Yeti rides

February overnighter with filming

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 20:27:00 +0000

It took this long to get to do the first overnighter for the year. Sickness and some family events prevented me in January. This time there was something special planned, though. Peltsi from YLE, the Finnish national broadcasting company, contacted me and this resulted in me, Toni, Peltsi and the photographer Juha going out on an overnighter during a cold February weekend. I managed to take some photographs, though this was not a priority during this outing.

We arrived at the Vajosuo parking place about 9:30 on the Saturday morning. The thermometer showed -27C (-17F) when we started unpacking gear.

Filming packing the bikes.

On the move, starting with the Vajosuo trails, which were in hard and fast shape.

A really nice winter day. In open places there was about 25 cm of snow.

Still chilly.

Excellent fast trails.

Peltsi riding a...

... Moonlander!

Cold weather ninja outfit. The face mask with a simple heat exchanger works well.

The Pukkipalo trail was no option, since the forest road section had too much snow on it to be rideable. Instead we rode directly to the Savojärvi trail, which was in good condition.

Toni.

Mounting a GoPro camera.

There were some snowmobile trails on Kurjenrahka, probably meant as a base for skiing tracks. It was possible to ride on them with a fatbike without leaving any mentionable tracks, as opposed to walking on them.

Don't forget the small details. The wild rosemary is not entirely covered with snow.

I'll have to do an overnighter on skis here soon.

Peltsi.

Packed for a cold overnighter.

Big Fat Larry track.

Juha.

From Kurjenrahka we continued back towards Vajosuo on the hiking trail. It was rideable with a fatbike, but it was very hard work and in many places technically demanding to stay on the very narrow and uneven trail. It took almost two hours to cover the 5 km leg. The weather was nice, though.

Toni.

Still riding after the sunset.

The Zefal Arctic bottle keeps the water in liquid form suprisingly well, though it is no real thermos bottle. The weak part is the lid. It freezes much too easily and is very hard to open. Here I managed to get the entire inner bottle out when trying to open it.

We arrived at the Vajosuo shelter sometime around 18:30 and immediately started a fire. This time we had lots of food. Though the bikes were packed with everything needed for an overnighter, Juha had parked the car just 1.5 km away and brought a good amount of food. We ate with good appetite after a rather hard day.

Time to go to sleep. The temperature stayed around -22C (-8F) during the night. I was warm and comfy in my Marmot Never Summer sleeping bag with a Ridgerest and short NeoAir under, but tt took more than an hour for my feet to get warm again. My footwear was totally inadequate for the temperatures and I got a slight frostnip on three toes on my right foot. That same foot has seen some frostbite before and is hence more sensitive. I need to take care of it better and get some warmer footwear in the future (*).

At around six in the morning Juha got up and started a fire. His sleeping bag and ground pad were not warm enough for this temperature. It was nice to wake to a warm fire for the rest of us, though.

The short filming session in the morning took us out on the Vajosuo bog.

Peltsi rides the narrow uneven trail on top of boardwalks without problems.

The Sunday morning saw varying weather with both sun and snowfall.

Just a short bit left.

This was a really nice winter overnighter. Thanks a lot to Toni, Peltsi and Juha. Check out Toni's report here.

The film should be shown in the outdoor program Erätulilla, though it is not clear when.

(*) Update: The actual frostbite damage seems to be quite small, but it does mean that I have to be very careful with the toes for the rest of the winter. I went to my local Partiovaruste outdoor store and bought these electric insoles to make sure that I don't get the toes cold during the healing process. I will also have to look at some warmer boots. The current ones were warm enough in similar weather last winter, but is it possible they have shrunken? The don't seem to have as much space for socks anymore. Anyway, this was a very stupid error for me to make.

Winter

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 15:24:00 +0000

The winter has continued with rather nice weather. I'm becoming slightly frustrated that I have not managed to do an overnighter for more than a month. One weekend I was sick (a tenacious flu that has still not completely passed) and two weekends have seen family stuff preventing me from getting out. Last weekend at Utö was nice, but I now long for an overnighter by bike or skis. Next weekend should be possible.

I did take a take my bike out for some exercise today and checked out the trails. Trails that have been walked on are in excellent shape. Unused trails in the forest were also perfectly rideable with the fatbike.

In open places there was often enough snow to make riding difficult.

I still managed to find some places where the water and mud was not entirely frozen, but these are becoming increasingly hard to find. The temperature has stayed safely below freezing lately.

