featured

March 7, 2014 – Oivanki

Posted on March 7, 2014March 15, 2019 by Barbara Knauff

March 7, 2014 – Friday

Late-night arrival, after a 24-hour journey which went without a hitch. Meet Jeff at the Helsinki airport – we are on the same flight to Kuusamo. He has a bad cold and sounds terrible. In Kuusamo, there is a late bus going to Oivanki from the airport, organized by the RR folks – nice and very convenient.. Just ready for bed by midnight – but then my two roommates arrive! Both from Barcelona, one a Spaniard, one an expat Finn. Very nice, and I can talk to one of them in French and the other in English. Get to sleep late, and not well, jet lag. At least I am reassured about my waxes – they seem to all have made it! This time I put some crap waxes into my skibag, and packed the nice fluorinated ones in my duffel, in a stuffsack with underwear. It worked – no confiscation!-

When the alarm rings at 8, getting up is hard…

The place is bustling with wave 2 skiers, who start today. I see HHS-Anna at breakfast and say hello. She is there with a bunch of people from her Rödöns ski club, and we exchange a bar of Lake Champlain chocolate against a Rödöns patch. Once they are finally off, I take a ski inventory and do another wax check. To my chagrin, I managed to do myself this time what Finnair neglected to do. Yes, true to form, I forgot some critical items, namely the just-in-time-obtained grip tape for the warm conditions, and my sandpaper. Bummer!!! Jeff and my roommates are driving to Kuusamo and promise to try to get me some though.

I have 3 pairs of skis along: one with some grip tape on it (thank goodness) but on a very small area (30 cm); one with binder; one with just a sandpapered kick zone. The weather this time is super difficult for waxing, right around freezing with old snow but fresh snow in the forecast, and everyone talks about little else but klisters and zero skis. Anna had on two layers of different klisters, and two different hardwaxes on top of that – it is getting complicated!

I give the grip taped skis a test for 5 miles or so, and they are pretty amazing! Surprisingly fast given the weather – great glide. So I keep out of the wax room, and have some lunch. The Oivanki is a hostel-type place, and they have salmon-potato-dill chowder, very tasty. After two bowls of that, I head out for my afternoon ski, towards Ruka. It must have warmed up a little, since the going is noticeably slower, but I have a great ski anyway, even though it’s gray on gray and drizzly. I get all the way up to the Pyhävaara lookout just before Ruka, a wicked climb at the end. We actually skied through here last year on the first day of HHS. Back then, it was bitter cold, sunny, blue skies, and the spruces were white cones – it was a magical white winter forest. This time, fog and drizzle and a view of gray soup from the overview. Still nice to be out here though, and how could zipping back down the mountain not be fun?

At dinner, I get to meet all of my HHS friends who are here this year! Lauri, Kirsi, Tomi, Seija, Teija and of course Jeff. Then we have the first “info” session – turns out that we are not starting at the Russian border, because a crucial river is not frozen anymore. This takes 20 km off the first day. We also get a weather forecast which sounds pretty dismal – a warm night with rain and maybe some mixed precip. Hmmm….

Yup, I must have landed in Lapland!

Signs of reindeer!

Rajalta Rajalle marker

2013-04-01 HHS Day 10 Ukonjärvi to Partakko

Posted on April 1, 2013March 15, 2019 by Barbara Knauff

April 1, Ukonjärvi to Partakko, 58 km

We wake up to 10 cm of fresh snow and blue skies – the forest around our cabin is covered in fresh powder and looks like fairytale land. The program for the day is straightforward: ski across Lake Inari! Once could not ask for better conditions: it is sunny again, with a very slight tailwind. It warms up so much in the middle of the day that I can shed my ski jacket, mittens and hat, and ski just in liner gloves and a thin wind vest. Nice! And the snow is perfect: packed powder or loose stuff that’s the consistency of granulated sugar. Great glide, good kick, no need to rewax.

Lake Inari has a lot of islands and peninsulas sticking into it, and for the first half of the day we stay close to shore. There are lots of glacial boulders everywhere – incredibly scenic. This lake must be a great paddling destination in the summer.

Around lunch we stop for a makkara and coffee break – the rear sledge went ahead, and the fire is started when we get there. The guys even shoveled a kind of bench into the snow, and covered it with reindeer furs – very cozy place to sit. I even join the makkara grilling, manage to drop one into the fire, and eat two. Goes down pretty good at this point, though the next 25 k are rather burpy, and my dinner appetite is somewhat impacted. Finnish sausages are not exactly light.

