Picking cranberries

A secret cranberry spot has now been checked nearby our scout hut, and there were lots of them as I had noticed before-hand. During a two-hour time window, we managed to pick about five liters of them, as cranberry is bit less picker-friendly than e.g. lingonberry or blueberry, cause the berry doesn't grow in a bunch.

Now, I'll just have to wait until Christmas for eating them with Russian candy (bit like liquid fudge), or maybe I'll just have to taste them way before Christmas : ).

DIY backpacking towel

By this far, I've been using a 70's terrycloth linen towel, as it's quite small, light and dries quickly compared to terrycloth cotton. This 'old school' towel has worked just fine, and it's actually lot better than the ones usually sold in outdoor stores. I've heard quite a few reviews about these modern microfiber towels, which are light and dry quickly, but in real life microfiber won't absorb water that well, so it doesn't really perform that well for a towel.

Although my old towel works just fine, I decided to give a go for another type of linen fabric. Linen, that I'll use for the new towels, has a square waffle kind of texture, so it's sort of a compromise between normal and terrycloth linen. It's relatively light, but it should still absorb water quite well. And as my cousin has pointed out on an interrail trip, waffle linen also dries pretty quickly on the road.

At the moment, I've got one new waffle linen towel, which was completed today. The towel is approx. 120x50cm and weighs ca. 200 g.

Some Funnel Chanterelles

Today, I went to the first mushroom picking trip of this autumn. We didn't have any goal to reach, but still managed to find few liters. Most of them were still quite small, but some bigger ones were also found. The smaller ones are pretty good for making mushroom pickle, which I've tried once last year and it was damn good. The bigger one's were split into half and left to dry.

A day hike in Pallas-Yllästunturi national park

Since we had few days to spend after our trip to Norway, we decided to go for a day trip towards the nearby fell area, Pallastunturit. We hiked a path, which took us to the top of the national park's highest fell, Taivaskero (809 m.a.s.l). On our way, we also hiked up to the second highest fell, Laukukero (785 m.a.s.l). To summit Laukukero, it's only a one-kilometer hike off the Taivaskero route, so it's quite easy to summit them both at once. The length of the route is approx. 9 kms, and it starts from the parking lot of Hotel Pallas.

The Olympic Flame was lighted at the top of Taivaskero for the summer olympics in Helsinki in 1952.

Road trip to Kilpisjärvi and Norway

On Thursday the 26th, we headed further north towards Kilpisjärvi, where we had planned to spend few days. During the same day, after we had arrived to Kilpisjärvi, we decided to check out the second highest fell of Finland, which is called Saana. The top of Saana is located at the altitude of 1029 m.a.s.l. It's a four-kilometer journey (one way) to the top from the village.

There was also a four-legged 'person' coming down the path.

On Friday the 27th, we headed towards the 'Three-Country Cairn', which is a place, where the borders of Norway, Sweden and Finland meet each other. We took the 10-o'clock ferry over the lake of Kilpisjärvi to Sweden, where it's about a three-kilometer hike to the cairn. The wilderness hut of Kuohkimajärvi is located just a few hundred meters towards Finland from the cairn. We fried few sausages on a campfire by the wilderness hut before heading towards Kilpisjärvi along Arctic Trail. The scenery from the path is probably one of the best in Finland. The route back to Kilpisjärvi is about 16 kilometers long, if you begin from the dock in Sweden, but I decided to hike to the summit of a nearby fell called Pikku-Malla. So, the total length of my route was about 20 kms.

On Saturday the 28th, we headed to Norway, as we drove to Skibotn, from where we continued towards Alta. The road followed the shorelines of the fjords along the way to Alta. In general, the scenery was pretty awesome. During the next day, we visited the rock carvings nearby Alta. The place is a part of the UNESCO's world heritage sites.