The day is now 1 h 50 min longer than at Christmas, but it still gets dark before the evening.

PS. My own computer is now being repaired and I currently don't have access to Lightroom. After just five months of using Lightroom, using ordinary jpeg:s without any fine tuning in Lightroom feels unsatisfying. While I'm not into image manipulation, the pictures just don't fully correspond to the idea or vision I had when I took them without doing some Lightroom work.

A turning point

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 17:34:00 +0000

Sing and rejoice! We finally have snow!

While a few centimeters of powder on top of some patches of older snow hardly makes a winter, I feel everything has taken a turn for the better. Compared to November and December, we've had a lot more sun after Christmas and the temperature is now forecasted to mostly stay below freezing. The winter has started.

Yet another tree hit by the Christmas storm.

Full moon. The conditions would be perfect for an overnighter, but I since I was sick with high fever in the beginning of the week, I will have to settle for a slow ride instead. Maybe I'll be in better shape next week.

Sunset over Lake Littoinen, less than two kilometers from my home.

The day is already 25 minutes longer than at the winter solstice, but the early sunset still limits the outdoor time. Of course, you can always use lights to keep going into the darkness, but I still prefer daylight, at least when it is sunny and nice.

A small island in the lake. The fog is signal of the temperature dropping.

An overnighter would have been so nice under the full moon.

It was nice to be on the bike again, even if only for two hours.

Happy New Year!

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 15:47:00 +0000

The year started with a nice and sunny day, something we have not been spoilt with lately. There was even a few mm of snow on the ground, enough to lighten things up. I took a ride on the Pugsley, now that the ground had hardened up a little, and checked out the storm damage on the local trails. The storm was the worst one for a long time.

One of many obstacles.

Trees in less than perfect condition just broke above the ground.

In more exposed places the roots of the trees could not withstand the force.

It was nice to be on the bike again after more than a week. I'm currently slowly recovering from a nasty flu that has been circulating in the family.

There was even ice on Lake Littoinen.

Happy New Year to everyone!

2011 - A Retrospective

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 13:58:00 +0000

The year 2011 is nearing its end and it is time to look back at the year. What went well during the year? What could be improved in the next year? Or wait a minute, that was the Scrum Retrospective. Anyway, 2011 was good year and from my own outdoor perspective an excellent year. Below I will recall some highlights.

The winter 2010/2011 was the best winter for years in Finland. We had a lot of snow and consistently cold temperatures. The skiing season lasted well over four months and the entire winter was a fatbike paradise.

I had a fantastic overnighter in February under the full moon in really cold weather.

The absolute highlight of the winter was the ice road adventure with Toni Lund.

The end of March provided rideable snow crust, something very unusual in Southern Finland.

A winter well spent was still extended with a ski overnighter in the beginning of the spring. Surprisingly, this turned out to be a little out of the ordinary.

After the fantastic winter, the ordinary summer overnighters somehow felt too easy and anticlimactic. Nice, but nothing special. The highlight of the summer was the week-long unsupported bikepacking trip in Lapland at the end of July. This trip proved (for me) the value of a fatbike and that my gear and packing philosophy works as expected.

I continued doing overnighters through the fall, despite the unusually wet fall weather. The real glimpse of light was that the kids got enthusiastic about joining me for overnight backpacking. We did four of these trips during the year and hopefully next year will see a lot more of these. There is something profoundly satisfying in sharing this stuff with the kids.

My goal of at least one overnighter a month and a week-long bikepacking trip was revised during the summer and at the winter solstice I made my last overnighter for the year, spending my 30th night out. It might not sound much for true adventurers, but I'm very satisfied with it. My family comes first for me, so I cannot realistically improve on this one much more.

Merry Christmas!

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 17:20:00 +0000

Winter solstice overnighter

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 15:19:00 +0000

I wanted to go on one final overnighter this year, to realize my (revised) goal of thirty nights out in 2011. The grey and rainy weather in December and November had not really invited to this sort of activities, but for the winter solstice dryer weather was forecasted. Since this would pretty much be my last possibility for an overnighter this year I decided to go, even though both Wednesday and Thursday were workdays for me. With a time of 5 h 43 min between sunrise and sunset, most of the outing would have to take place in the dark.

I left home a little over eight in the evening. The temperature was around freezing and trails not directly in dense forest had hardened up a little.

