January Getting in skiing shape

Last year when we decided to return to Nordic skiing after a seven year hiatus, we found ourselves chasing snow from Wyoming to Michigan. (you can read about it under winter of 2019). While in Michigan enjoying a fire in a warming hut at a trailhead we engaged in a conversation with a woman. She told us about an amazing ski trip that she had done in Finland called the Rajaita Rajalle Hinto, translated this means Border to Border. It is a ski trip which starts skiing near the Russian Border and ends near the Swedish Border. Depending on the year and the snow conditions one skis around 450km in 7 daya. In our enthusiasm for hearing about this trip we thought wow we should do that event this year. Our legs are in shape and we have the time. After a call to a travel agency in Seattle that helps with the details we soon were informed that the deadline to sign for the trip had passed and that if we were interested in we should sign up in July of this year. Once enrolled we would be able to participate in the year 2020. So in true form an idea was formed and as we talked to friends about our future plans we became committed to do the ski and spend some time in Scandinavia exploring. Now that we had a whole year to plan before the trip, our thoughts turned to other adventures which included paddling in Prince William Sound, Alaska, celebrating my Aunt’s !00th Birthday party in PA , hiking the Long Trail in Vermont, and a lot of time on the road visiting some of our favorite places in the Midwest and West. As the fall colors began to fade it was time to do some serious skiing and planning to get ready for our trip to Finland. Our plan was to spend Christmas with our son Jeff and then head to Winthrop WA shortly afterwards. That plan got delayed for a couple of weeks as Donna had to deal with a broken tooth. Finally the crown was on and we departed Portland by mid January. Later we found out that the snow had just become decent several days before our arrival. We left Portland under rainy skies, but several hours later as we headed East and then North into WA we encountered a full on blizzard. Not wanting to get stuck on the highway we pulled into a truck stop and snuggled the van between two semi’s. It was a warm and cozy night in the van as we hoped that the morning would bring clearer skies. Not wanting to rush things in the morning we took our time to give the highway crew a chance to plow the roads, which proved wise. The storm had moved thru the area and the skies were blue as we headed out for the last 100 miles to our destination.

We arrived to Winthrop mid morning and decided to get a feel for the town before checking out the campground where we will be staying for the month. We saw a sign for the Cascade Outdoor Store and decided to check out if they carried classical skin skis. Skin skis were highly recommended for the ski event in Finland. Having skin skis would completely erase the need to use wax for the kicker zone. We met the owners of the store Brian and Amy. Brian brought us up to speed on the skin skis and the new sliding binder. Donna has a pair of skin skis that are now about 8 years old, she wouldn’t mind an upgrade as well! We are impressed by the new technology and decide to return tomorrow to either rent a pair or purchase a pair which we can return if they don’t meet our expectations. Then it was off to the ski center to buy an annual pass. Since we will be here for a month and plan to try to ski every day it will be worth it. The Methow Valley is a Mecca for Nordic skiing. Every night the groomers are out grooming over 200km of trails. In the morning a trail report is posted listing the time the trails were groomed, the recommended trail for the day and what wax one should use. Needless to say we are excited. Before heading to the campground we check out the one and only grocery store in town. It definitely has whatever we will need. A larger grocery store is located in Twisp about 8 miles away. Now off to check out the campground. We are fortunate to have found this campground. It has everything we need to make our stay quite comfortable, plus it is in walking distance to one of the Nordic skiing trailheads. It is time to settle in, have dinner, play cribbage and plan the next day.

After breakfast we head back to the outdoor store and meet up with Brian. We are each. outfitted with new boots, skis and poles. The skis need to have glide wax put on before we use them, so they will be ready to be picked up late afternoon. We head to the trail head and pull out our older skis

We are ready for the skiing to begin. After skiing a loop on excellent groomed trails we check out the nearby fitness center and sign up for a month’s membership. Not only does it include the ability to use all of the equipment, but also access to the classes that are offered. We sign up for Pilates, Kettle Bells and Fitness Fusion Classes. This month is turning out better than planned! We head back to get our new skis and return to the campground. The next 30 days are pretty much a standard routine of skiing, going to the gym, planning for our trip to Scandinavia and playing our nightly game of Cribbage.. In the realm of skiing we take advantage of the weekend shuttle and Ski the Methow Event(we skied 70km that day). Needless to say we were impressed with the skin skis and donated our old skin skis and fishtail skis to the local Nordic Club.. Since photos are often better than words, the following photos should give you a feel for our endless days of skiing.

Great maps showing all 120miles of trail. We skied most of them and some of them numerous times!

Often we were one of the first to be on the ski trails.

Another fun day of skiing

Always fun to see the Flamingoes out enjoying the snow!

Whether we were in the mountains or in the valley skiing was good!

Warming huts scattered thru out the trails were always a great spot to have lunch or just take a break.

A favorite loop was in the Mazamba area where we could have soup and bread at a small cafe.

Even after a fresh snowfall the groomers were on it!

A favorite ski was the trails in Sun Valley, it was a steep climb up,. but the views were worth it!

By the third week of Feb. the days were getting above freezing. We were quite satisfied with all the skiing we had done. It was time to move on and focus on getting our gear ready to head to Finland!

Portland to Helsinki

The trails in the valley were deteriorating as the daytime temps were rising into the 40’s. It was time to head to Portland and make the final decisions for the gear we were going to take with us. The trip back was made with blue skies and clear pavement. The snow was going fast. We stopped to say hi to Doug and Amy in Hood River and catch up with their lives. Arriving to Portland we became quite focused on the task at hand except for the list of projects that Jeff wanted help with. Once again the van proved useful in plant hauling.

Looking forward to checking the apple tree when we return in the Spring.

The several days here were filled with thinking thru our gear list and making sure the clothing we were taking would be what we needed.

Bottom Layers

The head layer

Skis and poles!! So exciting!

Don attended a travel seminar with AAA and came back with some good tips of how to make our voyage easier. The timing of the seminar was perfect. Another project that took on a different direction than originally planned was our itinerary after the ski event. We generally do road trips spontaneously and thought that would be the plan for this trip. However, after looking at different places that we wanted to stay it seemed wise to make reservations. That led to mostly planing our destinations for each night. I guess we will determine when the trip is over if that decision was a wise one. The last thing we had to do in Portland was some work on the van. What was supposed to be a several hour appointment turned into barely done by 5. Finally we were on the road and heading south to San Diego where we will be leaving our van. On the way we took a short break at a wildfire sanctuary. Always fun to explore!

It only took us a day and half to arrive to San Diego and a day later we made all the final preparations for our trip. We used a large duffle to enclose our backpacks.

They were a little awkward to carry, but overall protected the backpacks.

On Feb. 29th, after checking everything more than twice, we were ready to load up the car and head north to the LAX airport.

Thanks to Ryan and Beth for making the 6 hour round trip to the airport!

By 6 we were on the airplane armed with our antiseptic wipes and hand sanitizer. The seriousness of the Covid 19 virus hadn’t been made known yet. We were oblivious to what the world would look like in the near future. Our energies now, though, were just focused on our arrival to Finland and the Border to Border ski. Don put his ear buds in and with the noise canceling button, he was soon asleep. I on the other hand put in my ear plugs and determined that they were pretty much useless. Not to worry, the time ticked on and before we knew it the pilot was on announcing our descent to Gatwick airport on the outskirts of London.

The Gatwick Airport is quite large so even though we had a 6 hour layover we were able to get quite a bit of walking in. We were taking a 3 hour flight to Helsinki which would land close to midnight.

We were hoping that it would be on time as we would have only an hour to go thru customs and make a shuttle that would take us to our hotel. The plane was quite full and as luck would have it the person sitting next to Don had a bad cold.

Fortunately the plane was on time and the airport was pretty quiet when we arrived to Helsinki. We had a big smile on our faces when we saw our two duffles and and ski bag at the baggage claim. We followed the crowds to customs and were relieved when we were quickly cleared.

The next task was to find the shuttle. This didn’t prove to be easy as our bags were heavy and there wasn’t anyone to ask. We headed off and after a few false turns we spotted a sign with the name of our hotel. The only problem was our hotel was not located at the airport. This one was the same chain, so we figured that they could probably give us directions to the shuttle We have 10 minutes to make the shuttle so every minute is precious. I quickly got on the elevator and headed up to the third floor lobby. There was a line so trying to be polite I asked if I could ask a quick question. One women was gracious enough to let me in front of her , but not so another women who just said wait your turn. Finally I asked my quick question and was directed to the shuttle stop. I quickly reversed my steps to where I thought Don was waiting. He wasn’t. Yikes as I look in all directions. Then I heard his voice say to hurry up and come this way. We had about 1 minute to spare when the shuttle pulled up. Needless to say we had some adrenaline in our blood when we finally got to the room about 2:00am. The room was very nicely done with lots of light wood.

