Baking in Lapland

This is a one-time post about my adventures hiking in Finland's Urho Kekkonen National Park...meant to answer some common questions.  The trip took place at the end of May 2013.  A larger photo gallery is posted at cdptrans.jalbum.net.

Q1.  What, exactly, were you doing in Finland?

Ostensibly, it was because I was invited to give a work-related presentation at a meeting in Helsinki. Of course, this was just an excuse to take a vacation in Europe - in particular a corner of Europe I had never been to. I first bought airplane tickets about two weeks apart, and then had to come up with a plan to fill the time. Subtracting the meeting, travel days, and a day or two of sightseeing in Helsinki, that left nine days - plenty of time for a long outdoor adventure.

Q2.  Where is Urho Kekkonen National Park and how did you pick it?

@SarahPalin:  I can see Russia!

It is the second largest national park in Finland, located in the northeastern part of the country, on the border with Russia. I picked this area because (1) it was big enough to allow for a multi-day backpack; (2) it was about as far north as I could reasonably get in my available time (I have this thing about going north to find progressively wilder and more remote country, I think it comes from growing up in Wisconsin); (3) it was directly accessible by public transit; and (4) I thought it would be cool to see Russia.  The Finnish parks agency has good information on their website (http://www.outdoors.fi/Pages/Default.aspx) from which I was able to sift through the options of Finland's many parks.

The park was named after Urho Kekkonen, who was president of Finland from 1956 to 1982.  I ran across his grave in Helsinki. He maintained Finland's neutrality, balancing relations with Russia with active participation in NATO and the Warsaw Pact. (more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urho_Kekkonen)

Q3.  How did you get there?

Helsinki rail station

Finland is not a small country.  It's a 10-hour train ride from Helsinki to Rovaniemi, then another 3-4 hours on the bus to Kakslauttennen (where I disembarked) or Saariselka (the main resort/services/park headquarters area).  You could do it quicker by flying to Rovaniemi but the train and bus are quite comfortable and more fun if you are on vacation. Schedules encourage either an overnight train ride, or an overnight stay in Rova (my choice).  If you did this trip a lot though I think you might get bored of endlessly looking at trees out the window.

Q4.  Did you learn to speak Finnish?

Are you kidding? Finnish resembles almost no other language in the world.  The Finns have smartly figured out that there are only 6 million of them so they had better learn English if they want to communicate with anyone else.  I did at least figure out the basic pronunciation rules, which is helpful so that when you tell the bus driver you want to get off at Kakslauttennen he nods and politely corrects you instead of giving you a bewildered stare.

Rovaniemi

Q5.  This is a diversion, but what's in Rovaniemi?

This intermediate stop on my trip is the main city in Lapland with 60,000 people.  Located at the confluence of two large rivers it has an excellent museum about arctic regions (the Arktikum); Santa Claus Village at the Arctic Circle (which I avoided); a large number of partiers reveling in the midnight sun; and the northernmost Golden Arches in the world, which I unfortunately needed to eat breakfast at -- twice! -- by virtue of being there on two consecutive Sunday mornings when everybody else was sleeping off their hangovers.

Q6.  So back to the park... what was the hiking like?

Low-elevation conifer forest and ski trail.

Trees, really cold rivers, and low, rounded rocky hills known as fells.  Absent any 4,000 footers or other noteworthy peakbaggers lists, my goal was to climb Sokosti -- at 719 m, the highest fell in eastern Lapland (whoo-hoo!)   Although not that high, Sokosti is remote - about 40-50 km or three days hike in from the road.  There are marked trails in the western side of the park near the road, but the rest of the park is traversed by unmarked, unmaintained trails.  Most of the fells do not have trails over them but it is not hard to travel cross-country with a map and compass.

Birch forest

Despite the low elevations, the high latitude and short growing season conspire to make the area feel alpine.  Forests of widely-spaced conifers give way to dwarf birch around 350-400 m, and treeline is not far above that.  Ground cover includes a lot of moss and lichen.  The entire region appears to be set on a bed of granite rock which I imagine is similar to the Canadian shield.  One of the highlights of hiking in the park is the waterfalls where the streams and rivers cut through the layers of granite.

Q7.  Did you get lost?

