Green corridors - a city's link to the surrounding nature

As the current trend of urbanization leads into a situation where the moving flow concentrates on bigger cities, the pressure of building on new sites becomes inevitable. Some cities were originally designed so that natural corridors were left for splitting the city into different sections by leaving e.g. long forested corridors in between. These so called "green corridors" are offering a possibility to be used for recreational purposes by the citizens. One example of these cities is the capital of Finland, Helsinki, where a few green corridors have existed, but they've been diminished due to construction of new buildings in the latest decades. These green corridors are formed by natural-like forests even-though there are some small man-made roads for recreational purposes like jogging, cross-country skiing etc. Nowadays, there are only two larger and uniform corridors left, or at least what I concern significant. Well, there is a third one as well (the easternmost) that doesn't really form a corridor but it's still a major area, even-though it was recently influenced by the new harbour area of Vuosaari. (highlighted on the following map)

[The map was created by using publicly available data produced by  National Land Survey of Finland.]

For a winter sports person, the green corridors offer great possibilities for cross-country skiing and snowshoeing. The Central Park forms a long link of cross-country skiing tracks through out up to it's northernmost part, where the most popular skiing facilities are located. Snowshoeing can be done almost everywhere, or at least when there's enough snow for relevant use of snowshoes.

On a nice sunny day, it's awesome to utilize the opportunity to head outside into a green corridor from your doorstep. I did a short cruise using snowshoes, as I've been cross-country skiing in Lapland for six days during last week. The use of a HR-belt indicated that snowshoeing is a pretty good way for doing a recovery exercise, if you don't perform any significant spurts. At the same time, I was further testing my new Devold Multisport baselayer merino shirt that I found from a bargain basket at a Lappish sport shop. I'll have to admit that it's pretty awesome what comes to its performance compared to synthetic materials. Previously, I've sometimes used another merino shirt, which is more like a base/midlayer shirt, and it has been so awesome that I really wanted to give a go for another one for baselayer usage.

Finally, it's important to remember that Helsinki is a small capital compared to the big cities around the world. All in all, I would still claim that it would be important to implement this kind of infrastructural design to keep people in contact with nature, as urbanization is leading people away from it that scares me the most.  There are built parks in many cities but natural-like habitats could be considered more important.

Modern wisdom: Living light - getting started

Nowadays, the society seems to be lively due to the fact that well-being is highly based on consumption.  Vast consumption has lead into a situation, where the production of goods is highly optimized for efficiency, and thereby it often discards social and ecological effects. Even-though there are nowadays many responsible companies manufacturing e.g. outdoor clothing and equipment, it's mostly one's own responsibility to take actions to decrease consumption.

What comes to the modern outdoor clothing and equipment, the materials are mostly plastic-based e.g. different types of Nylon fabrics. Luckily, these modern fabrics exist in many different forms at the moment like fishing nets. The smartest recycling pioneers of the outdoor gear industry have realized the potential of grinding and reforming fibres into new fabrics. But the final frontier would still be the relevance of one's decision making before purchasing, I would say. Questions like "Do I need this for improving my performance?", "Do I already have a similar product?", "Would the new one perform somehow better than the old one?" etc. could be considered important.

There are many good articles about living lighter and optimizing your possessions not only in outdoor-wise but in general as well. Living lighter doesn't only make your move easier, but it'll also give an opportunity to stay organized. The following blog post about ultralight living at home somewhat opened my eyes for getting organized, as I've realized how much I possess e.g. clothing that I probably won't need. So I can't really brag about my skills, as I'm hopefully on the way towards living lighter.

Create your own necessity list to ease your life in modern world!

Here's my necessity list that I could figure out quickly for now. At least for me, the making of the list will probably be a continuously evolving process, as the relevance of each piece should be considered thoroughly. Mine probably lacks the everyday household necessities as well as sport equipment like bedding, tableware, skis etc., but I can admit that I possess only two sets of bedding that is enough for a normal and humble person. I guess it's time to start a raid against my closet.

My list:

• Down jacket 
• Softshell jacket 
• Waterproofs (jacket and pants)
• Beanies*
• Cap
• Fleeces*
• Merino shirts*
• Long johns*
• Gloves/mittens*
• Walking shoes
• Hiking boots
• Pants*
• Belts*
• Socks*
• Briefs*
• Tee shirts*
• Button down shirts*
• Sunglasses
• Personal hygiene kit
• Day pack
• Water bottle
• Water bag
• Mug ("Kuksa")
• Camera with memory cards and battery
• Laptop computer
• USB thumbdrive 
• Printer and paper
• Wristwatch
• Headlamp 
• Cellular phone and charger
• Pens, pencils
• Writing pads
• Scissors
• Stapler
• Sheath knife
• Hiking kit (one backpack and contents)
• sleeping bag 
• sleeping pad 
• waterproof stuff sack 
• first aid kit 
• Toolbox with tools

(* items are multiples)

P.S. It's time to say good bye to the old blog name Multipurpose outdoors that served well for three years. At first, I thought about starting a new blog but I didn't want to start from scratch, so I'll just change the name and hopefully the content as well. 

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.