Hike Diary, Group Active III

Group members: Juuso Partanen, Nic Ejsted, Eki Lehtimäki, Vesa Tienvieri and Jaana Rantakari

12.4.2006 Wednesday

Our trip started in Tampere, Hervanta, Mikontalo, when Juuso called a taxi to take us to the railway station. Vesa came to the station on his own and the rest of us, Jaana, Juuso, Eki and Nic took the taxi. The train was full because of Easter. We took quite a lot of space with our skis, backpacks and the sledge. We also met Outi, a girl who was coming to the same hike in group Crazy. Train trip took five hours but we had a good time. People were looking a bit strangely at our luggage and Nic knitting.

In Oulu we went to have some pizza. Going left from the station seems to be a good way to go if you're looking for a good pizza place. Our bus left Oulu near midnight. We got our hike food and sorted out what to take with us and what to leave. Then we tried to sleep a bit.

Lessons learned:

-Book your tickets in advance!

-When you smell fuel around your backpack containing fuel bottles, it might be a leak.

Finnish learned by the Danish guy:

-vasen

-oikea

-väärä

13.4.2006 Thursday / Kiirastorstai

The bus left us in Ritsemin the morning. We packed out food. The morning was cloudy but when we started our hike, the Sun came out and the weather was mahtava. First we had to cross the lake. We skied about 10km on the ice and mahtava tuuli. It was so beautiful Akka-mountain dominating the landscape that Jaana said that the beginning of the hike was so wonderful, that if you broke your leg in the end, it would still be worth it. We had lunch at Akkastugorna and met two Swedish men in their camosuits. After the lunch we chose a bad route and ended up moving really slowly in deep snow in bushes. A couple hours later we set our camp near a river, had dinner and started to wait for another exciting hike-day.

Lessons learned:

-Use the sun cream before you go skiing 10km lake and you get burnt.

-Don't try to shortcut through a forest with small birches. The snow is deadly wet and slow to ski in.

New Finnish words learned:

-MAHTAVA

-Nähdään tiistaina! (=See you later!)

14.4.2006 Long Friday We slept very well, a least Jaana, and the others too, until Jaana woke up them. We cooked deep purple porridge. We started hiking by climbing up for hundreds of metres. We ate the lunch near a big stone. Macaroni (Juuso preferred that) and curry flavour minced meat that Nic and Eki had dried beforehand. It was delicious. We also saw another hiking group for a distance. Eki had a bit problems with his stomach, but luckily it got soon better. Our overnight place had only two toilets: the other in the side of sunrise and the other sunset. Quite good rating for those, about eight. We were all tired and Jaana didn't even brush her teeth before going to bed. Lessons learned: -Don't use fuel flavoured meat Finnish learned: -aurinko -lumi

15.4.2006 Saturday / Lankalauantai

We woke up at eight and tried to do morning things quickly. We didn't succeed. It took almost two hours to get going, since the melting of snow for porridge and for drinking water take a long time. Morning was promisingly nice and passing Ahkka, we started skiing towards east. We (or actually group leader) decided that it was going to be the "long day" with most kilometres. And it was. Luckily most of the time landscape was quite flat, so no bigger problems occurred.

While skiing over the lake Gassajarrve the wind got really strong, and we needed to protect the face and eyes really well. (Although all of us did not :)) Some times it was difficult to find resting places, since only protection from the wind were the huge boulders lying there and there. We ended up cooking rice noodles for lunch in the shore of a lake. The noodles were so chili-flavoured that we ate a lot of bread to get it down properly. :) After a short lunch we got cold because of the wind and skied again, now the target was in the near mountain Alep Skalarieppe. After a while, we finally saw sun for the day. Also the scenery with rocks and boulders as far as you could see was fascinating and beautiful white snow formations glittering in sun made it perfect. Then it started to snow and wind got strong. It wasn't really blizzard, but fun though. Good protection of face was once again needed. Very close to our destination, we spotted another group and went to say hi to them. Our Finnish specialist Nic tried to contact them, but "Hei, mitä kuuluu" was not enough for proper conversation. We found a camp site a bit further and cooked dried pork and tomato pasta. Yummie. And sleeping, which really was needed after nearly 18 kilometres of skiing and walking with skis completely stuck with snow. Lessons learned: -When cooking rice noodles, don't put all the chili in. -Sometimes wind&snowing get really strong, so downhill skiing glasses are excellent and scarf for rest of the face. -Take a pink toilet paper with you when hiking in winter because you can notice that better in snow Finnish learned: -pipo -Miehet, mennään!