The few millimeters of snow or frost on the ground made everything a lot less dark.

My goal for the night was the shelter at Vaarniemi, which would be about 45 minutes away from my home the fastest way possible. I did however not take the fastest route, opting to ride some forest trail sections in addition to multiuse urban trails like this one.

I arrived at the Vaarniemi shelter around 22:30 and had planned to make a fire and enjoy it for a while before going to sleep. Unfortunately, the shelter was already taken, so I had to look for another alternative. I did have a bivy bag with me, so I just continued for a half hour to a ridge with good view to the sea in the south, hoping the the cloudy weather would give way to a clear and crisp morning. In clear weather the sky should begin to lighten up a good time before the sunrise at 9:38. By the time I went to sleep, a little before midnight, the stars became visible and everything looked great.

I slept fairly well until I got up around 7:35. Inside my bivy bag I had my 600 g down bag, a short Thermarest Prolite 4 and my down jacket between the sleeping bag and bivy. I was warm and comfortable in the -2°C night. I made a cup of good coffee from hot water in my thermos bottle using a light coffee filter mounted directly onto my cup and ate a small breakfast before starting riding. The morning was cloudy.

As I got closer to home the darkness gave way to the day.

I got home a little over nine in the morning after around one and a half hour of riding. After quickly unloading the bike and I rode to work and was only one minute late for our Daily Scrum-meeting.

That's it. Short, but nice.

Misery video

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 19:40:00 +0000

Planned misery

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 11:35:00 +0000

I was still feeling some laziness after a flu a week ago. Most of the symptoms had already passed, so I wanted to go out and do at least something. Going out for a run or any other form of real training was out of the question, but a short overnighter seemed like a good idea. Originally I intended to go on Friday evening, since that would have provided a good opportunity to experience some real misery, with a blizzard that turned to hard wind and rain in the evening. However, I was too tired for that and decided a good night's sleep would do me good.

I felt a lot better on Saturday and the forecast still contained some amount of misery, so I decided to go.

After a bit of Christmas glühwein (glögi/glögg) and traditional gingerbread with the family, I started riding. I planned to ride for 2-3 hours. The weather was better than forecasted, with very little rain.

The trails were very wet and I soon noticed that my feet were getting wet fast. Strange, the Shimano MW81 winter cycling shoes should keep the water out a little better.

The Pomponrahka boardwalks would have been easier with a fatbike, since at some places there was quite a bit of half-packed snow on them. For the most part, the Fargo with the studded Nokian Extreme 29x2.1 tires was the right choice, though.

Falling down from the boardwalk was not tempting...

A little later the cloud cover thinned enough for the full moon to become visible. Shame this did not happen some five hours earlier during the total lunar eclipse.

More boardwalk.

I continued riding and a little over ten o'clock in the evening I made camp. By now my feet were very wet and cold. Some Christmas decorations would have been cool, with a Christmas spruce just outside the tent.

Moon light.

I went to sleep a little before midnight. The moon provided a some light.

Around 8:20 in the morning I got up after a fairly good night's sleep. With the sunrise at 9:25 and total length of the day under six hours one can sleep in a little. The morning naturally starts with a good cup of coffee. Zoegas Dark Temptation was a pleasant surprise. It is not as dark as the coffee I usually drink, but the taste was good.

When I put the shoes on in the morning, the mystery with my cold feet was solved. By mistake, I had taken my summer cycling shoes instead. Both are black Shimano shoes, but the summer shoes are a little bit cold in temperatures around freezing.

I was ready to go a little before sunrise.

The Nokian Extreme 29x2.1 studded tires work well in these conditions. There were some spots of blank ice, where the studs were necessary. In many places there was also was a little slush on top of ice or the ground, and the relatively narrow tires with the very coarse tread pattern just cuts through the slush and provides grip towards the surface underneath. Fat tires do not work in these conditions, since they just float on top of it, without anything to work against.

Still some spots with snow on.

An edible mushroom (Wood Hedgehog) in December. Quite rare.

Some last leaves.

I was home again at 11:30 after a nice little outing. The misery was missing. Maybe I'll have better luck next time.

Tour de Pöyrisjärvi video

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 15:37:00 +0000

I finally finished the video from the Pöyrisjärvi bikepacking trip.

