It all started with us not finding any summer
cottage to spend our Midsummer holidays at. Okay, we might have tried to hint
to our coworkers (and everyone else) that such was the case. For all of you
non-Finnish readers (hello Kiki! maybe?) Midsummer in Finland is like
Thanksgiving in the States. Sometimes it’s almost as cold as Thanksgiving too.
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I don't know who this is - keeps crushing at my home and work |
In total despair of having to spend our
holidays looking straight at the front door of our dear little health care
center we decided to do a hike at Pallas-Ylläs nature reservation area. Ylläs
is a ”tunturi”, a 718m fjeld our mountain, and one of the highest ones in
Finland. It’s also an absolute favorite winter location of my (Miksu) family
since years past.
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Hanna and her brand new hiking back pack all the way from Helsinki |
Our only defeat was finding out it’d be as cold
as -2C during the night, lots of wet snow during the day and a rain season of
12h during our longest hiking day. Of course, as we say in Finland, there’s no
bad weather, only bad gear.
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My faithful Nike's |
We were also happy and blessed to find out
that our friend’s family had been hiking at Halti (another high hill/mountain)
before us and let us spend our first night on their cottage couch at Ylläs.
Early Friday morning after a breakfast in cheerful company we started our 60k
hike from the quiet quiet tourist attraction of Olos. Our first meal came at 8k
by a freezing wilderness cottage where we tried to remind ourselves that it’s
summer, it’s summer, not winter.
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Mmm - Finnish Summer |
The second part of our first day’s hike
involved us finding out that they’re not joking when telling people the trails
are wet in June. Good part was, we got ourselves some clean shoes and feet, and
a free foot bath. Reminding each other it’s Midsummer’s Eve was almost funny
until it looked like Christmas was here. Though I do think there's a possibility we're painfully stubborn and Finnish and quietly enjoyed every part of it.
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"I made a promise Mr Frodo, a promise, don't you leave him Samvais Gamgi. And I don't mean to, I don't mean to" |
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I like to think of myself as fashionable - when swamp areas still made us smile |
Our first night was spent in the cutest and
most welcoming cottage I’ve seen. (My feelings might have been affected by the Amazon river flooding in my shoes) A small curiosa - ”Don’t touch nature” was
our motto until the 15th cockroach came out from the cealing.
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Pahtavaara wilderness cottage |
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Bible and map reading - finding our way in life and nature |
Our 2nd day of hiking turned out to be one big
surprise where a promise of continual rain turned out to be perfect hiking
weather. A little cool not to make us sweaty, but enough to provide a fresh
breeze. I personally think our two best decisions of the hike were deciding to
climb ”a hill” turning out to be ”Kukastunturi” (Kukasfjeld/mountain) and
extending our hike with one day to diss our night in a tent on a camping area.
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Mini-Hanski on her peeing place with a view (or "maisemapissa" in Finnish) |
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My roomie, colleagues, sister and friend |
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Endless views |
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Kesänkitunturi - I think |
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I wish I could take you all there. It needs to be experienced, |
Instead we slept in a wooden wilderness teepee facing three different
fjelds/mountains (Kukastunturi, Kesänkitunturi, Lainiotunturi). We also enjoyed
a Finnish midsummer bath washing ourselves with water heated up on a campfire
facing mountains, a swamp area and forests. And no people anywhere, of course.
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Drying our shoes and cooking bathing water - only in Finland |
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Our teepee is on the left. Kesänki and Lainiotunturi behind the trees. |
Our third morning was the best one yet during this summer. (No sarcasm, at all) We woke up
at 4.30am, when other hikers arrived at the teepee, left at 5.00am and half run
our last 13km. All this only to be able to put our pretty Midsummer dresses on,
do a truck drivers bath in a toilet and enjoy a big hotel brunch at 7.30am.
When we started our drive back to Rovaniemi and a day
of city shopping we took a quick halt on the road and took a
final climb up the hill to take one last look over Finnish nature at its best.
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Views from Ylläs |
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I was joined by an old monkey - good thing my bananas were gone |