UKK National Park at April

Skiing at Vongoiva fells

7 great days in the middle of April at UKK National Park ! This was our second winter hiking trip this winter. The target for the hike was selected already long time ago and based on the experiences two years ago, week #16 was expected to be the best week for it. And sure it was !!! We had 6 beautiful days out of 7 total days spent outdoors.

Scenery on top of the Fells

We started our hike from Raja-Jooseppi, close to Russian border, and our aim was to visit as south as Vongoiva Fells. The first day with heavy backpacks was planned to be easy one. We crossed Lutto-river and followed Suomu-river until Pahaoja-river, from where we started climbing towards Jyrkkävaara wilderness hut. On the way to wilderness hut some of us saw a lonely wolf running just few hundred meters ahead of us.

Footprints of wolf

Second day was sunny and we decided to head directly to Anterinmukka wilderness hut over the Kuikkapää Fells. It was tough climbing at the beginning, but the scenery was amazing. All in all after 24 km skiing we reached wilderness hut and enjoyed warm and sunny evening with sauna.

Kuikkapää behind, soon starting descending to Anterinmukka

3rd day was even more beautiful than the previous ones. Our plan to visit Vongoiva Fells at today was perfect timing. The sun was shining and there were absolutely no wind. The day was tough however, 30 km with 1000 meter ascending during the day. But it was worth of it. Vongoiva and Reututunturi Fells are just amazing ones. The downhill from Reututunturi down to Anterinjoki-river was like telemark at powder snow between small birches.

Anterinmukka sauna-cabin

The Wednesday was the only day with snowfall, low visibility and moderate wind. Today we didn't climb to the Fells, but instead skied on the gorges like Hammaskuru-gorge to Hammaskuru wilderness hut and furthermore to Luirojärvi wilderness hut. The day was long 30 km, but the sauna was waiting us at Luiro as well. Hammaskuru gorge was beautiful with all packed snow at the bottom. At Hammaskuru we saw footprints of wolverine and when we met a guy at Hammaskuru hut, he saw us from his camera a photo of wolverine, amazing !!! 

Sun was shining at Hammaskuru through thick clouds

On 5th day we started to ski back towards north and headed from Luiro to Sarvioja and further to Jyrkkävaara hut.

At Jyrkkävaara

6th day was a bit shorter skiing day than previous ones. We skied over the hills to Kiertämäjärvi hut and visited on the Finland - Russia frontier zone.

At frontier zone

Last day skiing was easy one next to frontier zone and via the bridge over the Lutto-river back to the car. All in all within 7 days I was skiing 160 kilometers and saw a bunch of eastern part of UKK National Park. UKK National Park is one of the biggest and last wilderness areas at western Europe.

Our team

The route for this hike can be found from here.

CCCP, Valio, Tarja Halonen and Greek temple

It's like in Uutisvuoto, what's the common nominator for all of those items at title ?

Answer is : Jerevan at Armenia

I managed to destroy (literally eaten) whole CCCP, which I bought from the store in the center of Jerevan.

I'm going to enjoy and eat CCCP

At the same store there were butter available made by Valio. The other Finnish company visible at streets is not surprise for anybody. The name of the company starts with N and ends with A.

FIN was competing with CCCP at the store

When I was visiting Genocide museum of Armenia, outside at the yard there are trees, which are planted by presidents or state's leaders all over the world. Our Tarja has been here on year 2005...

Tree planted at Genocide museum at Jerevan

It's shockingly old civilisation surrounding Jerevan city. The oldest structures and building are even 2000 years old like this temple, which has been  built 3rd century B.C. influenced by Hellenists.

Garni, 2000 B.C.

Four days at Jerevan ended with the trip to Cognac factory, Ararat. When exported Ararat can't use cognac name, but it's named as brandy. However it's the one of the most famous brandy brands in the world.

Cognac tasting at Ararat factory

Tbilisi and Jerevan

Tbilisi seen high from the fortress

Spending one week at Caucasus and visiting Georgia and Armenia was booked at the end of March. I was flying with AirBaltic via Riga to Tbilisi and spent first couple of days in the capital of Georgia. The whole city is full of construction, when old houses are replaced with newer ones and pavements are repaired.

Rustaveli avenue at night

Tbilisi is located in the valley surrounded by Caucasus mountains and therefore there were strong wind blowing through the valley at that time. Temperatures were just above zero and in sunset even +15. It was quite chilly though, springtime is just to begin here.