Due to loosing my tripod head quite early in the trip, I didn't quite get the footage I had planned and had to settle for a rather short video. I also feel that some POV clips would make the video more interesting, but the EOS 60D DSLR was too big and heavy for that. Finally, I was unable to actually create the output video with Windows Movie Maker on my own laptop when having edited it. The computer just crashed when it was 99 percent done. I think this was the last time I used Windows Movie Maker. The application is otherwise good enough and easy to use, but it lacks the necessary stability.

The state of the winter

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 15:06:00 +0000

November is now past us. It was one of the absolutely warmest Novembers in Finland in the history of recorded temperatures. We had a lot of rain and grey weather and almost no signs of the coming winter except the shortening days. The contrast against last year is enormous. This is what December 4th looked like last year:

As a contrast the following pictures are from today, December 3rd. The temperature yesterday around sunset was 8°C. During the night the temperature went below freezing, so maybe there is some hope after all. The weather forecast also shows colder temperatures next weekend, though a lot of rainfall is forecasted before that.

Yes, this picture was actually taken today.

My Fargo has mainly seen commuting service lately, due to the wet weather having turned the forest trails into mud.

Typha.

Spring?

The afternoon was spent outside with the kids, until it started to rain around sunset.

Hopefully we get snow and colder temperatures soon...

Vajosuo Beer Ride 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 18:14:00 +0000

Time for the third annual MTB-Turku beer ride in the Vajosuo area. Last year we had full winter, two years ago again both ice and rain. This time the weather was warm and wet, but the rain ended a few hours before we started riding. We took the car to Rantapiha and started riding at 19:00, aiming for the Vajosuo shelter. Five of us started from Rantapiha and Ulla rode directly to the shelter from her home just north of Turku.

The first 500 m boardwalk section was very difficult. It took some time before I managed to get into the relaxed flow that is necessary for boardwalk riding. Still, the conditions were technically very challenging: The boardwalks are mainly in fairly poor shape and they were very slippery. So slippery that it actually was more difficult to walk than ride on them.

Good lights were necessary because of the darkness. The grass looks white on the picture, from light reflecting back from the wet grass.

JJ and his Mickey Mouse lights.

Matti H crashed for an unknown reason.

Fillaristi crashed and injured his leg so much that he had to take an easier route back the next day. The mud was soft enough, but a root was hard.

After 2 hours of technically quite demanding riding we arrived at the shelter and JJ started the fire, as tradition dictates.

After some time, the cloud cover thinned and the moon came out. We grilled sausage and sandwhiches and drank our few beers.

Some time around midnight we walked to the birdwatching tower a few hundred meters away to experience the bog in the darkness. After that we returned to the shelter and stayed up for some time more, finally retreating to sleep a little before three in the night.

We got up a little over seven in the morning. It had been a warm night, probably partly because with six of us sleeping in the shelter there was certainly no extra space. The morning was nice, with the almost full moon lighting up the landscape well before the sunrise.

We started riding again at 8:30 and soon came to the Vajosuo boardwalks, which were in very bad shape and hence hard to ride.

There was some risk of getting wet in case of failure.

A short forest road section.

JJ forces his way through a softer section.

Traditional short break at Takaniitunvuori.

Matti H:s fully rigid singlespeed Surly 1x1.

Greenman's Surly Troll. Fully rigid with gears.

JJ has a Nicolai. German quality engineering.

My Surly Pugsley. As expected, a fatbike was pretty much optimal for this ride as well. I rode without a backpack.

More boardwalk. A single plank is easy to ride on, compared to two narrow planks with a gap in between.

Soon there.

Around eleven we arrived at the parking place again. Thanks to all participants for a great outing.

PS. Due to a somewhat depressing weather forecast I only took my small compact camera. The darkness is very challenging even for a good compact camera like the Canon S90, but I still got some usable pictures.

Late fall bike overnighter

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 11:36:00 +0000

Toni expressed interest in going out for a short bikepacking overnighter. I had nothing against the idea, and since the weather forecast for Saturday was not entire depressing we decided to give it a try.

Due to a somewhat pressed schedule we could not get going until after sunset. I had time to pack the bike during the day, though.

In order to save one and a half hour of time I took the car to Paimio, where I met with Toni. I unloaded the bike from the car and we got going about one hour after sunset. The first hour would be spent on small roads.

When we arrived at the Marttila area, the singetrack began. The nice trails were mostly new for us and I suspect the surroundings are excellent, though they remained unrevealed in the darkness.

The world is reduced to a small tunnel of light when riding in the darkness.

