Auroras, snow shelters and husky tours

The blog has been little quiet, as has unfortunately been the way this winter. So, what have I been up to?

Mostly I’ve been busy guiding husky tours ranging from full-day safaris to over-night tours but there have also been other things…

On the tours we spend the nights at huts but being out in the wild gives a good excuse to sleep outside and this week I decided to sleep in a quinzee as the night was expected to be a cold one. (The record low for this winter was recorded at Taivalkoski at the same week, -38,2C.) I was a little hasty building the quinzee and made the pile little too small and decided to go without the sticks to mark the wall thickness. The end product was livable but little too short with too big doorway and I had to patch one hole in a wall. But it still added apparently quite a lot of warmth as I managed to sleep most of the night comfortably in my sleeping bag rated to -18C (Tlim) and only woke up chilled a few times after 6.00 a.m. The cabin doesn’t have a thermometer but it’s in a cold place on low-lands next to big marsh so the temperature was likely colder than at the village of Taivalkoski… Snow shelters make sense! And there is still time to make some so don’t miss the chance!

The little free time I’ve had, I’ve used for arranging the guided ski tours. The last week I was guiding a group in Sarek (along the route mapped on Social Hiking, though the distance listed there is little optimistic). We also made snow shelters in Sarek as a training and they were not bad choise as the night was cold. Snow caves are especially nice shelters if you happen to find pile enough pile of hard snow. It was an awesome tour with good group and well worth sitting in the car for 21 hours – each way.

Sarek. There’s a feeling of real wilderness. And beatiful mountains as well!

I’ll write a separate post about the tour in Sarek later as this post is about northern lights! As the winter has been unusually cloudy there hasn’t been much auroras to be seen at Taivalkoski. I saw a good show here on early December, little faint lights every now and then here and at lake Inari and nice but little grey light show at Sarek. But this evening was different. After several cold and cold nights without a trace of the northern lights the lights at the sky were on a big time! Here are some photos of the showon Sunday evening. Hope you enjoy the photos in case you missed the show!

For those interested in the techy stuff all photos taken with my trusty Canon 550D (with a battery grip with dual battery for the cold), the cheap but stellar Samyang 14mm 2,8 lens and of course utilizing a tripod (a heavy Manfrotto 055). The only problem with this setup is the Samyang lens being fully manual, which shouldn’t be much of a problem but the markings on the focus ring are all totally wrong andgetting it focused in the dark is not too easy. I think I should make some new marking on it…

On the weekend we also had the pre-expedition meeting with the Vantajökull 2013 expedition and I can’t wait to get on the ice for with the group as it’s likely to be a great little expedition… But before that I still have some weeks of husky safari guiding to be done, including two nice longer tours. I’ll try to get some nice photos to share from the tours.

Winter wonderland and working dogs

In addition to guiding during the last four weekends I’ve also work during the weekdays as well. Unfortunately this means very little time for blogging but here’s (again) a set of photos to make up the lack of words. The photos are from overnight and one-day husky tours at Taivalkoski region in North-East Finland. All dogs are hard-working (well, except a few lazy ones) huskies from Kolmiloukko.

For those interested in (camera) gear the photos are taken with Canon EOS 550D with Canon EF 24-105 4 L IS or Samyang 14 2,8 lens. Mostly it’s just fast’n'dirty point’n'shoot, often from moving snowscooter but when you shoot enough, you also get some hits. Especially the Samyang 14mm wide-angle has proven to be a very nice piece of glass and it’s also cheap for the quality. Downside is that it’s all manual lens and the markings on the focus ring are far from reality but when you learn that the infinity is around 0,7m focus it works like a charm.

I have to say that even though I love my job, I’m really looking forward to having a day off on Sunday as I’ve now worked for 33 straight days! I need some time to wash clothing, repair gear and do some more preparations for the one-week ski tour to Sarek in early March. And maybe I also have time to write some more words for the blog as well…

Photos from the winter wonderland

The regular readers probably know that for most of this winter season I’m working at Husky Center Kolmiloukko at Taivalkoski (a small town in North-East Finland) guiding husky safaris.

I’ve been lately quite busy with the huskies and guiding because I’m also putting together my own ski expedition courses and tours and actually spent the last weekend at lake Inari training winter skills with two ultra-runners. It turned out to be a superb trip but more of it later… Despite being busy I’ve had some time to take photos on the way and here are some shots from the winter wonderland here at Taivalkoski. Photos from the Inari are to follow later…

Here are some photos from a full-day husky safari in early January. The customers were great (as they usually are) and we saw the sun for the first time for over a week or so.