16.4.2006 Sunday / søndag

Woke up - It's a beautiful morning... Hyvä huomenta... The sun was shining bright when we woke up... - waking up to half a resting day. Breakfast with croissants was made. We packed slowly and took a group photo before departure - very beautiful skiing and even warm enough for t-shirts :)

We met Swedish people and finally the Danish guy could speak a bit of Danish... And even tracks of polar bear crossed our way. We arrived to our camping site a little after midday, put up the tents and made a cup of tea and chocolate (cukla) eggs. Juuso made a slope in the snow - poor guy - don't give him a snow shovel, you won't see him for a few hours. And Eki lost to a girl in making kuperkeikkoja. We cooked macaroni with soup -hyvä. After dinner the sun was going down and we decided to go early to bed.

In this moment I'm lying in my bed and listen to the noise of Vesa digging a place to sleep outside the night.

Lessons learned: -Chocolate is delicious and nice to eat in the middle of the night. Finnish learned: -jakomuna -ärrän kierrän orren ympäri, ässän pistän taskuun

17.4.2006 Monday

Neither of us, not even Vesa woke up in snow. It was quite windy and the sun wasn't shining. Anyway, we didn't sleep all the say in tents. Instead of that we had a lot of downhill skiing with great landscapes. We went down about 600 metres. It was fun. At Suorva we met another group. We decided to spend the night quite near to the parking place but anyway "in forest". Carrot noodles and carrots for lunch: delicious.

Juuso had a great surprise for us: soap bubbles. We really enjoyed in blowing the bubbles. Especially Vesa was good at making huge bubbles. For dinner we had Italiensk gryta and tea. We cooked in a tent because it was snowing quite much. The night was enough warm so that we didn't freeze on the island. Toilet rating: average 7.

Lessons learned:

-Nylon Beat doesn't fly to the mountains to sing for us.

-Winnie the Pooh bubble liquid will freeze and needs to be boiled in trangia to unfreeze.

Danish learned:

-numbers from 1 to 10

Finnish learned:

-mutta

18.4.2006 Tuesday - NÄHDÄÄN TIISTAINA!

We had the alarm at 6 o'clock. We didn't eat any breakfast because the bus was about to come at eight o'clock. But we ate knäckebröd i bussen, and jordgubbssoppa and chocolate. The sun wasn't shining anymore above Nic and he had shadows hanging over him (and believed in yesterday...)

We got to Gällivaara and had a shower and a big meal. Toilet rating in restaurant: three (not any view). After eating we felt us a bit tired. Zzzz... During the bus trip we had two stops and that's way we've eaten lots of ice cream. And some other sweets. The trip went on by train where there were several other hikers too. We talked about our hiking routes and ate some pizza&salade and tried to get some sleep. Eki left us in Seinäjoki but we others continues to Tampere. The trip ended in Mikontalo with bus 30 about 5.15 on Wednesday morning.

Lessons learned:

-Eat candy and chocolate before and after a big meal.

Finnish learned:

-neuloa

Summary

-5 days -5 scouts -about 70 kilometres -height: about 400-1000 metres -toilet rating: average ~8 -weather: 80% great -sleeping: average ~7 hours per night

Text by: Jaana Rantakari, Nic Ejsted, Eki Lehtimäki Juuso Partanen, and Vesa Tienvieri
Pictures by: Nic Ejsted, Eki Lehtimäki, Juuso Partanen and Vesa Tienvieri