Sunday, January 23, 2011

Short overnighter on skis

The Kuhankuono ski route, which I tried out last week was so nice that I was tempted to do an overnighter on it. My plans included sleeping in a bivy bag in an open place to fully enjoy the moonlight. The weather was of course crisp and clear in my plans. Despite the usually correct Norwegian forecast, the weather was less than stellar. When I started skiing at 20:50, the temperature was a few degrees below freezing and it rained a little. The darkness necessitated using a light, and it was not possible to take any pictures. I switched to plan B and went to the Lakjärvi lean-to instead, where I got a fire started.





Grilling a sandwhich with lots of Emmental cheese.


At 23:30 I went to sleep, only to wake up one hour later to lots of noise and screaming. A few minutes later two snowmobiles arrived. Two guys had the splendid idea of driving their noisy machines somewhere to do some barbecuing. I probably looked rather unenthusiastic, so they suggested themselves that they could go to Rantapiha instead. They were polite enough, but still I have no respect at all for people using these noisy unnecessary machines in Southern Finland where the forest areas are quite small and the distances small. In addition, they certainly were not allowed to drive where they were driving. There are actually very few places snowmobiles can be legally driven on land in Southern Finland.

A little over seven in the morning I got up, made some coffee and porridge and packed my stuff into the backpack. At 7:50 I was on the move again. The temperature was -4°C. In the beginning it was quite dark due to the cloudy weather.




Nearing the sunrise at 9:08 it started to lighten quickly. My impression of the snowmobilers from the night was reinforced when I noticed that they at one section drove on the ski track, destroying the actual track. At one point one of the snowmobiles ran out of gas or broke down.


This was a nice ski track. Idiots!


Back on the bog again.


Snowshoeing is a perfectly fine activity by me.






A wetter part of the bog.




That's it. A nice small trip, but the fantastic weather from last week's trips would have been nicer.

3 comments:

  1. Well, those snowmobilers were really idiots. And it's pretty irritating that all the gasoline-consuming noisy machines are so popular here in Finland. Apart from that, seems like a nice trip and great pictures again!

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  2. you really know how to enjoy your winter!
    can you ride your pugs on that ski track?

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  3. I think it might actually be possible on most parts if being very careful not to ride on the actual ski track. It is no option though, since even the sight of tire tracks next to the ski track on a dedicated ski trail would not be acceptable. Traditionally ski tracks have been considered untouchable, and I certainly would not want to be in the same category as the idiots I mentioned above.

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