For the last three weeks I have been teasing you with my trip plans for this summer. I’ve been given several clues but apparently the guessing was too difficult as there were no right answers. So, it’s time to reveal the bold plans!
But first… the winner of the competition!
Even though there were no 100% correct answers I feel like that Yeti deserves the promised free meal and dessert as he was the first to guess that I will be packrafting. Yeti’s guess was that I would be packrafting from Kilpisjärvi to Tornio along the Swedish border, but this is not quite it… Congratulations Yeti!
There is a question mark at the end of the title. That is because I feel that the word epic starts to be somewhat over used and it is in the danger of loosing meaning. For me the word epic is reserved for the state-of-the-art of each method/style of travel on each distinct regions. For example I wouldn’t call my annual three-day spring kayaking trips epic, they are just nice and relaxing weekenders with good friends.
Kayaking in the Jongunjoki river in May 2010. Not epic but really good time!
But unlike kayaking packrafting is relatively new sport in Finland. I know that few people have been packrafting in Lapland for some years and for example Mikko Kilpeläinen has been blogging about his trips (In Finnish only, sorry!) and I’m sure we can soon read about Hendrik’s packrafting trips from his Hiking in Finland blog. But to my knowledge no one in Finland has done the kind of trip me and my friend Tuomas are planning to do. So, I leave the question about epicness of this trip to you dear readers. Is it epic or not?
The Finnish packrafting epic 2011
And here it is!
We plan to take the route drawn to the picture below. You know that you are doing something cool when you have to use 1: 500 000 map to make the route fit on the computer screen…
The route of the Finnish packrafting epic 2011!
As I told earlier we plan to start from the Norwegian side of the border North to Kilpisjärvi. From there we will follow Didnujohka river upstream to the border and cross the border. From the border we will follow Urttasjohka river down stream but it is too small to be rafted in July. After some hiking the river turns into a lake system which should be raftable. The first lake is about 40 meters above our take out point so there should be reasonable current, and maybe some drops requiring portaging, to get a feeling how the boats handle in heavy load. On the eastern shore of Vuomakasjärvi lake we will deflate the boats and start to hike along the Kalottireitti (Nordkalottleden) to Pitsusjärvi lake where we will take a turn to East to Somasjärvi on the border between Norway and Finland.
If the water level is unusually high (for example because of heavy rains) we might – instead of walking straight to Somasjärvi – walk to the Halti fell (the highest place in Finland) and try to packraft back to Pitsusjärvi. The small river, Govdajohka, that runs from the base of the Halti is under 10km long but drops 186 meters on the way! This means a lot of portaging but luckily we can scout the river while walking upstream. If we end up rafting the Govdajohka we will end up back to Pitsusjärvi, pack up the rafts again and head to Somasjärvi along the trail. But it might be that we pass the Covdajohka option…
The rocky Govdajohka in the background and Pitsusjärvi behind the fells. Hiking to Halti at the end of June 2008.
From Somasjärvi starts the Valtijoki river which is about 25 kilometers long and drops about 150 meters on the way to Porojärvi lake. It is likely that we’ll have to do quite a lot of portaging to bypass big drops and hard white water but luckily packrafts are light to carry! Valtijoki is too small and rocky for traditional white water rafts but it’s possible to paddle it with a white water kayak. This happens occasionally but I don’t think that the river is runned even yearly, maybe biennially or so. The main reason for this is that the river is in the middle of nowhere so it’s hard to access and safety aspects are also challenging. Experienced paddlers describe the river in the following words (translation from Finnish by me): “Valtijoki can be considered as one of the most challenging river routes in Finland. – - For a beginner the river may turn into a nightmare-like fight for life but for an experienced boater with a solid kayak roll it is higly recommended as a “once in a lifetime” trip.” Frankly said, we are a bit unsure if we are trying to bite more than we can chew here – but with packrafts there is always the option to walk.
