100 meter from the car I found a small dumping pit with a few coins, gaming bits, signal flares, some K98 ammo,  food tins and toothpaste tubes. Other than that my only good find between a bunch of food tins and scrap metal was a Finnish coin and a uniform button.
It is really nice to have the season started and I hope to spend as much time as possible searching, making expeditions to interesting places and museums with the Girlfriend and digging with friends, and sharing a bit of this with you guys.
​Enjoy the rest of spring and I ll be making a new trip report soon :)

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