The first thing to do after arriving at the Lotikonkellari shelter was to start a fire. I took care of that...

... while Toni chopped firewood.

A single quality beer...

... and toasted sandwhiches.

A fire is essential now that the days are getting shorter (sunrise at 8:42 and sunset at 17:39).

Clear sky. Nice.

We went to sleep around 23:30. The temperature had dropped from about 8°C when we started riding to 4°C, which is quite warm for the season. We got up again about one hour before sunrise.

The shelter.

Sunrise. The weather proved far better than forecasted. Clear sky in the evening and very few clouds in the morning.

On the move again.

The beauty and the beast. The ugly one is mine.

It would take skill to get lost with trail markers like this.

The fall with many colors is gone. What is left consists mostly of shades of brown.

Ok, I confess. I have a new lens with a large aperture for the camera.

After a little more than an hour of trail riding, and some photography, we turned back home on small roads. Around 80 minutes of hard riding was left. The nice weather soon changed to the normal fall greyness and we even got some rain.

A great outing again. Thanks to Toni for the company. Check out Toni's report here.

Fall overnighter with the kids

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 18:12:00 +0000

We really wanted to go out on another overnighter before it would become too cold for the gear I have for the kids. However, we had only a few available weekends and the unusually rainy weather several times prevented us from going. The evenings and mornings are also getting increasingly darker, and while I realize that going out for an overnighter in the rain and darkness provides a good way to practice misery, I think the my boys won't appreciate that for another few years. Still, the rain finally stopped and the weather forecast showed a few days with no rain and crisper temperatures. Time for an overnighter.

We chose Mathildedal again for an easy location where there would be several possible fire places, should one already be occupied (which at this time of the year is unlikely). We got into the car a little over five in the Friday afternoon and started walking at 18:15. Sunset was at 18:30, so there was not much daylight available, hence the need for a fireplace (the everyman's right in Finland does not allow you to make a fire except in designated places).

After checking out the first possible tent site, we decided to continue to the one we used five weeks earlier. That site is on a small island accessible by a boardwalk and provides a view in all directions except north. The light disappeared rapidly and we soon had to put on our headlamps. I set up the tent and then started a fire for warmth, feel and to grill our sandwhiches. We spent a nice amount of quality time next to the fire.

The boys then went into the tent and read a little, while I took a few pictures. The moon was full just a few days earlier, so there was some potential for photography. This time I brought one of my bicycle lights to illuminate the tent, so there was no problem reading inside the tent.

We went to sleep some time between ten and eleven in the evening. I had brought a down west and down jacket to put on top of the kids sleeping bags for extra warmth, since the forecasted night temperature would be slightly low for the sleeping bags. The temperature did probably not go below freezing and was slightly higher in the tent, but the lake was close enough to keep the humidity high, making the air feel chilly. Luckily, the boys were warm and comfortable the entire night.

I got up and checked the weather a little over seven in the morning, but there was enough clouds to prevent any meaningful photography. Instead we just ate our breakfast consisting of coffee / hot chokolate and sandwhiches.

A little before eight (sunrise was at 8:07) I went out to see if the sunrise would be interesting. Often when there are lots of clouds, but still not a full cloud cover, the sun can give some interesting cloud colors for a short while.

For a few minutes the sky was on fire.

The tent spot.

The morning was chilly, so the boys got to use my down west and down jacket.

Surely I will be kicked out from the lightpacking communities now. The 80 liter Berghaus Extreme backpack was almost full.

On the move again.

The cranberries were finally ripe and very tasty.

Fall.

Gissa bajset! ("Guess the poo", a recurring theme in a popular Swedish nature TV program for kids).

Chanterelles at the same place as last time.

Just a short walk back to the car. Again I had some real quality time with the kids and I think we can aim for something a little more advanced next summer. We've already talked about doing some walking in the Norwegians fjells...

A short one

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 15:36:00 +0000

What do you do when you've used up all the vacation of the year? With work and family obligations limiting you possibilites. One option is to fall into depression or to open another beer. Another option is to make the most of the situation and go out anyway, if only for a short while.

Both Toni Lund and I had very limited time, but we still managed to get together for a short bikepacking overnighter during a break in the fall rain. Linnavuori in Piikkiö is about halfway between Turku and Paimio and was chosen for the overnighter. I started with my local trails...

... and then proceeded to meet Toni some fifteen minutes before sunset, which was at 19:53. The evenings are getting darker rapidly. We dragged our bike up to the top of Linnavuori and took some pictures of the sunset, enjoying the wide view.