The Valtijoki ends to Porojärvi lake and from there starts one of the most classic wilderness river routes in Finland. It starts as a Poroeno river which is about 44 kilometers long and drops 135 meters on the way. There are few dangerous class IV rapids that likely require portaging and a lot of easier white water to enjoy. After this section Rommaeno river joins the Poroeno forming the Lätäseno that continues 70 kilometers all the way to the village of Markkina on the border of Finland and Sweden, dropping 118 meters on the way. There are few dangerous class IV and V rapids in Lätäseno that require portaging but there are also long stretches of smooth backwater. The river route from Porojärvi to Markkina is quite popular to do with a white water raft, canoe or kayak. The boats are usually flown to the lake with helicopter or plane. Our trip will end to the village of Markkina after some 200 kilometers of wilderness travel by foot and packraft. After the trip Tuomas will head back to South but I plan to stay in the North for week more. My girlfriend will join me and we will head to Swedish Lapland for a summer hike, and maybe for some more packrafting…
We plan to do the route in eight or nine days, depending on a few things. In the beginning the packs will be quite heavy with food for nine days and about 5-6kg of rafting gear each. I’ll post detailed gear list and menu when I have them figured out. We are going to start in either July 8th or 9th and end the trip the next weekend. As the July is somewhat the official month for summer vacations month in Finland we might meet some friends along the way. My colleague will be fly fishing at Valtijoki at the same time so we might get some fresh fish along the route but we plan to be self-sufficient. There is also group of friends rafting the Poroeno-Lätäseno river route with a traditional white water raft (flown in by helicopter) and if we are quick enough we might meet them along the way and float the final stretches together. The major uncertainties, in addition to the water level and raftability of some parts, are related to the logistics as our starting point is about 150 kilometers from our ending point and bus schedules in the North are crappy. But if we don’t come up with anything better, we’ll solve the problems with hitchhiking.
So, if we can pull this together… Could this be called an epic trip?
Psst! Jyrki and Joel from Loimumedia paddled the Poroeno-Lätäseno route with a canoe and documended it. First they hauled the canoe to the starting point in March and came back in July to ride down the river. Respect for not using motors! You can buy the DVD from their website but the trailer is of course free so here you go:
Now, about a one month after the three-week Ultima Thule skiing expedition to Svalbard I have finally scraped together a trip report!
As I wrote live updates from the ice during the expedition I didn’t feel that a traditional trip report would be necessary. I will still post a bunch of posts related to the expedition when I find the time but there will be no traditional chronological trip report. Instead you can read the six updates I wrote during the trip. You can find the updates from my blog or by clicking the links below
But the new thing is a trip report in the form of pictures! I took a big bunch of pictures during the expedition. I don’t know how many pictures I actually took but after deleting failed ones and duplicates I ended up with 1330 pictures. After some hard time with selecting pictures to be published I ended up with 256 pictures, which was clearly too much. Then after some more time I ended up with 173 pictures. It is still a bit too much but I didn’t feel that a smaller amount would have made justice for the great trip. To give some more content for the pictures I wrote short captions for each. The slide show viewer of the gallery doesn’t show captions so I recommend manual clicking instead.
So, grab of cup of coffee and try to forget the summer and enjoy the three weeks skiing on the high arctic of Svalbard. When you are mentally prepared, click yourself to the gallery.
Later on I will make a very selected edition of the pictures with only some of the technically and aesthetically most pleasing ones but there will not be too many if any new ones in that set.
Please, feel free to leave comments to the blog or straight in the gallery.
Huom! Kuvatekstit on kirjoitettu myös suomeksi! Kommentit suoraan blogiin tai galleriaan ovat tervetulleita myös suomeksi!
There’s a competition going on as I have promised a free freeze-dried meal and dessert for the first one who guesses my main trip for this summer. What I am looking for is a verb describing what I’ll be doing and the place.
It has become clear from the earlier posts (post 1 and post 2) that I’ll be packrafting. The raft is a brand new 2011 model Alpacka Denali Llama with spray deck. It should arrive in June and I just can’t wait to get my hands on it! Last autumn I had an older Denali Llama for a test on some lake paddling and class I & II white water. And it was totally awesome!
The packraft I had for a test run last autumn: Alpacka Denali Llama
But, no one has yet guessed what the route will be. The starting point was reviled in the second clue and I received a good guess about it. Me and my mate will get of the bus a bit North from the village of Kilpisjärvi on the Norwegian side of the border where river Didnujohka crosses the road. From there we will start hiking towards East, the Finnish border and later the Pitsusköngäs waterfall. But where will we continue from there?
So, here is the third and final clue: My colleague from the University is an enthusiastic fly-fisher and he will be at same area about the same and we have agreed to meet along the way at the Somasjärvi lake which is marked on the map screen shot with blue arrow:
The final clue: a place where we'll meet friends along the way.
After meeting with the friends – and hopefully getting some fresh arctic trout for a dinner – me and Tuomas will be hopefully able to enjoy an altitude difference of about 400 meters and float and fight (and swim?) through over 130 kilometers of the wildest wilderness rivers in Finland ending our trip to the road side.
A bold plan for sure, but luckily packrafts are easy to carry.
It’s time to get over with this competition so I can tell more about my plans. So, give your best shot and guess!
It seems that I’m obsessed about the idea of finding the perfect piece of equipment of each job. It is not an easy job as there are at least three factors that should be taken into account: weight, durability and function. The latter likely including also the aesthetics and style. Unfortunately, or luckily, I have only limited financial resources to accomplish this quest so I mainly settle with desk top research and get to extensive comparative field studies only with cheap stuff, like mugs!
Some of the findings along the quest for the perfect mug.
