Day 5, Vieriharju - Kemihaara

This is written two days after the actual date. The weather and how exhausting the tour actually was made it pretty much impossible to write down day to day events.

Despite the night being the warmest just -4 degrees Celsius it was the first night that I felt a bit chilly. I did leave my second sleeping bag off as that would have been too much and also my warm sleeping booties, but I think the main reason being chilly was that as it's warmer the body heat warms the inside of the tent so much that it was really humid and moist. I actually felt ice water dripping to my face during the night and the sleeping bag was quite wet in the morning.

We started early at 8:30 am. It was still pitch black and everyone was wearing their headlamps.

I felt energized and good in the morning and the morning felt finally a bit like a routine. I had a feeling that I could still continue this ski tour. It definitely took a few days to physically and especially mentally to adjust to this type of winter hiking. But once the adjustment is done I really enjoyed being out there.

It was a nice day to ski. The distance to Kemihaara was about 10 kilometers. We stopped a few times to eat a bit and drink and then took a longer lunch break. Lunch needs to be done ready in the morning to thermos as it would take much time to unpack pulkka and start setting your cooking system and then cook. The weather also might be such, that it's nearly impossible to cook or it would take extra effort and energy to start cooking.

We also met a local reindeer herder who was heading to the fell to fetch a reindeer that had been lost a long time, nearly a year! A wolf had killed its mate and it had gotten scared and run away, most likely to Russia and the radar detector it's carrying stopped responding. Until this morning! So the reindeer herder was going with a snowmobile to bring the runaway home. Later the same reindeer herder was coming back with the reindeer walking behind the snowmobile. In Kemihaara the reindeer and snowmobile were packed into a van and the man drove both home.

We were at Kemihaara at 1 pm. So we skied really fast this last day. Of course the pulkka was lighter as most of the food had been eaten and fuel used.

We held a small end meeting, thanked our guide and he thanked us saying that we made his work too easy. 😊

Then it was time to pack equipment to cars and everyone started a long drive home.Read more