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!

Sleeping off the polar night at Lake Inari

I’m sorry for the few weeks of down time but now I’m back with the blog and there should be a lot of things coming up. Or at least I have a pile of drafts waiting to be finished…

But let’s start with a trip report about the trip I mentioned in my latest quick sitrep. It has been way too long time since I wrote a proper trip report to this blog. I rarely get inspired by short overnighters or daytrips so I have to wait for bigger trips to put together some sort of trip report. Even this four-day skiing trip to the lake Inarijärvi felt a bit short but that’s probably because of the few kilometers of skiing and not because of the duration.

Lake Inarijärvi in January

First I’d like to use few lines to promote the lake Inarijärvi as a winter adventure destination. The lake is traditionally known as a summer playground for fishing, boating and canoeing/kayaking. It’s the “wilderness sea” of Northern Finland and rarely thought as a place for winter trips. This was my second trip to Inarijärvi in January. (The first one was a year ago and there is a bunch of pictures from it in my gallery.) What I like about Inarijärvi in January is that:

- It’s quiet there: Not many if any skiers or hikers there. So, remember to keep the secret…
- The scenery is goog: Lots of open big sky “ground” on the ice with forested islands and hills in the horizons.
- Easy and good skiing: Flat surface with  relatively hard wind beaten snow and not too much of it.
- The light: With good luck you can see amazing Northern lights and the daylight can be very soft and beautiful as polar night continues until January 12th.
- Challenging weather: The weather can be really challenging. Temps can plummet well below -40 degrees, high winds are likely, visibility can be very limited and so on. Which is cool!
- Shelter available if needed: There are lots and lots of cabins on the lake. There are both free-to-use open wilderness huts and rental cabins. The forests on the shores and islands also provide shelter, especially in the Eastern parts that are part of the Vätsäri wilderness area meaning for example that you can build fires there (limited or forbidden in the islands).

Northern lights at the lake Inarijärvi in January 2011.

But as I already mentioned, there are also some challenges related to Inarijärvi in January. The daylight is very limited, in the beginning of January there is only about five hours of good “twilight” for travelling but a full moon can help a lot.  There are also strong currents at some parts of the lake that can lead to thin and treacherous ice. A boating map helps to judge these areas and in general the ice should be thick (typically nearly half a meter in January). The biggest and the most enjoyable challenge can be the weather. I know of people reporting temps below -50 degrees Celsius on the Inarijärvi in January and temps around -30C are more of a rule than exception. And as it’s a big open area there can be also high winds and high winds combined to low temperatures which is unusual in Finland. Heavy snowfall, dusting snow or mild temps can also lead to poor visibility or white-out conditions that make navigating challenging. But, if you can handle the challenges, I highly recommend the lake Inarijärvi as a winter trip destination.

N in -25C in January 2011.

As I mentioned, the lake is traditionally seeing as fishing, boating, canoeing and kayaking area but I think that winter open lots of other possibilities.  In addition to skiing I could think:

- walking: if you want to walk in Lapland in January the low snow level might make Inarijärvi one of the best destinations, some sort of traction devices (like Microspikes) might be useful and you might need snowshoes to move in the islands and mainland forests but probably you’ll manage just fine in warm footwear
- biking: flat surface, thin (maybe generally around 10cm) of hard packed snow, lots of shelter for going light but comfortable, etc. I’d recommend some fatbikers doing this the next year?
- kiting: it can be very windy there and there are long open stretches to speed through with kite and skis – or a snowboard if you can’t handle too moving parts
- dog sledding: there are some restrictions for dog sledding but the packed snow and flat surface would be very suitable for a nice dog sledding safari even with quite small dog teams

Tuomas kite skiing in January 2011. I'd recommend doing the kiting trips in March or April for more light and better weather.

And now to the trip report itself…

Sleeping long, skiing less

Already before the internship period begun, I hoped that me and N could get about three days off at some point to do little mid winter trip to Lapland as we were nearly there already because of working at Taivalkoski. Instead of three days we got four days off on my last week at Taivalkoski. We had planned a trip to Urho Kekkonen National Park but with the extra day we decided to head to the lake Inarijärvi instead. The plan was to ski in the mid Southern parts of the lake and sleep in open wilderness huts.

Leaving from Veskoniemi. It felt bitterly cold!

We started from a small fishing harbour at Veskoniemi in the Southern parts of the lake. We got started around 14:00 and it was already getting dark. The temperature was around -10C but it felt bitterly cold to change clothes in the parking lot. We started skiing towards the open hut in Iso Jääsaari. It took a bit over an hour for me to get sensation back to my toes but I wasn’t too worried as it’s unfortunately quite normal to me after getting little cold damage in March 2010.