We hoped that we would fall into a deep sleep, but that was not to be. It was a night of tossing and turning and looking at the watch realizing that you had just looked at it 10 minutes before. Tomorrow we head to Helsinki and check out the city for a couple of days and hopefully get on this time schedule.

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Helsinki to Kuusamo

After a restless sleep and knowing that we are not going to be able to sleep anymore, we take a shower and head down to the breakfast buffet. Most hotels in Finland include a breakfast buffet. As we enter the dining area, our eyes grow big. This is one of the biggest breakfast buffets we have ever seen. There are numerous tasty choices which appealed to our appetites. I loved the variety of fruits! We had been told that Finnish folks are very quiet and this was quite noticeable as there was little conversations. It may be harder to get to know people than what we thought. After breakfast it was back to our room, repack our bags and head down to get the shuttle which will take us to the train station. While waiting for the shuttle we are approached by a couple who asks us if we are going to do the Rajalta Rajalle Hinto. They said our gear looked suspicious. They are from Canada and are going to be starting the ski several days before us. For this event there are 4 starting days. We are on the last day. They are going to Helsinki for the day and offer to help us carry our bags to the train station. Much appreciated! We share stories on the train. Allison is a veterinary chiropractor and has written a book about her experiences. We buy the kindle version later. Soon we pull into the Helsinki train station and part ways, wishing them a fun adventure.

The next task is finding our hotel. We quickly realize, in our estimation, the Finish language is difficult. We can’t even pronounce the street where the hotel is located. Fortunately google maps gets us there and we only have to take a couple of breaks with the luggage. This is one of the last times we carry the duffles. We quickly learn that it is so much easier to put the backpacks on and then put them back in the duffles once we reach our destination.

Pretty amazing that we can pronounce the name of this hotel.

It is an older hotel and we are given a room on the 8th floor. Fortunately there is an elevator that we can fit all of our gear in. We are spending two nights here then taking the night train to Oulu. We do a little unpacking and stretch out on the bed, hoping to take a nap which doesn’t happen. We decide to go do a little exploring and have lunch at a famous cafe. In a small world, we discovered a few days before we left the states that our friend, a NOLS instructor.Mike, from the 90’s is also participating in this ski event. He is starting on day 2 so our paths won’t cross skiing, but he is flying to Helsinki this afternoon and staying at the same hotel so we plan to meet up early evening. We head out the lobby and notice this sign.

This hotel is part of the YMCA!

With guidebook in hand, we head to the Karl Franz cafe. It comes highly recommended for its chocolate and bakery treats. It has been around since 1891. We were not disappointed just a bit challenged to decide what we were going to choose to eat. With a full stomach we start our walking tour which takes us past several ornate churches.

The churches are closed today so we might try to visit them tomorrow.

The city sauna is located right on the water front. The sauna is very important to the citizens of Finland. We watched as several people walked out of the sauna and lowered themselves into the frigid water. We hope to partake of this custom sometime when we are here. We check out the oldest monument in Helsinki, the double headed eagle.

It was unveiled in 1835 in honor of Tzar Nicolas and Tzarina Alexandra.

Russia invaded Helsinki in 1808 and burnt it to the ground. Later a German architect who lived in St. Petersburg was hired by the Russians to rebuild Helsinki and give it some class. It was great to do the self tour as we wandered around the streets.

The streets are quite wide. Most of the streets are cobblestone which makes for hard walking.

Before heading back to our hotel to see if Mike arrived we checked out a small grocery store and picked up some items for dinner. On our way back we received a text from Mike saying that he had arrived and we plan to meet up at the lobby and then go out for tea. Mike was excited to be here and will be able to spend a few days here when his ski trip is over. We tell him that we will scout it out more tomorrow and give him a heads up about what we find. Mike is up for a short walk to the harbor and then we head to a coffee shop which is located in a large department store.

Lots to talk about. Just as a side note Mike was the carpenter that built out the van that we now call home.

Our conversation with Mike made us oblivious to the time. The waitress had been putting up chairs on the tables, but really hadn’t said anything to us about closing. Finally we realized that shops were closing around us and we needed to leave. That was harder that we thought, we encountered several locked doors and several clerks pointing at us to leave. Finally one of the clerks spoke some English and pointed to a door at the opposite end of the store. We were relieved to find it unlocked! Heading with Mike to the hotel, we decide to meet Mike at the breakfast buffet and after breakfast take a short walk to visit more places before he needs to head back to the airport.

It was another night of poor sleep. We have never experienced jet lag, but are thinking that is what we have. We head down to the restaurant and partake of the good food. It doesn’t , however, have the variety of the hotel that we stayed at yesterday. Even though we share a table with other hotel guests, no one talks so neither do we. After breakfast we head out to visit the train station with Mike. He will be leaving there mid morning and we will be catching the night train tomorrow night.

The train station was completed in 1919.

Flanking its entrance are two massive male sculptures holding illuminated globes.

On a busy day over 300,000 people pass thru the railroad doors. About 200,000 will be passengers for the train.

We decide to visit the Kamppi Chappel before Mike needs to depart. The chapel was built by the City of Helsinki in 2012 to give visitors a sense of serenity.

There are no services just a place to sit and be quiet. It is 38 feet tall with no windows.

The inside curved structure is made of alderwood paneling

It is so peaceful inside that we plan to visit here again. We say good by to Mike and continue on checking out more buildings with very interesting architecture. Another church which is open to the public is called “The Church in the Rock” It was blasted out of solid granite.

The church is known for its concerts, sadly none were scheduled during our time here. Underneath the church is an air raid shelter that can accommodate 6000 people

We identify our first new bird in Finland the Hooded Crow

After some more walking and with the weather deteriorating, we decide to head back to our hotel. First though we are going to check out the Nordic Market which is located underneath the City Center. Wow! We are in for a surprise. The store is huge with high quality food. It is an experience just to walk the different aisles and check out the products. We select some items for dinner and plan to return tomorrow to get food for the train ride.

During the night the rain pelted the window and the wind whipped the flags. It doesn’t seem to be a day of leisurely sight seeing. We were glad that we had two days of mostly nice weather to explore the city. It was another night of getting short stretches of sleep. We head down to the breakfast buffet and once again share our table with quiet people. Back to the room and repack our bags, the check out is at noon but fortunately the hotel will store our luggage for the day. The rain and wind are going to be a factor of how we spend our day. We had plans to take a ferry to an island if the weather had been nice, now we are just figuring out where we can stay warm and dry. The first stop is the train station where we check to make sure are tickets are valid.(they are) and where we should be to board the train. The advice given was be on time and ready to board when you see the train. That was great advice! The rain turned to snow and we become serious about where to spend some time. We had passed the free City Museum yesterday and figured that would be a good place to start. It was. It had 6 floors of informative details about the city. The first floor had an interesting movie displaying how the town changed over the years. The third floor gave high lights of the history of the people living there. The top floor was devoted to an artist and writer who described in great detail the homeless. This man had an alcohol addiction and often found himself living on the streets. His drawings and writings were scattered thru out the 6th floor. After slowly going thru all of the exhibits it was time to move on. Across the street was the large Luthern Church which can be easily seen thru out the town. We walked up the steep granite staircase to the church. In the summertime these stairs are often the location of music festivals. The church which was built in 1852 was austere and unadorned except for the pulpit. There are 3 very large statues in the corners of the church, Martin Luther, Philip Melanchon and Michael Agricola. Michael is the father of the Finish Language. He sure was successful in making it difficult! The church wasn’t exactly warm so we were off in search of warmth, dry would also be nice. The Russian Orthodox Church is opened today so off we go.It is quite the contrast to the Luthern Church There are lots of colorful icons surrounding the interior. There are no pews in the church so after checking out what we could see it was time to head out.

Even though we had tried to spend as much time inside and had umbrellas, theyturned out to be mostly useless, we were wet and cold. Across the street was the Cafe Kappeli.

It is a 19th century restaurant with lots of windows and chandeliers.

It is known for its expensive and great tasting dishes, however, a noon menu describes the soup of the day and bread for the budget traveler.

Don hits the jackpot with the soup of the day being shrimp and fish.

What a smile!

I on the other hand was quite content with an egg fritatta and chocolate tarts. Plus I was sitting next to a heater and just watching the rain pour down outside the window!

We weren’t the only ones in the restaurant taking advantage of the warmth. Several peop[le were reading books and we even observed someone sleeping. I am sure on a busy day we would have had to move on, but it was a slow day and the ambience was appreciated. Eventually though it was time to move on. There was a break in the weather and as we headed out the door, we both had the same thought. Let’s go to the Kamppi Chapel .With the combination of silence and warmth, this option was most appealing. A short walk found us entering into this meditative chapel. Pillows on the floor invited us to be quite comfortable. Don took it to the extreme and was observed doing a bit of cat napping! Several people came in, but none stayed as long as us. It was so deliteful. Before we left, we both light a couple of candles and place them in a bowl of sand at the back of the chapel. This is a great place for tourists and residents of Helsinki.