The guide’s job here includes also quite a lot of driving with snowmobile – and waiting as N is doing in the photo…

In addition to the 60 adult dogs, we have also some of these cute fellows as well. The big one, named “Nuoska” (meaning wet sticky snow), is probably the biggest husky puppy of her age I’ve ever seen and if she’ll continue to grow like that she’ll be around the size of a horse in the end…

As mentioned the work involves also waiting but luckily our dogs are masters in the waiting game. Here the dogs are waiting for customers to arrive for a full-day safari in mid January on a particularly cold day with temps below -30C. The upside with the cold weather is that here it goes hand in hand with clear skies and sunny weather.

And this is how the cold here looks like…

On my free time I try to go out skiing as often as possible. The views are often nice, like the dusk in the photo below taken while on a skiing trip at the close-by swamp plains.

As we haven’t seen much auroras here lately, here’s one of the nice northern lights we saw in early December. The skies are clear tonight so I keep my fingers crossed for more fresh photos of the fire on the sky…

For those interested: All photos are taken with Canon EOS 550D and most of them with the magnificent EF 24-105 4 L IS. Equipped with an external battery grip it works just fine below -30C temps and can be used also with thick mitts. Just remember not the breath towards the viewfinder or lens.

Photos from the North now online!

I finally got all the photos from the recent “Hiking North” trips sorted out and a selection of them is available in my online gallery!

The trip report from Sarek National Park is still a-work-in-progress and won’t be online at least for the next week or so because… I’m going hiking instead. As I’ll be going to Lapland anyway I thought I might do some hiking aswell. This time I’ll be heading either to Pyhä-Luosto National Park or to Urho Kekkonen National Park for a little four-day trip. The trip is cut a bit short to my liking (I prefer week+ long trips while hiking) but there is a good reason for that: The Banff Mountain Film Festival in Helsinki on October 3rd where I’ll be meeting Hendrik from Hiking in Finland and hopefully some other cool dudes. It’s an open invitation so feel free to join us and enjoy the festival!

But now back to the topic!

The first bunch of pictures is from a fast packing trip in Norway and Sweden on the Western side of lake Kilpisjärvi. The trip included also some packrafting along the Kummaeno river with very low water. Here is a trip report from the trip and here would be more photies.

The second set is from the hiking and packrafting trip from Kilpisjärvi in Finland to Reisadalen in Norway. We didn’t get to do as much packrafting as planned because of too tight schedule but it was still a great trip and the float down the Reisaelva river was great. I wrote a trip report on it and from here you can find more photos.

The trip to Sarek was a nine-day round-trip from the Suorva dam without any strict plans. We ended up hiking over Skårki massive along a glacier and scrambling down to Rapadalen and hiking back to Suorva via Låddebákte. Nice relaxed trip with awesome scenery and varying weather. For me Sarek represents a real mountain wilderness, maybe the best we have in the Nordic countries, and I will definitely be returning there again. But before getting back, here are the photos!

And as a bonus there are also a few photos from a day trip to Saana fjell (1029m) next to the village of Kilpisjärvi. If you happen to be on the area and the weather is nice pay a visit to the top. Nice views with little walking.

Have a nice autumn and remember to enjoy the outdoors!

Hilleberg Anjan 3 – First Impression

I don’t usually do first impression posts on gear I acquire but as this happens to be relatively new product in the market (has become available this month) I thought I’d make an exception and share some ideas about my new shelter: Hilleberg Anjan 3, a “three-season” tunnel tent from the very well-known manufacturer of traditional high quality tents.

Anjan is another of Hilleberg’s new lightweight three-season tents launched in May 2012. It is available as a two-person and three-person versions. The other interesting lightweight alternative is Rogen, a two-person dome tent with two vestibules. What Hilleberg means with “three season tent” is that there are large mesh panels in the inner tent and the outer tent doesn’t reach all the way tot he ground to provide protection from drifting snow. Despite being “three seasons” tents the tents use the high quality 9mm DAC poles and Hilleberg’s great Kerlon fabric (though a slightly thinner version named Kerlon 1000 meaning a minimum tear strength of 10kg). All this means that these tents are quite bomb-proof, especially in their class (lightweight two-skin shelters). And I also think that the tents could easily handle easy winter conditions on forested areas. The only real problem in winter would be keeping the drifting snow out on open mountaineous or tundra areas like.