It was getting darker all the time and I think I said maybe three or four times that “I don’t think it will get darker than this” but it did as the moon rises until around 22:00 and there was a thick veil of clouds. We saw a snowmobile safari of six in the horizons but otherwise the lake was ours to enjoy. It was dark, silent and calm.

The best full moon we saw. It was really bright despite the clouds.

We arrived to the hut (cozy small huts with narrow bunk beds for three) and started the usual chores that were repeated every evening: N wanted to train her axe use so she made fire wood, I made a fire and started melting snow and warming the hut and later we prepared dinner and enjoyed the silence. On the first night the cloud cover broke a bit and we watched herd of reindeers crossing the ice from island to a nother in the bright moonlight. And then it was time to sleep. And sleep we did. We first planned to get up early enough to start around 09:00 to utilize all the daylight available but we ended up sleeping untill 11:00. The sleeping bags were so comfy and maybe we were tired from the work…

As mentioned in the beginning, there lots of open wilderness huts.

From the Iso Jääsaari we continued to the hut at Hoikka Petäjäsaari island (the hut, wood shed, cooking shelter with fire-place and other stuff in the picture above) which wasn’t too far away but it still got dark before we got to the hut. That’s what you get for sleeping in late… In the morning it was -6C with low winds and clouds and that kind of weather continued for the rest of the trip.

We followed reindeer tracks, it got darker, occasional snow shower impaired the visibility but with the help of a compass and GPS orienteering wasn’t too hard. There were buildings for a small village at the Hoikka Petäjäsaari as it seems to be popular during summer time. The same evening routines were repeated but this evening the clouds covered the sky as they did during the day and actually for the whole trip, so no Auroras, starry skies or full moon to photograph.

The next morning we slept long again. I would’ve wanted to ski to a hut at Kaikunuora but N was against this because there are strong currents in that area and ice wasn’t particularly thick this January. (There is ice thickness info available behind the link.) So, we decided to ski back to the hut in Iso Jääsaari. We skied, saw reindeers from close distance and snowmobile speeding far away and arrived at the hut again in the dark. That evening it was hard to fall asleep, I guess sleeping 12 hours on the two previous nights was enough. In the morning we packed with a decent routine and a lot faster than in the first morning and skied back to our car in the harbour at Veskoniemi. It didn’t even get dark during the last day and we saw few snowmobiles on the ice when closing the village at Veskoniemi.

That was the end of the little mid winter skiing trip. A quick wash with snow and changing clothes and turning the car towards Rovaniemi to meet Mark, the man behind Backpacking North.

Not the best visibility imaginable but way better than the worst experienced.

Reflections on gear and food

For this trip I had quite atypical kit. Well, atypical winter kit for me to be precise. For the last to winter I’ve been doing all my skiing trips with a sled and most of them with a very comfortable Hilleberg Keron 3 GT tent and other heavy stuff. This time the stuff wasn’t available as I didn’t have it with me at Taivalkoski so I got to try other things. I carried stuff in my Golite Pinnacle (which isn’t quite adequate for heavy loads in my opinion), had Golite SL3 as a backup shelter, and an old Optimus Hiker 111 as a stove, instead of down jacket (I couldn’t fit my Nahanny expedition down jacket into the Pinnacle) I had only PHD down vest and so on. I skied with my Madshus VOSS with NNN BC bindings and Alpina leather boots and wore a Finnsvala merino baselayer, Haglöfs midweight Climatic pants, Sasta Everest jacket and occasionally had a Finnsvala Powerstretch fleece for extra warmth.

As the temps were mild the down vest was easily adequate and I didn’t need most of my extra clothing. Neither did we need the shelter or the stove because of the huts, but I wouldn’t go out there without them. Though lighter options would suffice. I also lugged over 3kg of camera gear with me but because of the uninspiring weather took only few dozen shots. Oh, to have a m3/4 system in addition. Btw Does anyone know if there are m3/4 system that would be compatible with Lithium AA batteries?)

I’d say that for skiing on flat open area, a pulka is far superior to a rucksack and thus I was missing my Paris expedition pulka but the rucksack was manageable. Though for longer winter trips the 70 liters isn’t that much of volume and as stuff tends to get heavy I’d prefer more rigid load carrying system. The HMG Expedition seems like a perfect winter (and packrafting!) rucksack but unfortunately there is no way I could afford it.

And also few words about food… I think I had quite a lot less food than I usually have for winter trips but it was still a bit heavy because of some fresh ingredients. And even though I had less I had way too much of it! I think this was mainly because of the short skiing days (only around three hours a day) and mild temps. I didn’t eat half of my snacks nor any of the freeze-dried lunches. This meant having some excessive weight in my rucksack but also proved to be nice learning experience. For easy winter trips, I’ll do well with about 3000kcal instead of the typical 4000-5000kcal per day.

Red lentil & tomate soup for dinner. Also fresh onions and garlic...