We started off Saturday morning from a rental cabin that other international students had rented for the weekend. Even though they all had chipped in for the rent and we were crashing there and there were 9 people and six beds, they insisted that the pregnant lady and her husband (by default) sleep in the "double" bed (two singles pushed together). I didn't point out that I would be sleeping on the ground or in a shelter the next two nights, because I figured I would be losing sleep in those coming nights and should take advantage of a good night now. We both went to bed late, but slept well. The next day we set off!
There were lots of really nice things about the trails we were on. First, some were "nature trails" and others were "hiking trails". The only difference being that nature trails have interpretive signs, which were in Finnish until you pulled out another panel that had German, English, and Russian. They were of course about species and natural processes. The other thing about many of the signs is that the intersections were numbered on the sign and the map, so you could tell exactly where you were.
Another feature of these trails, mostly because they were in the Koli National Park, was that there were campfire sites, for day use, along the way which had little wood sheds, composting toilets and sometimes potable water. They all had an ax and a bow saw so that you could cut your wood to size.
We hiked the highest peaks in Southern Finland (less than 400 m), and got great views, even if it was a cloudy day.
At the highest point there was this marker. Notice we only have a backpack each with the bed roll hanging off the bottom of John's. (There are better vista pictures later.)
We saw glacial erratics...
We also saw old farmsteads, which would have signs accompanying them explaining the history of the region. We saw a few of these the first day.
It was fun for us to look at stone foundations, different types of buildings, and the hay stacks. Do you think you make the hay stack first or stick the spike in first? Can you see the spike? Opps...
Then we came to a really cool contraption!
I think they called it a self pulled ferry or something. Maybe I took a picture of the sign.. but basically it's just that. You get in and it's on a pully, so you pull on the rope and you go across.
John was good at pulling! While I took pictures of the lake of course..
There is no way to send it back. The people on the other side have to pull it to them, then pull themselves across. Notice that the light is slanty. We talked a lot about how that kind of light is nice. It evokes some nice sentimental and cozy feelings. Autumn days, early morning and early evening energy, winter coming in general. The only problem is that it's like that all day right now, and it's really disorienting. We have a hard time knowing what time it is. We can't just tell if it's time for lunch by looking at the light, we have to check the watch. Of course when it's cloudy it's the same thing. So we couldn't decide if having those nice feelings evoked all day made up for the disorientation or not.
And this was all on the first day! Really the first day had most of the excitement. The second day we mainly walked pensively, a little apart (soreness made me slow), looking for moose (which also made us slow). The last day especially was pretty boring, walking under power lines, on roads, through recent harvests, and near working farms. I was also really concentrating on walking, trying to push through any flat terrain because we wanted to get back in time for John to take a shower and get to class at 4pm.
But back to sequential order. The other great feature of the trail is the shelters. They are happy that campers do not have to carry tents in Koli, but can sleep in open shelters or log shelters. We stayed in log ones both times. These shelters also come with an outhouse and wood supply. Plus, both that we were in, had matches and an already blackened pot to cook with.
PLUS they have the "cook stove" inside, which is so wonderful for many reasons. First it means you can heat up the shelter which was very very important for us. Second off, the contraption itself has places to rest the pot and swing it into the fire, which meant no finding rocks and trying to boil water only to have in tip over onto the fire. This is the best picture I got of the inside and the stove, sorry.
You can see that we slept on a wood platform. There are wood boxes on the wall that contain the log book, the blackened pot and matches. The log in between the platform and stove was either a foot rest if sitting on the platform or for sitting on while cooking. Apparently, this design is similar to the traditional loggers hut in Sweden. They had two layers of sleeping platforms though.
Our first night was good. We went to bed a little too early for our small wood supply. We had to carry it from a pile behind the sauna, which was a little ways down the path, and didn't end up getting enough to get us through the night, as in keep us warm. We got sleep for sure, but we were cold and I ended up getting up in the dark to go get wood and get the fire started back up. It was actually 5 am, which made me feel a lot better about the situation. I got up for good, while John slept a little more. I went and refilled our water bottles and got another load of wood. Finally John got up at 7 am and we ate our breakfast. I baked some cinnamon raisin bread before we left and we brought butter, hard boiled eggs, fruit and tea for our breakfasts. It worked well.
For lunches, I again had baked bread. We brought salami, cheese, fruit, carrot sticks and Trailside bars (We put the recipe to good use right away Allison!). For dinners we had cooked chicken and then frozen it. We had cut up carrots, onion, and celery. We added those two things to water and a cube and half of chicken bouillon along with barley to make a yummy soup. Plus some crackers or left over bread from lunch.
Okay just a few more pictures...
John said he'd build us one.
The only part that was bad about the second day was hiking on rocks covered in thick and slippery lichen and moss. We had to be careful, but had good views and saw lots of woodland reindeer or moose poop, so we were hopeful!
We had nice views, and the birches were still pretty vibrant. We had lovely weather almost the whole second day.
John at our second shelter.
We stocked plenty of wood for the night!! And we made a better bed. The person on the outside (John) got the luxury of being closer to the fire, but had stoking responsibilities. I felt bad that he had to keep waking up, but I woke up too. We still weren't that comfortable padding wise, but so much better temperature wise.
Pretty birches.
Last but not least, a belly picture. I'm not sure why I make such funny faces during belly shots, but this is the most normal face of all the ones on the trip. Plus it shows the board walks we walked on a lot. We kept getting the song stuck in our heads though...
We might be going to Lappland tomorrow, so be prepared for another BIG post of pictures and adventure. Don't worry, we'll calm down soon! I hope I told enough detail about this trip... By the way, the end worked out perfectly! We got to the bus stop right at 2pm. We got a bus right on time to get back to Joensuu. Then we caught the city bus right on time and it accepted our ticket from the previous bus and allowed us to ride to our apartment. This was all very good because once we had reached the first bus stop I had lost any adrenaline or whatever was keeping me going and could have fallen right asleep, not to mention that it would have taken me forever to walk home from the city center. We sat near the front of the bus so I wouldn't have to hobble down the aisle.
Last night we had our usual after a long hike meal- burgers! John even splurged on birch beer and fries. Then this morning we had great omlettes and left over fries.
On to Lappland planning!!
Love, Emily
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