I knew that key to making this trip work was to pick up a good set of maps.  I was not organized enough to order these in advance, so I was fortunate to find the two maps of the park that I needed in stock at the Akateeminem, the giant bookstore in Helsinki.   The 1:50,000 Karttakesus maps are excellent and quite adequate for hiking although at 20 Euros each they are not cheap.

Reindeer round-up area

I also acquired a GPS before my trip.  I have been a GPS holdout for many years, insisting that map and compass are just fine in most situations.  However, while contemplating the trip possibilities, I was struck by a nagging fear that I might end up on top of the fells lost in a dense fog and wander down the wrong river valley into Russia, running out of food days away from the bus back to Rovaniemi and missing my flight back to the U.S. even if I was lucky enough to find my way out.  Fortunately, I had no problem routefinding and did not need it.  But it was fun to look up the sunrise and sunset times...

Q8. Speaking of sunrise and sunset, how long was it light out?

The park is about 68 degrees north latitude, so it was light all day and all night.  My first night there, official sunset and sunrise were about 45 minutes apart.  By the end of the trip, my GPS was not showing a sunrise or sunset.  I thought it was buggy until I figured out what was going on.  Of course, with terrain, you don't actually see the sun all night.  But careful positioning of the tent was required to ensure that the sun was not shining in your door at 4 am.

Midnight sun

The constant sunlight really was pretty intense.  At 6 or 7 pm it was still glaring down at you.  By 8:00 it finally felt like it was starting to go down.  At 9 it was still in the starting-to-set process.  Things didn't fully relent until 10 or 11 when it started to sink into the trees on the horizon.

At least I didn't have to bother carrying a headlamp...

Q9.  Did you worry about (bears, wolves, etc.)?

While there are a few living in the general region, I never encountered - or saw signs of - bears or wolves, or even the dreaded gulo gulo (obscure reference to Robert Goldstein's book, Riding with Reindeer, about his bike trip across Finland).  I saw reindeer as well as scat that was probably from foxes and elk.  Interestingly, I did not see any ground mammals such as squirrels or chipmunks; maybe Lapland is only suitable for lemmings.  When I asked about hanging food, I was advised just to take it in the tent with me.  This was just as well as it's pretty hard to get a regulation bear hang from a dwarf birch.

While mammals were scarce, the bird life was amazing - and the party continued all night.  It's quite an experience to be serenaded by cuckoos at 2 in the morning.

Q10.  How was the weather?

The first day, cool (low 50s) and sunny.  The next couple days, absolutely gorgeous (climbing into the 70s).  The last three days, freakishly warm (pushing into the upper 80s).  It never rained and the humidity was very low.  On my last full day of hiking, there wasn't even a cloud to break the sun.  I took frequent breaks in the shade and dipped my t-shirt into water to stay cool.  While central Europe was drowning in floods, Lapland was baking.  I was told the weather was quite unusual for this time of year.

Suomujoki

Q11.  Did you see lots of people?

I clearly beat the Finns to their summer vacations.  Most of the resorts were not open yet and I encountered a total of 11 people in 7 days on trail.  July and August are the big vacation months.  I have to say it felt strange - but decadent - to be enjoying the park all to myself in perfect summer-like weather.

Backcountry cabin, unoccupied

Q11.  What about bugs?

In Lapland, June is supposed to be mud season, July is bug season, and August is nice for hiking.  I was there the last week in May.  The mosquitoes were starting to come out and there was one day of hiking along the Suomujoki (joki = river) with a lot of standing water where I needed to wear repellent the whole day.  But I can hardly complain.

The mud wasn't too bad either.  There were small portions of the trails that involved stepping through or around wet areas, plus a few very cold fords.   But 90% of the trails were dry.

Q12.  What did you like best about the trip?

The views from the fells - you get an incredible feeling of expansiveness being surrounded by forests that go on forever without any sign of human habitation.  And all the beautiful, clear streams, rivers, and lakes in the lowlands.

The park was also very quiet, and it wasn't just the absence of people or vehicles.  Something else was missing.  A couple days in I realized I hadn't seen or heard any airplanes.  In fact I don't think I saw a contrail the whole trip.  I guess this makes sense, Lapland is hardly underneath any major international air routes.  It's a contrast to the U.S.  We have lots of remote wilderness areas but you can never escape from  the jetliners.  You can in Lapland.

Sokosti