The last stop before returning to get our luggage was the Nordic Market. Once again we marveled at the food selection and found some tasty treats for dinner and our travel tonight and tomorrow. We made ourselves comfortable in the Hotel Arthur Lobby where we waited till about !0:00 pm or since we are in Finland 22:00.

We walked about a block to the train station checking out the ice rink which was starting to melt.

Time to say good by to My Helsinki!

At the train station, the hustle of the afternoon had banished. There were even seats to sit in. We didn’t last long there as the area was also being used by some drunk people who were rather obnoxious. We decided to wait by the doors that led out to the platform. We noticed that several trains had departed, but no announcements were given. There was a board telling the departures and our train was listed as being on time. As the departing time got close, passengers starting heading to the platform. We followed and found our sleeper car. We managed to get our skis and packs up the narrow stairs to our cabin. We barely had our skis strapped in when the train began to move. The advice of being ready was much appreciated. We have been told that trains pride themselves on being on time.

Our cabin had two berths, a shower and toilet. By the time we had gotten settled it was after 2:00 am We were hoping that the gentle rocking of the train would put us to sleep.

Before we had gone very far down the tracks, the conductor came on and made an announcement. We were glad that the last one was in English as the first two had no words that we understood. Basically he said that the train should be in Oulu around 8. That would be great as we could then catch the bus to Kuusomo that was leaving at 8:45.

Well the hopes of a good night sleep did not happen. When the watch said 7, we started to prepare for our station. We checked the train app which showed us the location of the train. Unless this train becomes a bullet train we are not going to make it to Oulu by 8. Not sure why, but there is over a 2 hour delay. The bus that we hoped to take would be long gone. Before long the conductor came on and confirmed the delay. Nothing to do but sit back or in our case hang out in our bed and watch the landscape go by. A knock on the door was made by a conductor who told us that since there was a delay everyone was given seven euros to spend in the cafeteria. Don, with receipt in hand, headed to the Cafe and with the help of the cashier spent our allotment. The next message that we heard was not in English, but we did recognize the word Oulu so we quickly packed up and headed down the narrow stairs. When the train stopped we hopped off in the cold air and looked around. For a brief moment as the train chugged down the track we thought that perhaps we had gotten off too early. A man walking by confirmed that we were indeed in Oulu and pointed us toward the bus station. It was a very short walk to the very empty bus station. There was only a man selling food at the counter. When we asked him about the bus, he told us to go outside to the number 4 line. We just got there when a bus pulled in with the words Kuusumo . We paid the driver and were soon on our way. The timing couldn’t have been better. Three hours later we arrived at the town of Kuusumo. We had been told that we would need to catch another bus to where we were staying for the next couple of days. As we prepared to leave the driver motioned for us to sit back down and then proceeded to get back on the highway. Hope our destination wasn’t lost in the translation. Five minutes later we pull into the Holiday Resort. He smiles and now motions for us to leave the bus.

The travel agency that we worked with to book the Border to Border Ski had also made all of the arrangements pre ski event. I made all of the arrangements after the ski trip. We will also be staying at this hotel the first day of our ski event. When I give our voucher to the receptionist, she says ,you will be staying in one of our apartments. Not what we had expected, but off we go to find our abode for the next two nights. It was quite nice. It had two bedrooms, a kitchen, a washer and dryer, a fireplace and a sauna. The other attribute that it had was right outside the window was the ski trail. Later today we will see some skiers from the Border to Border ski past our window.

The little yellow sign in the front is a trail marker that we will become quite familiar with.

It has been a long day and perhaps a nap would feel good, but the ski trails look inviting. They are nicely groomed and it will be good to put on the skis. We do a loop meeting a local school teacher who comments that it has been a good snow year. This bodes well for us! Some years the trail has so little snow that the participants have to be bussed to the snow. We even ski a short section of the actual route we will be on when we start the event in a couple of days. Back to our apartment we laid down and finally the deep sleep that we have been waiting for finally happened. Early evening we woke up and snacked on some of the food that we had brought with us. Then it was back to bed. Unfortunately Don has developed some congestion, his sinuses are painful. Fortunately I can head over to the other bedroom and soon I fall into a deep sleep.

The next morning I feel rested and Don still has the painful sinuses. So glad for the two bedrooms.It is also a great space for us to organize our gear for the upcoming ski trip. We use the iPhone to find the nearest grocery store. It is only about a mile away. We are impressed that there is a plowed path for the walkers, we don’t have to walk on the side of the road at all. Kuusamo is a small frontier town that is located close to the Russian Border. There are also several resorts in the area dedicated to winter sports. The grocery store was small, but we were able to buy food for today and tomorrow, The cans of meat on the shelf were interesting.

It was fun to walk back with the snow berms piled high. It is truly a winter wonderland. Seeing all this snow we were excited to head out for a longer ski today. Today we skied for several hours enjoying the mild terrain. Once again we passed participants in the Border to Border ski. They could be identified by the red ribbons attached to their fanny packs. In two days we will also have the red tags attached to our gear! We didn’t see our friend, Mike, but he texted us later saying all is well and get ready for fun! We headed back to our apartment and when Don reached into his pocket to retrieve the card key, he came up empty handed. Somewhere during the ski, the card had fallen out. A walk to the hotel desk was all that was needed to get a new card. Glad that was the case, it wouldn’t have been easy to track the card down. Don also checked out about the bus that would take us to Olivanki tomorrow. It will arrive 45 minutes before the flight gets to the airport. She warns him that one needs to be outside waiting as if the driver doesn’t see anyone they won’t stop. Good advice.! Once we are back in our cozy apartment we dry our clothes in the closet dryer.

Just lay your clothes on the rack, shut the door and turn on the heat.

After dinner, Don takes a sauna, I last for 30 seconds. He stays in longer and is quite relaxed.

The sauna was quite nice.

Tomorrow we will pack up our gear, take the bus to Olvanki, have an evening orientation and meet other skiers. Looking forward to a good nights sleep.

Rajalta Rajalle Hiihto

March 7

Last night we actually had our first good night of sleep since we left the states. Don even started feeling much better this morning so hope his health is headed in the right direction. We have heeded the receptionist advice about the bus and had researched the arrival of the plane at the airport. Our plan is to be obviously waiting outside ready to load when we see the bus. We are ready with our packs and skis!

We are able to move all our gear in one load. It is a bit awkward but doable.

It doesn’t appear that any one else is getting the bus today. The bus sees us, stops, we load and are off. Glad that we were ready. At the airport we unload our gear and take it into the terminal assuming that after the plane arrives another bus will show up to take us to our destination. As we wait, we soon realize that the bus we are on was the one that would take us to Olvanki. Back to the bus we go, reload our gear and return to our seats. The driver nods and doesn’t charge us for this leg of the trip. While we are waiting for more passengers, we notice that the bus waiting next to us has smoke coming out of a stove pipe in the back. The driver of that bus exits in a white bath robe. He heads into the airport and returns with a group of passengers.

We learn that this is a sauna bus and before leaving the airport, the passengers that the driver has picked up will all be taking a sauna! Finns are serious about Saunas.

We pull out of the airport and head towards Olvanki. Our ski across Finland is about to begin!

Plenty of snow here!

At the reception desk, we are given keys to our room, told about the waxing room and of course the sauna. Our room has two bunk beds, but we are the only occupants. In our building there is a lounge and kitchen facilities. Our room has a large bathroom and is sparkling clean. We read this note about the facility.

What a great facility for people all over the world.

We do a little organization and then head out do to to a tour. We could have gone skiing as the groomed trails look excellent, but we will be skiing close to 50km tomorrow so opt out. We head down to the lake and check out the area in the lake for a dip after the sauna.

There is a pump running that keeps the hole from freezing over.

It is getting close to supper time so we head into the cafeteria. This is our first glance at the participants. It has quite the International feel. Numerous unfamiliar languages are heard in clusters thru out the room. We are told later that there are 19 different countries participating in this event this year. There will be around 77 skiers in our group. This wave has the most skiers, most likely because that it goes over two weekends, giving an easier time frame for those working. For the majority of skiers ,this will be the first time. We meet Stephen from Canada who has skied this event 14 times and Klaus from Germany is on his 11 trip. At our table we meet two first timers, Franz from Belgium and Tereje from Norway. One could feel the excitement and a bit of nerviness in the air. After a quite filling dinner which had been preceded by the announcement ,eat well and then after the meeting there will be a second dinner. No one is going to go hungry on this trip.

The doors to a conference room opened at 7 and we head in to find our name tags and border to border ski hat. The name tags is our meal ticket, don’t want to lose that!

