Vigu Winter Fells 2

I was already waiting for spring, in vain of course, since it arrives in the middle of April, when I headed north for the Vigu Winter Fells 2 course. I took the Winter Fells 1 course three years ago. It focused on moving in the fells with heavier equipment, living in snow caves, avalanche safety as well as using telemark technique for the descents. Winter Fells 2 builds on the same foundation, with more avalanche safety and steeper terrain, but instead uses randonnée equipment and techniques.

The beginning of the kayaking season

The winter has been rather strange. It has not been a cold and snowy winter, but at the same time it differs from the three previous warm winters in that it has been cold enough to get sea ice, sea ice that has prevented kayaking near Turku and instead enabled excellent Nordic skating. The four month long skating season ended a week ago for me. It would still be possible to skate on sea ice today, but my skates broke, and it was anyway time to start the kayaking season after a three month break.

Winter break

In Finland (as well as several other countries in Northern Europe) schools have a week off in the middle of February. The traditional name of this week is ski break or sports break, which implies that the kids should do some physical activities during this week. In Finland this week generally corresponds quite well with real winter conditions, but the weather looked quite bad before it. However, in the beginning of the week the temperature dropped to below freezing again and on Wednesday we got 10 cm of snow. It snowed more during the rest of the week and everything currently looks quite wintry.

Vigu Nordic Skating 2

Since taking the Vigu Nordic Skating 1 course a few years back, when I pretty much was a beginner, I've learned a lot. I feel pretty confident that I can read and assess the ice and skate safely in most situations, but when the ice gets thinner and weaker I've been careful. In practice this is the point when the ice pike goes through the ice, meaning that it is no longer fully safe. From that point on there is still some margin where it is possible to skate and this is what I hoped to get from the Vigu Nordic Skating 2 course, which finally took place last weekend.

Tour de Kurjenrahka - Early January Edition

The year has started with excellent outdoor weather. Good ice and almost no snow provided a paradise for Nordic skating, until it started to snow on Saturday. Snow is also nice and while I would like to have more, this was enough to warrant a fatbike overnighter. I also needed a shakedown ride for the Surly Ice Cream Truck, so this was an excellent opportunity. Jarkko joined me.

2016 in review

The outdoor year 2016 was for me pretty much about sea kayaking. The -Vigu sea kayak guide specialization started in March and was quite intensive, with the final being in Cornwall in September. In addition, I also did more mountain biking in the latter half of the year. On top of this, the year was quite hectic at work and a couple of times my stress level was definitely too high. Still, looking back at the outdoor year it wasn't a bad one.