Lapland in Winter
Suomunruoktu - Tuiskukuru

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17^th of February 2002
Skiing tour, day 2: many vertical meters and the fight with the skis

Although we got up at 7.30, we were not able to leave before 9 o'clock ... let's celebrate the morning-chaos ;-)

A perfect day without any cloud was waiting for us and full of pleasant anticipation we started our tour. The old ski track was good visible in the dense forests, where it is not so windy and because of this track we made good progress. But after five minutes my binding was deconstructing itself. A screw at the lace broke but with a wire construction I was able to repair it. And really, it was working until the end of the trip ... so don't forget to bring a small repairing set with wires with you.

When we crossed the bridge over the Suomujoki, we saw that the tracks are diverging from each other. One track was following the river and the other track disappeared in the forest. We took the track into the forest, because we had to assume, that the track along the river will not led us up to the plateau near the Vintilätunturi-Fjells.

Very soon it turned out, that this track would lead us up the plateau, but not along the very steep summer trail. Since we couldn't find an old track to the winter trail, we decided to follow the summer trail.

At the plateau we lost the track (the storms of the last days covered the tracks), but the good weather made it easy to orientate. When we arrived at the forests of the other side of the plateau, we found the track again, which led us directly to the Tuiskukuru-hut.

Inside the hut it had -7°C and it needed a while until we had temperatures above the freezing level. Suddenly, when we looked out of the window, we saw the landscape shining in a strange green light. We went out and when we looked to the sky we saw amazing northern lights. They where bright green and moving like dancing curtains. Like three snow men we were standing in the cold winter air in order to don't miss this spectacle.