For the last 30 km, the lake opens up and all I can see is white, white, white almost to the horizon; the track ahead; and the blue dome of the sky above me. I ski this stretch mostly by myself, and really get to absorb this empty vastness around me – all is white and flat; all I can hear is the swoosh swoosh of my skis in the loose track, and the squeak of my poles. My body traveling north becomes a sundial marking the passage of time. No double poling today; and the rhythmic striding is as close to meditation or being in the moment as I can get. I’ve often thought, on this trip, that I want to remember what I experience – the landscape and the people – but more than anything I want to be able to hold onto and recall at will the peacefulness in the middle of this lake, where everything else just falls away.

Partakko isn’t much more than a bridge and a roadcrossing. I stand on the bridge to watch some of the other skiers coming in right under me; it’s a fun perspective. Long bus ride around the lake to get back to our cabins on the southern end; it’s a late evening, with dinner at 7:30. Tomorrow will be an early start – breakfast at 6, back on the bus to Partakko at 7. The next place we’re aiming for isn’t much of a destination either; the land is so empty here; though apparently it has a store and, according to Paavo, the most famous bar in northern Finland. Not sure what to expect!

Today’s route: http://app.strava.com/activities/46789803
Today’s photos on Flickr

The track ahead on Lake Inari

Paavo’s sense of humor – our only elevation loss for the day totals 6 feet or so

Skiers on Lake Inari

Grilling makkara and boiling cowboy coffee

Everyone’s enjoying the sun

Shore along Lake Inari

The open lake – empty, white, perfect

Skiers passing under the Partakko bridge

2013-03-28 HHS Day 6, Tanhua to Lokka

Posted on March 28, 2013March 15, 2019 by Barbara Knauff

March 28, Tanhua to Lokka (49 km)

At the end of every day, I think that the skiing can’t possibly get any better than this – and then it does on the next day! We had a cold night and morning, with the low spots in the forest down to -30C according to Paavo, so we take our time getting going in the morning. First, we also have to conduct business with “the reindeer man” who pulls up with a minivan in the morning to sell dried meat. I buy a hunk, nicely vacuum sealed, and hope that my customs experience on the way home will be a good one.

Because the night was so cold and temps went below the dew point, everything is covered in the most beautiful hoarfrost – the birches and pines look like sculpted from white ice against a blue blue sky. The air is still and the lightest breeze brings down showers of hoarfrost flakes that sparkle like diamonds in the sun. What a magical winterscape to be skiing through. Flat landscape today; forests, open swamps; the occasional tunturi as a white hump in the distance. In the morning, I ski with Anna and Teija and a few of the other women; and learn a trick from Anna to avoid the cold butt problem on sub-zero mornings: she skies with a special ski skirt over her ski pants when it’s cold. I’ll have to look into that!

At the 20 km mark the Lauri-Jeff-Reijo train comes by with a hoot and a whistle, and I latch onto them for the rest of the day, which passes at a good clip. We see a kuukkeli in a pine tree by the trail – it’s a Siberian jay, pretty tame and curious. The last few kilometers we ski on the Lokka reservoir, along the southern shore. The views across the frozen lake are gorgeous, with white mountains in the northwest. Tomorrow we will cross this lake, and I’m hoping for calm winds. The village of Lokka itself is announced by a few ice fishermen who are enjoying the mild afternoon weather on the lake.

We are staying at a school here, all of us sleeping on the gym floor. The school has only 5 pupils, down from 15 just 4 years ago, but has to remain open because, by law, no child must live more than one hour’s travel away from an active school. The next school is 85 km away. Supper is ready in the afternoon, prepared in the school kitchen, and served to us in the school’s woodshop. We don’t all fit and eat in two groups, on long tables between the bandsaw, drill press and other woodworking tools. Absolutely outstanding food: Whitefish from the lake fried or broiled with some butter; roasted root vegetables and broccoli; mashed potatoes; and a homemade remoulade with dill for the fish. I stuff myself with so much whitefish that I have no room for the apricot cake desert, and have to take my piece as a snack for later!

Outside the woodshop is a sad memorial: all of the villagers in Lokka were killed by Russian partisans in July 1944, down to the last person. The plaque lists their names; I see a whole family there, a mother with five children, the youngest one just a month old.

Over dinner Seppo tells me that Lauri is still out skiing. He had to miss one day of skiing because he was sick, and is trying to make up the miles. I am beginning to understand why Jeff calls him “the blue machine”. Lauri is over 6 feet tall, and has such an enormous stride that when I ski behind him, I mostly have to double pole just to keep up.

Also: there is a disturbing HHS factoid I discovered at dinner last night: apparently we are all expected to take an up-to-the-neck dip in the Arctic Ocean when we get there. I am still digesting that one.

Feet: holding steady. Boot switch was a good idea.

Today’s route: http://app.strava.com/activities/46163403
Today’s photos on Flickr

Hoar frost