I have used and tried likely over dozen of different mugs and cups in the search for the ultimate drinking vessel. I use my mug mainly for drinking hot drinks but also for occasional cold drink, as a bowl for eating breakfast or desserts, as a bowl for mixing some special things (like the filling for my birthday cake in Svalbard) and as a vessel if i pick berries en route. So, a good mug should shine in many things in addition of being light and durable.
My requirements for the perfect mug would be about the following:
- durable enough (for not needing to worry about it)
- big enough for occasional morning oat meal (i.e over 400ml)
- shaped like a mug (i.e. taller than it’s diameter)
As I said, I’ve tried a bunch of mugs and found few of them good and many of them lacking in some of the requirements. For example in winter a thermos bottle cap would be good in durability, in weight (I carry it any way) and it’s also slightly insulated but it’s way too small even for a proper hot drink. The cap from a food thermos is better size-wise but the shape isn’t optimal (drinks cool too quickly) and I don’t usually carry a food thermos any more. Many of the cups I’ve tried are otherwise good but too small. For example I’ve had a traditional Finnish wooden kuksa but I lost it some 7 or 8 years ago and haven’t bothered getting a new one. I’ve also tried the much buzzed Kupilka which has its advatages over wooden cup but it’s still too small. Then some of the lightest cups, like an empty yoghurt cup, are too fragile in addition to being too small. An empty 500g coffee bag makes an interesting and easily packable mug but it’s very flimsy to use. The green army surplus cup was close to perfection but shape was wrong. To give you a good idea I made a comparison chart of the mugs in the picture above. In addition the chart includes my old MYOG mug.
Assortment of mugs, bowls and pots doing what they are made for: helping to make kayakers happy after a long day of paddling.
The best cups I’ve tried this far are my old MYOG mug and its a close commercial counterpart the Sea to Summit Delta Insulmug. The first one was a light MYOG mug made of cheese cube cup. The plastic cup itself was a bit too flimsy when filled with hot water so I added an insulating sheath made of CCF pad with help of some tape. The cup had also a lid and the entire thing was waterproof as I didn’t make a sipping hole in the lid. The volume was 410ml and weight about 40 grams. It was also durable enough but for some reason the plastic seemed to absorb all the tastes and smells it encountered, resulting in very interesting experiences when using it! After the taste and smell got bad enough I ditched it…
The near perfect MYOG mug absorbing Jäger tea aromas...
… and bought a Sea to Summit Delta Insulmug as a replacement. It’s quite similar to my MYOG mug. It consists of three-part: 68 gram cup with volume of 480ml, insulating sleeve weighting about 31 gram and lid with sipping hole weighting about 18 gram. 116 gram all together so it is a bit on the heavy side but otherwise it’s perfect. It has also internal volume markings (something that would have been easy to do also in the MYOG mug). On warm summer trips I usually leave the lid ans insulating sleeve home and take only the cup. So in addition to full filling about all my requirements it’s also modular. The only problem is that the insulation sleeve seems to shrink in use.
But as I told before, I’m plagued with eternal quest for even better gear and the cup is already waiting for field tests. That one is GSI Cascadian mug. It will be mainly for summer use as the handle would interfere with an insulating sleeve.
I’d also like to test a proper titanium mug, maybe a monstrous size like 750ml version as it could double as a cooking pot on solo trips and would be about as light as my Sea to Summit mug with all the parts. Or maybe I should change my attitude and settle with the stuff that works and spend the time and energy into doing something useful instead?
I promised some pictures from the Ultima Thule 2011 expedition by the end of this week. Unfortunately I had some other things to do so I’m not quite finished with all the post processing but I made a randomly picked teaser set for you to take a look at. The pictures are uploaded into my kuvat.fi gallery and you can get there by clicking the picture below!
Click the picture to see the whole set!
As I mentioned previously, in addition to our twelve man expedition, there was another Finnish expedition in Svalbard at the same time with us. They skied basically the same route but faster so we didn’t meet but crossed and followed their ski tracks occasionally. They have also uploaded some photos online and you can find them from Kari Kossila’s album. (Psst! When we visited the bar few days after the guys, there was also beer and vodka for sale on the shelves – in addition to water and soft drinks. Lucky us!)
I’ll try to get a better set of pictures online at some point in addition to the promised aftermath posts. But it is quite summerish already and I’m more in a mood for planning new adventures than writing about past ones. So please, be patient.
Oh, and if you can guess what I’m planning you can win a free meal with dessert! Give a guess here!
Instead of the Eurovision-thing watching the 1st thunder storm of the summer with a long drink in hand. Nature arranges the best shows. :) - 1 day ago
Also visited @Varusteleka for some kit for security work. They were having the "Epic Market Saturday" which was far from lame. Very crowded. - 1 day ago
For more pictures, visit my gallery
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