There are 6 communities that we ski thru and they volunteer to provide services on the trail for the participants

It was a brief meeting. We met the man who is the overall organizer, Minna who will be traveling with us and is our main person for information. and Usa who is the ski guide. Another person that was introduced was Klaus. He is a participant on the trip, but also forecasts the weather. He will be giving his thoughts on the upcoming weather each night. According to Klaus we should have a good day of skiing tomorrow with a sunny afternoon. The meeting adjourns with the advice to go eat, take a sauna and sleep well. We ate a little, opted out of the sauna and are hoping for a good nights sleep. The beds are comfortable, the room quiet except for Don who has now developed a cough.

March 8

Let the skiing begin! Breakfast is at 7 and we have a hearty meal of oatmeal. It is not too bad with lots of fruit and yogurt. There are also sandwich fixings. It seems that this is a good option for a lot of skiers. We are advised to pack some food for our ski today as well. Don and I make a sandwich and add a couple of candy bars. We have also brought some power bars to eat. As we are waiting to depart we notice some new birds at a bird feeder. There is a bird poster on a display outside, looks like we will be learning some new birds.

We can identify several of the birds at the feeder.

The bus is to be loaded by 8:30 and departs at 9. It seems like some of the talk is around the kick wax that one chose. Don and I are happy that with our skin skis that is one choice we don’t have to make. The bus pulls out and heads toward Russia. We are told that the course had to be changed some this year. Usually one can see the Russian Border towers, but there has been some conflicts this year and we are starting further away from the border with Russia. The days ski will be around 45 km. All of the distances are somewhat arbitrary as each morning a snow machine sets off with a classic track groomer. The route may change according to the conditions.

We have a map for each day that shows the route and the food, drink stations

Upon arriving the bus is unloaded and the skis put on. This is a photo op of which many skiers take advantage. We are excited!

The start of an adventure!

We are off! We have a snow machine in front and a snow machine in back. We are to make sure that periodically we see this sign.

Always good to see this sign along the trail!

In the booklet that we were given the first night, there is an outline of where the service stops are and where a more substantial lunch will be served. On average they are 10 km apart. At the service station one will usually be given a hot fruit drink, chocolate, oranges and often salty pickles. Lunch will often be a meat or fish soup, or grilled sausages.

As we head down the trail, skiers quickly become spread out. There are the fast skiers that almost seem like they are doing a race, there are the slow skiers which are just out to enjoy the experience. Don and I are somewhat in the middle as we pass quite a few skiers. Today we are told that we are quite fortunate with the weather. Our ski will find us heading up some hills that will pass thru forests that are heavily laden with snow.

Great way to start out this trip!

At one of the service stations we are served hot drinks by women dressed in Laplander attire.

The hot drink hits the spot!

When we come to the lunch spot we are directed to a teepee. Inside a fire is going and we are served reindeer stew in wooden bowls.

Quite a few skiers fit inside this shelter.

It was so good!

Outside were a couple of reindeer, hopefully unaware of what we just had for lunch.

Next to the reindeer was the sled.

Reindeer sled rides are a tourist attraction here.

The bus meets us here at the lunch spot.. One can change clothing or if you want the bus will take you to another point on the trail or the final destination. There is a cut off each day so if you don’t make it there in time you will have to ride the bus for the last section. The organization of this event is impressive! We are skiing on and off with a couple ladies from Sweden. They have both spent time in the US and are fluent in English. At another service stop we are greeted by Santa Claus and a cute snowman waving the Finnish Flag.

After the last service point there is 10 km to go. Some of which Don and I skied on the day before yesterday. We will be skiing past the apartment that we stayed in and going to the hotel at the Holiday resort. Don has slowed down, still not feeling real healthy. I ski ahead with Anna and Hanna then wait for Don so we can finish this first day together. We take off our skis and walk a short distance to the hotel where we are given the keys to a very nice room. Our luggage has been take to a storage area. We retrieve it and take it to our room. The bus drivers have moved all this luggage up a flight of stairs, quite impressive!

Included with our accommodations tonight is the hotel spa and sauna.

Don take the sauna option, I take the hot shower option.

Dinner is a buffet with so many delicious choices. We are not going to go hungry if food like this continues. In fact we may have to ski harder with all the calories we are eating. We sit with our friends that we met the first night. We also get to meet some of the Americans, they are a group mostly from Minnesota. After dinner we have a brief meeting to go over logistics. The weather is going to change tomorrow, the sun of today will be replaced with rain, snow and wind. More food is eaten for the second dinner and we head off to our room. Don has not gotten rid of his cough. We decide to not ski together tomorrow, so we can ski are own pace.

March 9

The ski today is a little over 40km

The weather is acting as predicted. It starts out as wet snow then develops into rain and lots of wind. My camera will not be coming out today. We start out as a tight group. I soon see the advantage of being ready to get on the trail towards the front. The pace is dictated by the slower skiers.. There is only one track and it is hard to pass. As you double pole around skiers, it makes you wonder if the exertion is really worth it. It is good though to ski at your own pace so Don and I pass some of the slower skiers. There is a somber mood as we start out. We have been told that we are skiing on an old railroad bed that was used in a war between Russia and Finland. The story goes that we are skiing over many bones buried here.

In the beginning Don and I try to keep sight of each other, but are soon separated. I end up skiing with two men from Germany and we leap frog Brian from the states. Brian may not have a lot of technique, but he is consistent and a strong skier. Lunch is in a teepee and the soup today is a Finnish staple, salmon soup. Not being a fish eater I can’t say that I look forward to this meal. I am handed a full bowl with some bread. I am happy to say, it was quite delicious or perhaps the fact that on a day like today a warm liquid was needed. Michael and Stephen, my new friends from Germany are getting ready to leave. Michael is large and i’ve discovered makes a good wind block. I hurry outside to ski with them. Meanwhile Don has just arrived, he is in for a treat. As I head out to get my skis, I grab a pair that I thought was mine. After a couple of strides I realize that I had grabbed Don’s, no wonder the poles didn’t seem right. Back to the teepee and get my skis. By this time my friends from Germany are in the distance. I pick up my pace and finally gain on them. The weather is deteriorating with the wind and rain becoming stronger. It is not as fun skiing as yesterday. The terrain is quite varied. When we are in the woods, we get a break from the wind, but then the open areas are quite exposed to the elements. We had been told that when we get close to where the bus is parked we will encounter some hills. For most skiers the hills don’t prove to be too difficult. The steepest one that we encounter poses no problem for the four of us. The next one is just a gentle slope and I am surprised that Micheal falls. I slow down and try to work my way around him. Just at that moment, he tries to stand up and flings his ski pole into my leg. The force of it knocks me over. I am hoping that the hit will just be a hard bruise.. I don’t see or feell any blood so rather than look, I just ski to the bus. Glad it was close as my leg was painful. At the bus, I take a look and once I pull my ski pants down, there is an obvious wound. a wound that will need stitches. Bummer!

I tell Minna and we are in luck as the town where we are staying tonight has a clinic. Don arrives just as the bus I am on is beginning to leave. We wait for him and the plan will be for the bus to drop Minna and I off at the clinic and Don will go to the hotel and deal with our gear. Glad that Minna is going with me, I am damp and cold so she lends me her jacket before we head in to see the doctor. I get my wound cleaned and the doctor gives me three stitches. I am also advised to get a tetanus shot which I concur. Whether I ski tomorrow will be up to me. My leg is now swollen and the bruising has begun. I will make my mind up later about skiing tomorrow. Back at the hotel, Don is in bed. This has not been a good ski day for him. He is not improving and continues to have a bad cough. We are the walking wounded! We get energized and head off to another good meal. Once again a sauna is offered, but sleep sounds better to us. According to the weather man the weather of tomorrow will be an improvement. The skiing starts right from the hotel tomorrow. I need to go back to the clinic with my passport. I am told that they will send a bill to Alaska. I have no idea what the cost will be other than I was told it shouldn’t be as expensive as the states.

March 10

I was told to leave the bandage on for several days so just taking the photo of the bruising.

Swollen and somewhat painful, but I have decided to take the bus for about 20 km and then ski the remaining 35km.

Don and I load our gear on the bus. He will be skiing from the hotel so I won’t see him till tonight. A volunteer who lives in the village takes me to the clinic. He speaks excellent English. If there is a problem with any of the participants he is on call to help out. When we return back to the hotel most of the skiers have left. There are 5 skiers who will be taking the bus with me and starting at the 22km mark. When we arrive at the location the snow machine that sets the track hasn’t arrived. We need to wait so I put on my skis and do a trial run. My leg is swollen, but not too painful. I plan to ski the next 35 km. The weather is overcast but no rain or snow is predicted. When the snow machine arrives, I follow behind somewhat tentative, but soon get my skiing rhythm back. I am enjoying the solitude of not skiing in a large group. One of the skiers in our group has a bad cough. He sounds like Don. The older skier Stephen from Canada is also in our group. You can tell that he really enjoys being here. We have been on the trail fro about 20 minutes when we notice the lead snow mobile stuck. The snow is wet and heavy, there is no way we can help him. Perhaps we should wait, but if we stay much longer we are going to get quite cold. He doesn’t speak any English, but motions that we should go on.