Majestic Mt. Ararat mountain

The bus ride from Tbilisi to Jerevan, which is capital of Armenia took 5 hours and we had to cross Caucasus mountain range. The road went up to 2 km altitude and there were half meter snow next to the road. The bus arrived at Jerevan though safely. Jerevan is located close to Mt. Ararat and is really nice modern city. The temperature is bit lower than Tbilisi, because city itself is a bit higher appr. at 1 km.

Khor Virap at the foot of Ararat

Armenia was the first country to have Christian as a state religion and Khor Virap was the place where all that started. 

Views to Ararat from Khor Virap

Birkebeinerrennet

Start at Rena

14500 skiers was skiing this year Norway's biggest and most famous long distance ski race "Birkebeinerrennet". It was tough 54 km over the mountain range from Rena to Lillehammer. Total ascent during the course was over 1000 meter.

First 13 km uphill section successfully passed

At the way to Norway our bus stopped at lunch at Mora, just next to Finish line of Vasaloppet, which was skied couple of weeks earlier. There were absolutely no snow left at Mora anymore. Amazing that ski race was held just 2 weeks earlier. Perhaps I'll cross this finish line at some day...

Vasaloppet finish line

On the way back to Finland we stopped at Falun, where World cup finals 2012 were held. Dario Cologna and Marit Björgen were clear winners on this last world cup race this season. It was amazing to see how easily world elite skiers climbed "Mördarbacken".

Climbing Mördarbacken at Falun WC finals

Israel & Jordan

At Petra

It was time for travelling and this time the destination was selected from Middle East. Flight to Israel and one week vacation around Dead & Red Sea was waiting.

The old city of Jerusalem was full of history with odd mixture of Jewish, Christians and Muslims. The city has the most holiest places of these religions and you couldn't walk without noticing it. The old city has amazing maze of narrow alleys, where you can easily get lost. One of the most famous ones is Via Dolorosa.

At Via Dolorosa

It was only couple of hours drive from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea and health tourism paradise... There were bunch of Russians enjoying the effects of the salty and mineral rich sea water on multiple spas and pools. It felt like being at Finnish spa or skiing center after the new year, when every place is full of Russians.

Dead Sea elevation -432 m, altitude at Polar little less

Eilat was only couple of hours drive from Dead Sea and it provided handy border crossing possibility to Jordan. Jordan has Petra, an ancient town carved into rock in the middle of desert. Petra was recognized as  a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. The rock town of Petra is just amazing, it might not be as impressive as Machu Picchu, but the entrance through 2 km narrow canyon is already impressive. Definitely a place worth of visiting.

Engelbrektsloppet

Norberg

The first one of four sport events of Svensk Klassiker has been completed. Engelbrektsloppet ski marathon at Norberg, Sweden was shortened from 60 km to 46 km due to lack of snow. The skiing day however was as beautiful as it could have been. The sun was shining, birds were singing and temperature was a pleasant -2 degrees. It felt like skiing at spring time in Finland when sun is shining and you can just enjoy skiing with bare hands and without a wool hat.

After the finish line

17 months

It has been 17 months since I started Nature Experience Instructor studies at Santasport at Rovaniemi. The last 4 day period of the studies were conducted this weekend. The days were fully booked and long when we covered still themes and activities left for the studies. On Thursday we had a chance to try scuba diving, but only at swimming hall. This was the first time for me to dive with oxygen and regulator.

On Friday we moved outside and headed onto a snowmobile tour. I haven't had a possibility to try out snowmobile before, but this one day course gave a good view about snowmobile driving technique and possibilities at deep snow as well as at ready made tracks. The views were amazing and the heavenly warm fish soup eaten at the cozy cottage during the blue hour just crowned the tour.

The next day I had all my muscles sore, but couldn't complain at all. We had a 15 hour final test ahead of us. It started with paddling test at swimming hall and ended 15 hours later with 18 km triathlon race (skiing, running and swimming). The first leg was 13 km skiing followed by 4 km running leg. At this point we had to swim at frozen lake and after freezing swim run still 4 km to reach the finish line.

All in all it was tough weekend, but at the same time I am extremely happy to successfully graduating from the school gaining huge amount of new knowledge and skills.