Winter overnighter in Teijo

We finally got snow. Some are not that excited, while others are more so. I had the possibility to do an Saturday-Sunday overnighter and wanted to do some snow riding before Rovaniemi 150 as well. It turned that some Vigu (Wilderness Guide) students had planned to spend the weekend in the Teijo area, and I decided to join them for the Saturday-Sunday night and combine some snow training with a nice overnighter in good company.


I started with car from Turku in the afternoon and had Benjamin with me. I drove to the Miilunummi parking spot, where Benjamin took the straight route to the Teerisaari shelter on foot. I followed the hiking trail north to the Sahajärvi lake. The route started on forest roads. There was about one hour of daylight left at this point.

End of the road and start of the trail.

There was enough to make riding uphill difficult and in slightly steeper sections the rear tire couldn't find any traction. There was around 15 cm of snow in open places. I soon came up to a section of bare cliffs, rideable only when not going uphill. The trail was now very hard to follow and it was getting darker.

Down in the forest the riding was easy. There was less snow and the trail was easy to follow.

Soon the darkness was upon me and I continued towards Nenustannokka, a cliff with a good view in different conditions.

On the cliff I lost the trail and couldn't find it again, so I took a short bushwacking route to a trail I was certain I could find.

The duckboards were very difficult to ride on with all the snow and I walked most of them.

This didn't seem like a good place to fall off the duckboards.

After this I turned back and rode on roads back the the parking spot, from where I followed the trail towards the chosen shelter. I noticed that Benjamin had taken a short cut over the ice, but I wanted to try the duckboards on the far side of the lake. They turned out to be unrideable and riding over the bumpy mire was very hard work. After a little under three and a half hours, I arrived and met the others. I was now rather hungry, but a delicious lentil casserole was soon to be ready.

After three servings of the lentil casserole, I felt quite content. Benjamin then turned to baking.

The result was most delicious.

Thus the evening passed in good company.

The night wasn't particularly cold, only about -4C. I had my 600 g summer down sleeping bag combined with a 600 g synthetic quilt and had a very comfortable night.

A eight in the morning I got up. Magnus was to leave before breakfast, but he still had a fire going when I got up.

The morning wasn't entirely cloudy.

Water for the morning coffee.

Magnus left...

... and I started on my breakfast.

The sunrise was quite nice.

One hour later when we got going, the weather was again cloudy. I took a shortcut over the lake.

A short land bridge was forced by pushing the bike.

The snow on the ice was rideable, but it was slow going.

I left the ice and bushwacked to the trail, to ride a short bit to the car.

At the car I packed in everything and drove to another parking spot to pick up Benjamin, before turning home. A nice overnighter in good company was behind me again.