The five of us head down a faint trail that had been set yesterday. Shortly afterwards we see a snow machine heading towards the stuck machine. In a distance we see that the groomer is back in business, he stops at a sign and points it in another direction. We had just crossed a snow bridge that would have been marginal for the snow machine so looks like we are going to be re routed. We head back towards the sign and the new route.

Grateful for the arrows!

Often we are on snow machine trails that the groomers just set tracks in. We have been told that for the days the ski event is running, snow machines (other than the groomers) stay off the trails, which we appreciate. A service sign appears stating that in 2Km we will be having lunch!

We ate offered grilled sausages, oranges, chocolate and pickles. One of the guys in our group, who has done the ski before pulls out his phone and shows us photos of this same service point. The men that are serving us are the same ones in his photo that he took several years ago.

The shelter gives us an opportunity to get out of the wind. Before long our bodies start to cool down and we need to move on. The next section is rolling hills with some nice descents.

This women is from France and speaks some English.

The last service of the day is another teepee. A fire is going inside and it is nice and warm. We are served hot drinks and chocolate. There is only one woman at this station. Overhead we hear airplanes, she tells us that it is The Finns and other countries doing war games. She show her disapproval. She doesn’t like the noise in a place where it is usually quite quiet.

English, French, Finnish and German are spoken in this small group.

The bus was scheduled to be here, but the roads are solid ice. Most likely they have opted to stay on a better road.

I can understand why the bus wasn’t here.

Leaving the teepee we have to walk a road section to the next ski trail. It is quite difficult as the ice does not allow any traction. Once we are on the ski trails it is not long before we are on a nicely groomed double wide ski lane. This trail is eventually going to lead us to a down hill ski resort where we will be staying at the lodge. As we get closer to our destination, we encounter skiers out for the day. One couple stops to talk and wonder where I am from. When I say Alaska, they give a positive response. Most people that we pass don’t stop to talk or even say Hi. It is more a cultural difference than being unfriendly. The resort that we are staying in tonight is in a national Park called Syote. Our ski guide has made the comment that this section is one of the nicest. I have been skiing mostly by myself when two Americans from our group pass me. They are the leaders of the trail today. We are closing in to the end of the ski today and my leg did fine. That was a relief! There was a rumor or perhaps it was a fact that we would need to take a Tow bar up to our lodge. Sure enough the quiet of the trail is interrupted by the sound of a motor. When I come out of the woods there it is. I take a moment to survey the scene and to make sure that is the only way to the top. That is the only way that makes sense, Herringbone up the hill would probably take more time than I could imagine. I watch several young down hillers hop on the lift and make their way up the hill. No other cross country skiers have arrived so I ski up and grab on. I did not see any operators, but they were somewhere watching as I got in position the motor slowed down. Fortunately the trip up the hill was uneventful and I could watch the skiers in front of me fling the tow and jump off at the top.

This is a photo of the ski hill and the the tow rope we took to the resort.

it was a bit of a challenge to find the door to the hotel. The two American skiers that had passed me had walked around the building looking for the entrance. Together we figured it out and soon had the keys to our room. The lodge is built into a hill which makes for interesting floor plans. One had to take elevators and stairs to get to where you wanted to go. After several false attempts, I had figured it out. Don hadn’t arrived yet so it took me several trips to move our luggage to our room. I took a shower and even took a short nap before Don arrived. He had skied the whole 55 km, but it had taken a toll. He was the last skier in and most likely will not try to ski the longest day of the event tomorrow. His cough has worsened and he is ready to take a nap. He is able to get a short rest in before dinner. Dinner as usual is quite good. With all the skiing that we are doing having a second desert doesn’t seem problematic. At the evening meeting we are told, but everyone already knew, that tomorrow we would be skiing the longest day. The mileage was going to be 88km or just around 50 miles. The weather outlook is not too cold, not to windy and not to sunny, Should be a good day to put in the distance. Usa, the ski guide tells us that tomorrow is one of the nicest sections of the route. It is a well groomed trail going thru a National Park. He warns us that after the park we will connect to another set of trail, but before we do that we will be going down a very steep hill and recommends walking it. We also need to be ready to depart by 7:30am. Back to our room I contemplate sleeping in the shower as Don seems to be non stop coughing. He is going to ski a short section of the Trail. I take a look at my leg before going to bed.

Glad I got stitches, they seem to be doing the trick!

March 11

88Km today!

The bus is ready to be loaded by 7 and depart by 7:30

We have some great bus drivers!

In some years skiers have skied down the down hill, but this year the hills are too icy so we will be bussed to the bottom of the hill. Since most skiers are opting to ski the first half of the day and then take the bus the rest of the way, there will be a crowd to start. My strategy is to load my skis near the last so I will be able to get them out first. Meanwhile Don has opted to catch the bus first and then ski a section in the middle. He won’t leave till 9 so catches a little TV. It seems the news is focused on the virus, we haven’t heard much about it till now. A couple of American skiers are considering leaving tomorrow in order to get back to the states.

This seems like major news and potential for a lot of impact!

My strategy works and I am off in the front of the pack. The pace is fast and we fly down the hills. Glad that there is plenty of room for passing. The trail is well groomed and weaves thru evergreen trees in the forest covered with snow. It would have been nice to do a more leisurely pace, but there is lots of miles to cover so it is good to keep up a steady pace. Hanna and Anne catch up to me and we form a threesome. They both are fluent in English so I could to participate in the conversation. Eventually we come to the steep hill that we had heard about last night. I find that I can do a very controlled ski plow down the hill and do not have to take off my skis. Anne and Hanna decide to walk. They have also decided to not ski the whole day so looks like we won’t be a threesome any more today. Today there were services almost every 10 Km which helps to keep the energy going. I ended up leap frogging with a couple of the guys from the states. During a conversation with one of the guys we discovered that we had a mutual friend. Today we had Salmon soup again, I found it to be quite good. We did not spend much time at the stops, only time to drink and eat more chocolate. Today there was a lot of double poling . The conditions were relatively fast so poling and gliding was great. It was fun to take turns leading and setting the pace. At the last service the bus was waiting, I grabbed some chocolate and of course had a hot juice drink. Looks like I will have this 80 km done with no problem. There was a 5 Km sign and I felt that the end was near, however, I think that they rerouted the course around the lake so the distance had increased. Those remaining 5 km took for ever. By this time I was mainly skiing by myself and when I came out on on the lake I saw a sign saying 45 km. I was a little worried that I had missed the cut off. I didn’t see any skiers, so made good use of observation skills. The trail split and it appeared that the unmarked one was the one I wanted. Sure enough it wasn’t long before I saw another sign leading the way to the hotel. There were quite a few slushy spots on the lake so skiers had to make their own way. At the hotel I got keys to the room and found Don fast asleep. We decide that it is probably a good idea for him to see if he can see a doctor. I find Minna, our amazing women in charge, and relay the message to her about Don. She says that there will be a women here shortly that is the volunteer for this section. When she arrives and is told about the need to see a doctor, she makes a call to the clinic. They will be able to fit him in tomorrow morning. Don decides to stay in bed I head into to the dining hall to eat a very large meal! Several of the American skiers are quite concerned about getting back to the states as they have just discovered that our President may be shutting down the border for international flights. They are both doctors and have an urgency to get home. The talk of the Covid virus is making the topic of conversation around the tables. Most participants are wanting to finish the event and deal with the flights in a couple of days. Don and I don’t have a flight for another 6 weeks so we aren’t too worried yet. Tomorrow is a short day of skiing, It is a little more than half of what we did today. We are also told that the group will be split tomorrow and that half of us will be staying at the village school and half will be at the community village. There will be a group photo at 9 and then the skiing will begin. We will not have to board the bus for a ride to the trailhead. This will make it simple. Glad that Don will be going to the Doctor tomorrow.

March 12

We are told where the service spots will be each day, but I usually can’t remember the name so it is always fun to just see the sign that one is coming up.

We have a big breakfast, pack lunches and then make sure that our luggage gets on the right bus. Don stays in bed while I pack our gear on the bus. His ride isn’t coming till 10 so he takes advantage of trying to sleep longer. After the group photo we head across the lake and pick up the trail that I saw yesterday. The weather today is overcast and just a little wind. The terrain is mostly flat with a lot of lakes connected by forests.

We are in a more remote section of trail today. The bus is only able to meet the skiers at one point. At our first service there are two young people who had arrived by snow machine. They have set up a table and our handing out delicious chocolate and of course a hot juice drink. They speak a little English and ask where I am from, again when I say Alaska, they get excited. They want to know if we have polar bears there or any kind of bear. Polar bears must be a theme today for at one of the services there is someone dressed up as a polar bear.

