Picture Galleries & Stories from my Hiking Trips and Journeys
The days are getting shorter quickly and the Arctic night seems to become tangible. Currently the day length decreases by ten to eleven minutes every day (The headline, by the way, I stole from todays weather forecast site of the Finnish meteorological institute).
The other information I found on that site, which however also was obvious by looking out of the window, was that today was a clear sky. Continue reading “Sunrise today at 10:12. Sunset today at 14:10. Length of day is 3 h 58 min.”
Last weekend – and thus mid of October, apparently this years winter started. There has been already a few centimeters of snow in late September, however, now that the temperatures are persistent below freezing, conserving the snow and keeping it from melting away again. And so, the few centimeters of snow from early last week are still remaining. Since there is more snowfall predicted for the upcoming days, we decided to once again take out our bikes, and ride them through the forest, where soon we will be only able to ski or walk with snowshoes.
It turned out to be easier than expected, even though the trails were quite slippery of course. Maybe it helped that we Continue reading “Last Bike Trip in First Lasting Snow – Lunch at the Frozen Pahtajärvi Shore”
Recently, a few visitors and friends asked me, how often I have already walked through Pallas-Yllästunturi National Park. Well – the truth is, never before. OK, I have often been in the national park, but never really walked through it. However, with two friends deciding to walk from Pallas to Hetta, I joined their decision and then them, to also get my premiere – at least for the part through the two Northern fell areas. The reason why I never did that before, was, Continue reading “Pallas-Hetta – Taking the “Highway” in Pallas-Yllästunturi National Park”
For approximately two months, the sun does not sink below the horizon in Hetta, peaking around the 20th of June. Looking forward to the 21st of July, when the night finally should start its fight for a comeback in the Enontekiö region, a short trip to the lake on Pyhäkero was supposed to utilize some advantages of the (still) continuing brightness. Continue reading “Swimming Under the Midnight Sun – Bike & Hike to the Pyhäkero Summit”
As I wrote in the last entry, with the beginning of May the poles for marking the skiing tracks were removed, signalling the end of the winter – and the way too short skiing season. This fact however, let my girl friend and me decide to cross the lake Ounasjärvi for the last time this winter and to go on a small skiing trip into Pallas-Ounas national park, to stay over at the autiotupa Sioskuru. Continue reading “Sioskuru – The Last Skiing Trip This Winter”
The day before yesterday – or presterday, as I would call it – the poles marking the skiing tracks unfortunately have been removed; the unmarking of the tracks is marking the end of the skiing season, leaving the (ex-)pistes open for (noisy, smelly and polluting) snowmobiles to ruin the rest of the tracks even quicker than the warm spring sun is doing it. This altogether leaves some icy and rough traces in the snow, that still shows you, where once the tracks have brought comfort to the cross-country skier. Continue reading “Rautujärvi Again – The Quick Retreat of the Snow”
Recently I was feeling like having a late dinner at the Rautujärvi laavu. Since I usually enjoy it pretty much to ski (only) in the atmospheric night light, I was wondering how much night there still is at this time of the year. In the cities and villages this is always a bit tricky to figure out, since the light pollution even in small places are interfering quite much with the natural light situation. Continue reading “The Night Has Gone – Dinner at Rautujärvi”