I haven’t been completely satisfied with my previous three season shelter, a Golite ShangriLa 3 with MYOG mesh inner tent and when Hilleberg came out with these new lightweight wonders I was quite tempted… and decided to pull the trigger. The Rogen was way too expensive for me, so Anjan it was. And as I do about all my trips with a partner sharing a shelter, the three-person version seemed like a better alternative: 200 grams weight penalty but a lot more room, especially headroom to sit in the inner tent protected from bugs. It would be a palace for two and could also fit three if needed.

I’ve yet only pitched the tent in the garden but it is very impressive and will probably see a lot of use. Here are some ideas and observations with photos:

Great workmanship and nice details. Typical Hilleberg.

From a distance the tent looks like a typical Hilleberg tunnel tent, though there are no vents but the ventilation is arranged by raising the outer tent generously from the ground (resulting also into a higher bathtub floor in the inner tent). It is yet to be seen how well this works. I have to say that I have my doubts but usually Hilleberg knows what they do. The zipper is simple two-way “inverted J” with a little flap protecting the top part from rain. The door can be opened to front, to the side or two thirds or the whole vestibule can be rolled away.

Familiar profile to all Nallo owners.

Simple zipper and no vents on the outer tent.

The tent is the same size than its big brother” Nallo 3 (weight 2,4kg) but a lot lighter weighting only about 1,9kg out of the box. Hilleberg’s dimensions are usually quite correct so I didn’t measure them. But here’s Hilleberg’s idea of them:

Hilleberg Anjan 2 and 3 dimensions. Pic from http://www.hilleberg.com.

As you can see from the pics below there is enough room for three and very good room for two. The only little problem is the foot-end fabric that eats away 10-20cm of the usable length of the inner tent. This shouldn’t cause any condensation on the sleeping bag as there is generous space between the inner and outer tent. But it’s still a little issue and I’m not too happy with it. I’ve been thinking about a way to  fix if in the new Nallo (GT) tents with the  zipper vent in the foot end but I have to see if I come up with a solution suitable to Anjan… The vestibule is also roomy enough to be functional: it can easily fit two traditional 60 liter rucksacks full of gear, two pairs of boots and there is still easily enough room for cooking between them.

Three typical 50cm wide and about 180cm long CCF pads. The inner tent tapers a bit towards the end but not too much. Notice also the rolled away vestibule.

168cm long model sleeping in a long summer sleeping bag. The rucksack is a traditional 60 liter model.

Close-up of the backpack and shoes in the vestibule. Plenty of room.

As I mentioned the outer tent is raised of from the ground and should provide enough ventilation. The foot end is supposed to be pitched towards the wind and thus can reach all the way down. There is a largish panel of bug netting (really fine no-see-um mesh type fabric) in the foot end of the inner tent to provide ventilation and even larger section of mesh in the inner door. These will likely provide enough ventilation inside the inner tent assuming that the outer tent vents well enough. To enhance venting the foot end of the outer can be rolled up, as can be the vestibule.

The mesh panel in the foot end and the outer tent rolled up.

The foot end staked down to provide protection from elements.

What is also new compared to older Hillebergs is that the pole sleeves are open from both ends and the pole ends are attached to rivets instead of plastic cups. The attaching and adjustment system is identical on both sides of the tent enabling changing the fly position to provide more protection on the wind/rain side. The attachments connect the inner and out tent enabling using either part of the tent individually. It feels like a simple and solid system.

The new pole attachement system. Red clip connects to the inner tent, black to the outer tent. The longer pole and sleeve are color coded with red.

And some weights for those interested in such things:

- total weight out of the box: 1938g
- outer tent: 715g
- inner tent: 679g
- poles: 342g (shorter 161g, longer 181g)
- pegs (12 in a bag): 115g (á 8g, bag 11g)
- bag for poles: 15g
- bag for the whole set: 40g
- spare parts (pole section & sleeve): 32g

As the tent is not really a modular shelter system, there is not much to take away to save weight during the bug seasons. You could leave spare parts, few pegs and bags at home but that’s about it. But when the inner is not needed it could be replaced by simple polycro sheet and would result into very lightweight and roomy shelter for two or three people.

New lighter pegs and the bag (a bit overkill). Depending on trip, I might replace few of them with sturdier Hilleberg Y-stakes for main anchor points.

More to come after a season or two of use. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to comment!