6:00

I wake up because one more time the air went out of my mattress. Blow it up, continue sleeping.

6:30

The alarm clock rings.

6:50

I get up. The others are already active and Sami is even coming back from chopping firewood. Today everything goes much faster because not so many people are standing in each others' ways. Besides we don't cook any soup for the thermos flasks today, just hot water. Do the dishes, brush your teeth, pack your stuff. For some reason the others manage to do that much quicker than me. In the end all seem to be waiting just for me.

9:00


Off we go. It's not entirely bright yet but we can see enough without head lights. We go back to the river. It goes pretty fast through the dense forest through which we were fighting our way so arduously yesterday - in the darkness and uphill. One day earlier another group has left the cottage with the same destination so that there is a track in the snow already. Hopefully that will save us from this tiresome searching for the cottage in the darkness in the end of the day.

We're pretty much following the river all day. There are hardly any steep hills to climb, hardly any overthorn trees to cross, excellent conditions so to speak.

After a while I take over the akio from Silja. I now attach the ropes directly to my backpack rather than to this weired leather belt. That feels much better and it doesn't cut into the meat any longer. I'm already sore around my waist because of that. I'm getting pretty warm at -3 °C. The pullover is soon wet and the gloves too.

After half of the time two show mobiles come against our way. They're coming from our destination. Now the track is even better, just slightly too narrow for the akio.

15:00

As time goes by it's getting dimmer, wetter in the rubber boots, heavier on the shoulders and slower forwards. Only Sami does not seem to be influenced. Adamantly he's stepping ahead, pulling the second, slightly smaller akio, as usual. The gap to him gets occasionally huge. In the end I take over the akio one more time. Somebody says that we must be on top of this big lake, approxiamtely 1 km away from the cottage. I start counting my steps in Finnish. At kaksisataaviisikymmentä (250) however there comes a little downhill so that I stop. Secretly I watch out every once in a while, maybe I can spot the cottage alreday somewhere between the trees.

16:00

Finally some rectangular snow area turns out to be the roof of the firewood shed. Sami is already waiting. I smell smoke, but Sami can't have started a fire yet. There's also light in the cottage. There's another group in the cottage already. Luckily only a small group, three people and a husky. They're lying on their sleeping bags and look quite exhausted, one is snoring. They're much older and rather silent fellows, but they're quite nice.

18:00

We cooked and ate. Everybody just lays down an relaxes.

20:00

Slowly everybody is waking up and starting to eat something again, hanging around on the mattresses and chatting by candle light. We're discussing with the other group about tomorrow's way. It doesn't seem to be such a comfortable as we had today. Every once in a while I understand things like "tuolla otetaan sukset pois" (there we'll take our skis off). What are they planning?

23:00

We finally go to bed.