I have a feeling that this bear has had his picture taken a lot this week.

At the lunch spot we are greeted by a string of flags of the countries that are represented at this event.

Lunch today is grilled sausages, pickles, oranges and chocolate.

I never tire of the chocolate! The young man from the village who is grilling sausages speaks with a British accent. When asked if he lived in England, he said no, but my English teacher was from England.

It is always fun to see signs and at the end of the day when the sign says 5 Km, we know dinner will be served soon.

Almost done

Today we actually skied past the place that we were staying. Some skiers opted to stop at the buildings, but I continued on to where the bus would be parked.

The bus returned us to the village school

It is not a school anymore, but seems to be more of a gathering place for different activities. When I return to the school, I find Don resting in a room in the back. Fortunately we are away from the other rooms. He took a taxi from the clinic to here. The doctor thought that it was a sinus infection and gave him a decongestion. He was able to get some sleep and seems to be on the mend. It is unlikely that he will be doing any more skiing. This accommodation has rooms with beds or bunkbeds. The other accommodation was a large room with mattresses on the floor. Tonight our meal is cooked by the ladies of the nearby village. It is a meatloaf filled with vegetables and boiled potatoes. For desert we had a fruit compote made from berries. There was also some homemade bread I had seconds from both. Don even felt like eating tonight, that is a good sign. We are told that the skiers passing thru this community is a big event for the villagers. Tonight the sauna is wood fired. Once you have gotten your body heated up, you head outside to a large wooden bucket filled with ice water that you can lower your body down into. There was a time for men and a different time for women. I missed the time for when the women were scheduled. I was probably asleep. Our weather report tonight was a warning. If the prediction was accurate we would be in for a very windy day with blizzard like conditions. There is even talk of skiing in a very large group tomorrow. I hope that is not the case, but if it is we will be in for a very long day. It sounds like a lot of skiers only plan to ski part of the day so that might not be too bad. Other skiers are coming down with colds. No one mentions the word Covid, at least out loud. Don will be taking the bus the whole way tomorrow.

March 13

The day of the blizzard

In the morning, the ladies of the village cooked a big pot of porridge. It is a good thing that I am craving food! After this trip I don’t think I will be eating much oatmeal. I smothered my oatmeal with fruit and yogurt which improved the taste immensely. Don wasn’t hungry, but he got a good nights sleep. I took a photo of one of the ladies that had helped with the cooking.

She had on the traditional clothing of the area.

She motioned for me to follow her and then showed me a couple of the reindeer in a pen.

These boots were hanging in the hallway outside of our room.

We load the bus.

Don makes himself comfortable in the back

Klaus, our weather forecaster, gives us a stern weather warning. He comments that we should be okay for the morning, but after lunch the wind will pick up and blizzard conditions will prevail. There will be a decision made at the lunch stop of how the afternoon will be run. The participants that were staying at the community center arrive and Klaus gives them the same warning. Then it is off to the trailhead, I have taken my poles on the bus with me and my skis are loaded at the top of the pile. I want to take advantage of getting off quickly to perhaps beat some of the weather. So far it is just cloudy, but the wind is definitely building. I have taken extra layers and food with me today. I feel confident about the conditions we may encounter,. This morning I ski mostly with my friends from Sweden, Hanna and Anne. Hanna is in her early 40’s, Anne in her middle 50,s and I in my late 60’s. We keep up a steady pace. We stop for lunch and are served sausages. The next stop is where the bus will be waiting and we will be told if we need to wait for all the skiers before we continue on. The wind has picked up and snow is beginning to fall. When we arrive to the bus, we are given the decision about how we need to ski. Those in charge have decided that we only need to ski in groups of four. Hanna and Anne decide that they are done for the day. So I will need to find some new skiing buddies.

So here are the three of us, plus the two ladies in the backpack which have many stories to tell. Hanna has created them and writes stories about their adventures.

One of the American skiers from Seattle. It has been a cold windy day with more to come!

This was the start of today, at the bus stop after lunch a lot of the skiers had decided to ride the bus to the hotel.

I was glad to hear about the new decision, however since Hanna and Anne weren’t going to ski the rest of the way, I had to find new buddies. I see Michael and Stephen who I had skied with on the second day. I asked if I could join their group which was fine except Michael decided not to ski as well. Now we are a group of two. I find two others to make up our group, Tereje from Norway and Otto from Germany. We start out keeping a fairly close pack. The wind has indeed picked up and in the open areas the trail is blown over. It was a good decision to have us travel in a close group. We get relief from the wind in the forests, and then feel the brunt of the wind in the open areas. By the time we reach the last service and have only 10 Km to go, he storm has abated and the sun has returned. Terje decides to take a longer break so we pick up Tim who is from the states to join our group. The last 10 km is quite confusing. The snow machine driver that set the track used their creativity. The trail is anything but straight, as it winds around the trees in the forest. it is a combination of slow turns and lots of control. Finally we see the red building signifying we have made it to the end of today’s ski. There is a bus there that is warming up it’s engine. Yea, all I will need to do is take off the skis, load them and hop on the bus. Then we see Minna who tells us that the bus is full and it will probably be about two hours before it returns. The good news is that there is a building for us to wait in and fresh cinnamon rolls and hot drinks await us. Before we go into the building, there is a large bottle of hand sanitizer which has a sign telling us to use it! More talk of Covid 19 is in the air! At this point though it is hard to distinguish between fact and rumor. Some of the skiers have just learned that their flights have been canceled. After a two hour wait the bus returns and we head to the Hotel Pohjanran. At the hotel I grab a key and head up to our room where I find Don taking a nap. He wakes up when I unlock the door and we head down to get our skis and luggage. Usually I have gotten back a couple of hours before dinner, but since we had to wait for 2 hours for the bus to return, it is time to eat. I change out of my damp clothes and head to the dining room. Don decides not to eat, but I am more than ready! This is a neat old hotel that has recently been renovated.

Another nice room!

Tonight is our last group meeting. We have one more day of skiing and have been told that just about all of it will be on a wide groomed trail. Today we skied about 58KM and tomorrow will be about the same. The only difference is that the weather is to be sunny and calm! It will be quite the contrast!

March 14

Great to see the word Maali or Finish on this map!

Don decides to make it down to breakfast this morning. We eat with Steve and his two daughters Kristin and Amanda. They are from New York and had done this trip several years ago. None of them had done much skiing and usually would only ski part of each day. One could tell they were enjoying this family trip.

Steve and his daughters from an earlier day.

When the chaos of the virus erupted, they contemplated leaving and had another challenge when their flights back to the states were canceled. At the end of their decision making process they ultimately decided to stay for one more day and finish the event.

We load the bus for one last time and head over to a trailhead. Today is Saturday and we are told that we will encounter other skiers using the trail. There is also a race scheduled and we should make sure that we give them space. The trail is quite wide so shouldn’t be any problem in sharing the trail today. It is a blue sky day, with no wind and lots of sun. A perfect day to end the trip! Hanna and Anne approach me and ask if I would join them for the ski today and set the pace. Sounds good to me! We are off on a hilly course. Climbing up hills and then descending. The trail leads thru forests and out into open fields. One can see the remains of the drifts from yesterday. At lunch one of the servers comments that the weather was quite miserable yesterday with so much wind. We can relate to that. At lunch there is a selection of skis in the snow, showing the story of nordic skis.

Fun to see the wooden skis.

It is colder today so having lots of hot drinks and sausages is good for energy. We are having fun almost doing a race pace. With the good tracks set in the snow we are making good time. Stephen who I have skied with several times joins our crew. He had been skiing with Michael but was going at a faster pace. We pass most of the skiers that are in front of us. Michael takes over the lead and sets a steady pace. At 10 km to go we stop and take s short food break before dashing to the finish. We laughed that wouldn’t it be nice to have mostly a down hill. To our grateful surprise, it was!

When we see the finish line approach, and hear cheering we all start skiing side by side and finish this day together!

Once again there are lots of flags at the finish line.

We are also greeted my Minna, our amazing leader and a group of students from a local college dressed up in costume.

We are so happy!

We wait for more skiers to arrive so that we can be taken back to our hotel for the night. The wait was pretty good as we got to eat celebration doughnuts. The hotel is in Torino which is located right next to Sweden. Once again the accommodation is of high standard. The dinner tonight is one of being served. The food was great, however we are used to being able to go back for seconds and our stomachs could have eaten more. During our ski today I found out that Stephen is a doctor and he will look at my leg and hopefully will take out my stitches after the closing ceremony.