Toni doing some photography.

At this time of the year the light after sunset does not last long.

Sleeping in a bivy bag, containing a short Thermarest Prolite 4 and my trusty summer sleeping bag.

Soon the moon came out. It was still fairly large, some five days after full moon.

Time to wake up a little before six in the morning.

Toni was in a hurry and just ate an energy gel before leaving, while I took the time to boil water for coffee on the BushCooker. I had some difficulty in getting it started, since the twigs I gathered before going to sleep were quite moist, due to the large amounts of rain during the week,

After breakfast I rode straight to the Littoistenjärvi lake trails and after that right home. I was home at 9:30.

The fall is nice, but has been a little too rainy this far.

Even a short overnighter fairly close to home is nice, and in a certain way it gives a lot of bang for the bucks.

I even managed to put together a short video from the trip, including some time lapse material, a first for me. I think it actually turned out quite nice.

Toni's report is here.

Another overnighter with the kids

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 18:53:00 +0000

The kids wanted to go to on an overnighter again and last Saturday was a good time for that. Full moon, clear sky later in the evening and possibly some rain in the early evening was the weather forecast. Since the last overnighter two weeks earlier the day had shortened by 1 h 17 minutes, but there still was enough light to put up the tent in good light. This time I wanted to check out the north side of the Matildanjärvi lake.

We jumped into the car for the one hour ride to Mathildedal a little after five in the afternoon. Mathildedal and the Teijo are is still the best alternative for a trip like this, even though it means driving there by car. The Kuhankuono area, which is 15 minutes closer, is mostly a national park with restrictions on where camping is allowed and it is not as nice as the Teijo area.

Full speed ahead.

Still some berries left.

No color.

Fall color.

Rufous Milkcap.

A very beautiful place.

The wood shed burned down. Or was it a shelter?

A short boardwalk section.

Still not enough stones in the lake.

We arrived at the place I had selected on the map and it turned out to be a good one. There is actually no shortage of good tent places on the north side of the lake.

Zooming in on the moon.

The water never ceases to interest.

Where is the treasure?

After a while the kids went in to play in the tent...

... while I watched the sunset.

The kids insisted on "real" outdoor food, so I made a Real Turmat Chicken in Herb sauce for them.

I took some pictures while the kids ate.

It was getting quite dark and the kids wanted to go out and play with their new head lights.

Time to go to sleep. Note the campfire on the other side of the lake.

We slept quite well and I got up in time to enjoy the sunrise. It really was a beautiful morning.

After a while I made breakfast for the kids and then they also came out.

No, daddy, I won't fall in the water.

Well, at least part of the sweater is dry...

The bumble bees are still asleep.

Going back.

Picking some chanterelles before arriving at the car.

This was another very nice overnighter with the kids in great early fall weather. The area is also very beautiful. The nature of these tours are totally different from my usual mostly solitary outings. I don't push myself at all, the only thing occasionally gets pushed is my patience. It is very satisfying to see the kids enjoy themselves and this is real quality time with them. The kids also talk about it a lot afterwards and want to go again as soon as possible.

Tour de Pöyrisjärvi part 3 - the gear

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 13:01:00 +0000

I'm a little late with this one, since I've prioritized other things lately, but now it is here.

The gear list, excluding the bike is here. I will probably be kicked out of the lightweight community for this, since the total weight excluding the bike was 17.6 kg, but I'd like to point out that almost 5 kg of that was camera and bike specific gear. Anyway, I don't intend to go through all the details here. Instead I'll just give some random observations on what worked and what did not work.

The bike

The most important part of a bikepacking trip is naturally the bike. I got the Surly Pugsley last fall and built it to be capable of unsupported trips for at least a week in both summer and winter. It works very well for this purpose. During the winter the fat tires give lots of floatation on trails and snowmobile tracks and in exceptional circumstances even on snow crust. During the summer the fat tires provide a sufficient amount of suspension in a mechanically simple package and the extra floatation is also useful in certain terrain. The internal Alfine gear system works very well and is not vulnerable to the same problems external derailleur gears are. If the Alfine breaks down it is impossible to repair in the field, though, but the Pugsley allows swapping to rear and front wheels, which could help in some cases. I have a 20 tooth fixed gear on the front wheel just for this purpose.

