Lapland part III

My journey in Lapland is about to end, as we're going to drive back southwards tomorrow.

On Wednesday, we stopped by a place called Äkäsmylly, which is a historical mill nearby the village of Äkäslompolo. It has been a communal mill for grinding grain in the past. It is situated by a small rapid of Äkäsjoki river.

And for last, but definitely not least, we strained our "Love potion" (black crowberry juice) on Wednesday. I have to admit that it tasted pretty good. The proportion, we used, was 3:3:3 (the original recipe can be found from Lapland part II). Finally, we got about 3,5 liters of juice, which is still quite sweet, so we mixed it with cold water (1 (juice): 2 (water)).

Lapland part II

Kesänki fell

On Saturday, we went for a day hike around a nearby lake (Kesänkijärvi), but we actually continued a bit further way east towards a hut (Latvamaja), which is open only in winter. The plan was to go and look for some cloudberries, although we knew that there would only be few, if any. On our way, we decided to go for black crowberries, which we picked a few liters. Black crowberries are great for making juice. We'll find out whether it's true or not...

On Sunday, the original plan was to hike up the "Devil's gorge" (Pirunkuru) towards the summit of Kesänki fjeld, but it happened to be rainy during early morning hours. In this case, we decided to postpone our day hike, cause the rocks on the path would have been slippery. Finally, we decided to visit another nearby spot, called Pakasaivo, which is a deep lake formed by the ice age and it has been a sanctuary of Sami people. This place is most definitely worth visiting, but unluckily we forgot to take our camera with us, so there are no photos available.

Later on during Sunday, I started to make something to drink out of our black crowberries. I found the easiest looking recipe from a local "what to do during summer" -brochure, and it's actually called as "Love potion" by the locals:

2 liters of water
2 glassfulls of smashed black crowberries
2 glassfulls of sugar

Mix sugar into water, and let it come to boil. Let the mixture cool down, and pour it on top of the smashed berries. Cover the bowl, and put it e.g. under your window (needs sunlight) for three days. Strain this mixture and let it cool down. Enjoy...

Lapland update

For now, I've been in Lapland since this Tuesday. From Wednesday onwards, I've been helping at my uncle's cottage construction site, where we've been taking some left-over materials away, chopping some boards and tree trunks for firewood.

Luckily, we've also spent some time in the nature, so I've got something to write and show on my blog. I just have to admit that the scenery couldn't get any better here in Finland. During this evening, we went for a short walk and saw few great spots, and we even saw a reindeer passing closeby. I'll bet there will be more stories and pictures to share, but this is it for now.

And finally, even the temperature is getting towards the right direction, cause it's around +5 C degrees during evenings. It's pretty nice, cause I got really sick and tired of those +30 C summer days in southern Finland.

Kellostapuli fell

Hiking in Nuuksio national park

A rough overview of our route

It hasn't really been happening anything during this summer in outdoor-wise, but during the last week I got a call from few scout friends, if I had time for a hiking trip to Nuuksio national park. I hadn't planned anything else outdoorsy, so I decided to go with them. We planned a few spots worth visiting from a Finnish ultralight blog called Grammari , but otherwise we started from the bus stop at Kattila (bus no. 85 from Espoo) and we were going to end up to Pirttimäki (and take bus no. 86 back to Espoo).

On Friday, I would say that the weather was pretty much not good for type one fun, cause it rained almost the whole day, so we decided to call it as type two fun on the fun scale. We started heading towards Ruuhijärvi, and then towards our final destination of the day, Kattilajärvi. The rain finally stopped during the evening and we had a chance to chill out without having our waterproofs on, while we were cooking some dinner. We even went for a swim before we decided to call it a day.

The view from Pääskyskallio cliff

On Saturday morning, we had some porridge for breakfast, and we filled our water bottles/bags at the nearby hut. Then, we started heading towards Pääskynlahti, where we hiked up to the highest point of the cliff (Pääskyskallio), where we chilled out for a while whilst enjoying the great outdoors with some really fine weather. Afterwards, we headed to Sultingträsk, where we had our lunch and just chilled out for a while. Our next spot was the nearby pond (Hynkänlampi), and its cliffs, which were again a nice spot to chill out and take some pictures. Finally, we headed further south to Sorlampi, where we spent the next night.

Our lunch break by Sultingträsk pond

My friend's diy lean-to shelter

On Sunday, we only had breakfast, and started heading towards the final destination of our trip, Pirttimäki.

During the weekend, we were also talking about the true meaning of ultralight backpacking. We ended up planning some gear for the future, like few "must have things":
a shorter and lighter sleeping mattress (maybe a 120cm one)
a diy Primaloft blanket/sleeping quilt