It is not mandatory, but encouraged that each country will put on a skit for the evening program. Some countries are prepared for a presentation while others are more spontaneous. Several of the countries sang songs with group participation. Dave, who was from the states wrote a short skit for the Americans. It was about the challenges that the Americans faced getting back to their home. Everyone received a certificate and a gift from one of the communities that we had skied thru. Each year a different community prepares a gift for the skiers. This year Kuusamo gave each participant a ceramic cup and a bottle of sparkling juice. And with that it was over. It has been a busy week, but oh so enjoyable. The organization of this event was outstanding.

I had one more activity for the night. Stephen met me with his tools of trade and soon I was stitch free. I was glad for the stitches, I wouldn’t have been easily able to ski without them. it was time to say good-by to the folks that we had met. Some participants were leaving early hoping to get home before the borders closed. There was a feeling of some anxiety of the many unknowns about this virus. Later we were told that the Finnish govt. had given permission for our trip to be completed. Other events in the area had been forced to cancel. Don and I were going to take the bus to Kemi tomorrow and wait to make a decision for our future plans. Not having to be anywhere at anytime felt good. So did being able to participate in the Rajaita Rajalle Hiihto!

Kemi, Finland March 15-March 31

March 15

It was sad waking up this morning realizing that when we loaded the bus with our gear it wasn’t going to a trailhead. Instead we were being dropped off at locations where we would be staying, in our case to a condo in Kemi or in most cases heading back to the participants home country. There were two buses departing the hotel. Most skiers were going to the airport in Oulu. Our bus only had a family from Denmark who were flying out of Kemi and Don and I who were going to an apartment in Kemi. They were on the last flight out of Kemi as the airport was shutting down due to the virus. We weren’t quite sure what we were going to find when we arrived to our apartment, but figured we had a couple of days to figure it out. Goodbyes were said and the bus departed from the hotel. The bus driver dropped us off at the bus station and speaking in Finnish helped us unload our gear. Saying Kitoss which means thanks was the only word we could reply. As we watched the bus pull away we realized that we were really on our own, (no more being part of the ski event.) all decisions were to be made by us. We had arranged to stay in a condo for the next three nights which we had been told was near the bus station. Originally we were going to meet a couple of friends from Finland here, but due to the virus they were unable to travel. We had the address and the iPhone so we only walked around the block twice before figuring out that we were indeed quite close. Our check in time was around 3 and it was only 10. We had talked to the owner a couple of days ago and he said that we could leave our gear in the apartment till check in time. Of course when we went to use the phone to tell him we had arrived the battery had died. Fortunately we had a charger which enabled us to recharge our phone. When we made contact with the owner, he told us to just wait there and he would arrive in 15 minutes. Sure enough Esa pulled in and showed us the condo. His English is quite good and he gives us an introduction to the condo. He wanted to give the apartment a cleaning so leaving our luggage here we head over to the snow castle. This usually is a quite popular destination, but as we soon find out the country is about to be shut down. There are only a couple of people here to check out the castle. We purchase tickets for the snow castle and the next door ice palace. The snow castle is created each year from snow and ice made of sea water from the Baltic Sea. It lasts till around May depending on the weather. It was first built in 1996 and several years ago had over 300,000 visitors. The castle has a new theme each year. This year was the future.

Welcome!

We were greeted at the entrance by a women fluent in many languages. She told us a little history of the castle then left us free to go exploring. One could tell she was in shock that the snow castle was closing.

The theme was the future.

We checked out the different hallways, amazed at the intricate designs.

Pre virus, one could rent a room for a night here. The ice bed was covered with reindeer skins.

There was also a chapel where one could get married and a restaurant inside the snow castle. Tomorrow it would be closed!

Inside a building, located next to the snow castle was the ice palace. It is opened year round, but will also be closing tomorrow. When Finland reopens hopefully this will be included. Here again we find the work of master carers.

When it was open for business, one could order drinks and a meal in the dining hall.

It was late afternoon when we walked the short distance back to our condo. It is just one room with a bathroom. There is a shower and sauna in the basement.

Has everything we need!

A bed and sofa and of course dead center is the TV!

The kitchen has more room than our van which we have been mostly living in the last two years. We have a quick conversation with Ryan who fills us in on the status of the states. He recommends either flying back soon or be prepared to stay in Finland for awhile. He leans toward staying where we are. He comments that there is some panic buying going on in the states. Toilet paper is in demand. We are rather tired from non stop activity and decide to think about it tomorrow. We will plan on checking out a grocery store tomorrow.

March 16 and 17

Guess it is decision time. Our travel plans to visit Norway and Sweden are no longer. The borders are closed and the chaos of returning to the states is not appealing. Our original flight plan was leaving Oslo, Norway on the 3 of May. We check the airline website and the flight is still scheduled. We begin the process of cancelling our reservations that we have made. In most circumstances we are able to have our money refunded. We contact the landlord and his bookings for this condo have also been canceled. He makes us a very nice offer to extend our reservation to April 1. We are hoping in two weeks that there may be a clearer picture of the future. We take a break from cancelling hotels, trains , lodges etc and head to the grocery store. Glad that most of the food items have pictures, the descriptions are difficult to understand..

No shortage of food items here. Plenty of toilet paper.

Then there is the receipt.

We could easily translate Texas Pete Hot sauce, but that was about all.

Learning Finnish may prove to be very difficult! Don is slowly recovering from his cough and I have developed a cold. It feels good just to hang out for a couple of days.

After a couple of days of taking it easy, it is time to head out to explore the neighborhood. The map below shows the location of our condo.

We are very close to The Baltic Sea. Kemi is a town of about 22,000 and is the largest town in northern Finland.

We are excited when we see the groomed nordic trails on the Sea.

Tracks are groomed every day!

Looking back to where the Snow Castle is located

Most weekdays we have the tracks to ourselves, but on the weekends it is a popular spot.

We thought folks were doing a good job of social spacing!

The tracks lead to an island which had several miles of groomed trails.

These buildings on the island could be rented out for the summer.

One of the trails on the island would take you back to the main part of the town.

Our Finnish friend Maija sent us a link about other ski trails near town. We were quite pleased when we discovered the trail system about a half of mile from our condo.

These trails were also groomed just about every day. It was quite fun to see all the people out using the trails.

The trail groomer.

One day we decided to take a break from skiing and walked to a nearby island that had the remnants of a sawmill town.

Glad to see some of the descriptions were in English.

Severals places that we skied by had these shelters. They often came stocked with wood that the residents could use.

Nice place to get out of the wind. In summer they can be used for camping.

Trail signs were posted at junctions.

Still trying to get a feel for the language.

Don enjoyed using his Watch to track our ski for the day.

One of our favorite trails was next to a small creek. We called it our meditative trail.

This trail also passed by two well stocked wood sheds.

Don was envious!

We checked an English translation of the Finnish news each day.

Doesn’t look like we will be doing much traveling.

Some afternoons we headed down to the boat harbor,

Summers are short, but days are long. Looks like a good place to go sailing.

It was always fun to just walk the streets and check out sculptures and murals.

We think this was on a school building

Sculptures were scattered thru out the city.

The steeple from this church could be seen from most parts of the town.

All churches were closed when we were there.

We had never heard of the town Wuhan, but now it is frequently in the news. This sign caught our attention.

Street signs are always interesting to try to pronounce.

This is the land of the Midnight Sun. We are gaining daylight each day. Probably by the time we leave there won’t be many sunsets so we enjoy this one.

So ends our last two weeks of March. After it was evident that we are not allowed to cross borders ,we have rented our apartment for the month of April. We look forward to more skiing and enjoying the town of Kemi.

Kemi, Finland April 1-21

We have a standard routine that we have settled into. Generally most days. go like this. After waking, we get out the mats, bands and kettlebells for our morning exercise. This is followed by breakfast which is then followed by skiing. Depending where our ski will be we may or may not pack a lunch. Late afternoons will probably find us watching a show on the TV. Occasionally we find a good program, but more often then not we are watching a home remodeling show. Most of the shows are in English which is good for us. Supper is followed by a game of cribbage and more TV. Our decisions are few. The weather has been excellent for enjoying winter activities. We may not have planned an extended stay here, but life is good! We have no complaints and our airline says that they are still flying. Come May 3rd we will be heading back across the ocean.

There is a bit of a thaw the end of March and perhaps our skiing is getting close to over. We decide to take a walk-on the ice with our trekking poles.

There’s still plenty of snow out our condo window. Unless we have a major thaw we should still be skiing for awhile.

Sure enough we had a snow storm and the trails were back to being excellent.

On April 2, we were excited to celebrate our 42 years of adventures together.

it was so delicious that we are going to create more celebrations.

We are becoming experts at using google translate.

This signage was commenting on the postal route across the ice.

One day found us doing a longer loop in the forest. We were pleasantly surprised when we came upon a familiar sign.

It was the marker for the Border to Border ski even that we had done early March.

The days are getting noticeable longer and there is a feeling of the changing season.

There is still plenty of snow and the conditions are excellent in the morning.

On April 15, we have a good snow storm and once again the groomers are doing their magic.

We have been in Kemi for a month now and are enjoying our unexpected stay!

We do one of our longer skis this month after the snowstorm.

We are enjoying learning about Strava

Then we get the news. We thought that we were going to be leaving May 3, to head back to the states but we get this email.

Looks like our stay in Kemi will be extended!

We make a call to our landlord and he assures us that we can stay as long as we want. Our visa is good till June 3 so we have time to come up with a new plan.

Meanwhile Don is enjoying the varieties of Finland Beer and I am enjoying Finland chocolate.

The last snowstorm has enabled us to have one of our best long skis of the season. We started out on freshly groomed trail and were pleasantly surprised when we caught up to the groomer. The groomer was going the entire length of our favorite long trail. It was a fantastic closure to a great month of skiing.

Our last long ski with amazing conditions.

By the time the third week of April arrives, we have decided to put our skis away.

We feel fortunate that we skied as much as we did. When we now walk the trails there are still signs of diehard skiers who are making the most of the fading snow.

We are checking some new areas out. This area has promises for some good birding soon.

We discover an observation tower and enjoy several lunches there.

We also start doing as the Finnish people do, Nordic walking. We have brought our trekking poles and put them to good use on the paved trails. We have come to appreciate the paved biking trails that are quite numerous. With our skis put away our main exercise is now walking.

Today we did a 12 mile hike to check out the tourist attraction of an ice breaker,

Due to Covid, this attraction is closed.

We decide that we are going to see about getting bikes. Next time we see our landlord, we ask him about where we might find used bikes. He tells us that he will do some research.

Last month in Finland

Our plans for the winter changed dramatically after we became aware of the word Covid 19 and what that would mean. Once we made our decision to stay here we tried to discover and learn as much as we could about the area. We even started an online course about the Finnish language, quickly realizing that it indeed was a challenging language. We looked into extending our visa, but ran into major roadblocks and decided that we needed to find another airlines to get back to the USA. Norwegian Air had canceled all flights till after June 15th. We were able to book a flight on KLM which cost twice as much as our original flight, but that seemed to be our only option. Our new flight departed Helsinki May 26th. With that new date we had one more month in Kemi. With our skis put away, first walking and then biking became our main ways of exploring. After we had mentioned of our interest in finding bicycles to our landlord, he showed up several days later with a couple of bikes.

Mine is the white one, which is a typical commuter bike complete with basket. Don had a more traditional mountain bike. We were able to put them to good use exploring many of the numerous bike trails.

So many biking paths. We were able to go in all directions and the majority. of the time we were on bike paths.

We alternated between hiking days and biking days. One of our hiking days look us back to the ski trails which were melting out quite rapidly.

Finding a scenic spot for lunch was always a priority.

Love the dark breads and of course the chocolate.

We found the main grocery store to have a good variety of products. There was always a good supply of fresh produce and there never seemed to be any food shortages like we were hearing about in the USA.

Towards the end of April we were still able to take long walks on the ice. There was enough melt/freeze going on that we were able to have good traction.

Before heading back to our apartment we stopped to check out a bird feeder and were approached by a man. His name was Alpo and he was from Kemi, but had spent some time in Miami and spoke decent English.

He explained to us that the Finnish people may seem unfriendly, but they have big hearts. He was not surprised that we had not talked to many people.

One of our favorite bike trips was heading south of town where we could look our over the ice to see if there were any seals coming in to have their babies.

Unfortunately we never saw any seals, but enjoyed having lunch at this spot.

Here is a photo of the apartment building that we stayed in.

At the Apartment, one could pay for a parking spot. There were about 12 spots of vehicles. The majority of renters used bicycles .

Every day there would be train cars full of logs that would pass thru our town.

Scattered through out the town were lots of sculptures. In fact there was even a map directing you to all of them. One that we found intriguing was one by the water that had been donated by a mining company.

One of our favorite activities during this month was discovering new birds. It almost seemed unusual not to daily identify a new bird. I decided to put all the birds together at the end of this blog, except for the Whooper Swan which we always enjoyed watching and found out that it was the National Bird of Finland.

By the middle of May there was a flurry of activity at the marina.

Boats were being lowered into the water.

Anxious boaters were waiting for the small ice floes to disappear. The season is short and the boaters were going to be ready to set sail.

We took a final bike ride out to the fishing port.

In just a couple of weeks tha ice was gone.

It was time for us to pack our bags and give our little appafrtment a final clean.

We felt quite fortunate to spend over 2 months here!

Finally the day came for us to depart. We needed to take the train to Helsinki, spend the night and then fly to Amsterdam the following day where we would catch our flight to San Diego. We had done a trial run of walking to the train station to make sure that we would have adequate time to get there before departure. From a previous observation we understood why trains pride themselves on being punctual. You need to be lined up and ready to board, there is no announcement. The train pulls in, the doors open. passengers load and the train departs.

Waiting for the train.

We thought that we were going to have to get a connecting train from Helsinki to the airport, but relooking at the schedule on the train we were thankful that we would be dropped off at the airport. It was a short walking distance to our hotel. All the restaurants were closed so we were glad to have crackers and cheese.The next morning we headed over to the airport to get our boarding pass. There were very few people at the counter.

Back to wearing masks and social distancing..I

It was quite easy to social distance as the hallways were empty.

As we waited in the mostly empty departure gate, an announcement was made telling us due to a technical problem our flight would be delayed. There goes our chance of making a connection. Guess we won’t be going to San Diego today. Finally we boarded our plane and headed to Amsterdam. On the plane we were told to go to a transfer station and there would be an employee helping with our accommodation and rebooking our flight.

At least the sign was in English. The first transfer station had a cutout of an airline personal. that didn’t seem to be of much use. We knew that we could not get our luggage as we were not allowed to leave the airport. We needed to find a custom person to give us clarification of what we needed to do.

At least the wait to find the custom officer was nil! They sorted our our dilemma and pointed us to where we could actually find a person to give us directions. We were given vouchers for a room and meals and also given new tickets, our new route would be to Atlanta and then to San Diego.

We should be well rested for the next leg of our trip. Needless to say we were thankful when the remaining journey to San Diego was uneventful. The plane was about half filled and the silence was noticeable. No one coughed or made a noise for most of the trip. We arrived to San Diego, quickly passed thru customs and were greeted by Ryan and Beth. We appreciated that they drove to the LA airport to pick us up.

It was back to their house that we had left just under 3 months ago. It was time to quarantine and reflect on what we had just done. We are looking forward to when we can return and continue exploring the Scandanavian countries!

Birds of Finland

When the snow started to melt and the sea started opening up, we became bird watchers. It was fairly common for us to daily identify a new bird or two. We were fortunate enough to be in walking distance to a protected bird area. We didn’t have a bird book so we relied on the Merlin Bird app. We would take a photo, put it in the app and up would come some options. The following photos are grouped mainly by size starting with the smaller birds and ending with the larger ones.

White Wagtail

Great Tit

European Greenfinch

Common Chaffinch

Brambling

Yellow Hammer

Common Red Poll

Eurasian Red Squirrel that was feasting on seeds under the bird feeder

European Pied Flycatcher

White Breasted Barn Swallow

Northern Wheatear

Breeding Male Northern Wheatear

Little Ringed Plover

Arctic Tern

Redwing

Fieldfare. The fieldfare and Redwing started migrating thru Kemi in large flocks.

Fieldfare

Eurasian Jackdaw

Hooded Crow

Black Headed Gull

Mew Gull

Northern Lapwing

Rock Pigeon

Ruff

Wood Sandpiper

Wood Sandpiper

Common Redshank

Spotted Redshank

Common Greenshank

European Golden Plover

Eurasian Oystercatcher

Great Crested Grebe

Great Crested Grebe

Smew Duck. only saw this duck once and very briefly

Male and Female Common Golden Eye

Male Golden Eye

Male and Female Green-winged Teal Duck

Male Green-winged Teal Duck

Male and female tufted Duck

Male Tufted Duck

Eurasian Wigeon

Female Eurasian Widgeon

Mallard

Red Breasted Merganser

Male and Female Common Merganser

Male Common Merganser

Eurasian Curlew

Graylag Goose

Graylag Goose and Whooper Swan

Whooper Swan

We got to watch this pair of Whooper Swans on a daily basis. We saw them land when there was barely any open water. They staked out their territory and chased off any other swans.

It was rare to see them out of the water.

They spent a lot of time eating.

We were hoping to see their young but alas we had to leave Finland before that happened.

Always took opportunities to check out birds and our overnight stay in Amsterdam didn’t disappoint .

Common Wood Pigeon

Eurasian Moorehen

Eurasian Blackbird

We never stop enjoying watching and learning about the lives of birds!