I've equipped my Pugsley with a frame bag and both front and rear racks. The racks weight about 520 g each and the frame bag 300 g. This setup enables me to load all the gear on the bike itself, leaving the back free for a light slingshot type camera bag. With a badly herniated lower back riding with a heavy backpack is out of the question anyway.

It is hard to find anything negative to say about the bike setup, except that it weighs about 5 kg more than a full suspension bike without any extra bags. It also rolls noticeably heavier on asphalt and to some extent dirt roads, but when the going gets rough there is no difference in rolling resistance. I would still say that a fatbike is the optimal bike for the Pöyrisjärvi region.

Shelter and sleeping

I'm still very satisfied with the Tarptent Double Rainbow. This tent model is a good compromise between a tarp and a tent. In good weather it can provide a very open bug shelter and when the weather gets bad it can be closed down fully. It is also fast and easy to set up. The weight is 1150 g for this two person model, which is quite ok in my book. With the lightest possible solo solution I could save about 700 g in weight, but I really can't justify getting a separate solo tent currently. The Double Rainbow is big enough for me and one of the kids, which was one of the criteria for buying it.

The sleeping gear was my old Beeline 900 sleeping bag weighing 600 g. I've used it in comfort in a few degrees below freezing, so a lighter solution could be possible for a trip like this, but I still think 600 g is quite ok. My home made fleece wine bag pillow is worth its weight (120 g), but the Prolite 4 Short sleeping pad is a little heavy at 520 g. The NeoAir Short sleeping pad I ordered via Partiovaruste just arrived and should be a better: It weighs 260 g, is warmer and pack down smaller (see the picture below). Now that the kids are accompanying me on more outdoor overnighters I could justify getting a new one, since the old Prolite 4 still gets some use. Otherwise I'm reluctant to replace existing gear that works perfectly fine for several reasons, one of them being trying to consume less for environmental reasons. A last minute addition was the Kaira Extreme closed cell foam sleeping pad weighing 146 g, which is quick to use for short breaks and also gives structure to the drysack containing food on the front rack.

Food and cooking gear

I relied mostly on the Norwegian Real Turmat series of outdoor food. It is superior in taste and functionality to the other alternatives I've used (the British Fuizion still remains to be tested). In addition to this, I had porridge for the mornings, which was ok for a few days, as well as some dried meat and beer sausage (I will bring more of these the next time). Müsli bars, chocolate and sports drink provided additional energy, but I still probably got only about half the amount of energy I was actually using up. The energy gels were a catastrophy, as I described earlier, and the French roast coffee made in the coffee press provided enjoyment in the morning and afternoon.

The BushCooker wood stove worked great and will certainly be my choice in the future unless great amounts of rain is expected. In just a few minutes I gathered the twigs necessary to cook a full pot (900 ml) of water and contrary to what I've read, it could be used from within the tent. It was still far enough from the tent fly to be safe to use.

Clothes

There is not much to say about the clothes, except that everything worked just fine. The weather was warm and dry enough to require very little of the clothes. I used the Haglöfs OZO Pullover during a few rain showers but did not bring any rain pants and did not miss them either. I had a Golite micro-fleece type shirt with me for warmth, but did not use it. The Haglöfs Shield wind pants worked just as they should, as did the Montane LiteSpeed jacket. I also brought a pair of Sealskinz waterproof socks, which I had great trouble buying, but did not use them once. If the weather would have been colder, they would have been needed, though, since my feet were wet for long periods of time.

Photo gear

I intended to document the trip fairly thoroughly both in still pictures and video, but this became harder after I lost the tripod head quite early in the trip. I had a fairly big DSLR, the Canon EOS 60D, with a fairly heavy 15-85 mm lens in the excellent LowePro Slingshot 102 AW bag. This bag is small enough not to cause the usual problems a backpack and is very fast to use. Just unclip one strap, swing it to the front, open the side compartment and take out the camera. In addition to this I had the excellent compact camera Canon S90 in the gas tank bag, which I could take out in just seconds. In practice I took about half the pictures with the compact camera. For self documentation purposes I had a small tripod with me, the Slik Sprint Mini Pro GM weighing 690 g. It is just stable enough for the DSLR. This tripod was the only item I had problems with, the problem being that the tripod ball head fell down somewhere on a trail near the Norwegian border. The vibrations probably caused it to come loose. Otherwise the tripod performed adequately, and I've since bought another one.

During the trip it occurred to me that my camera gear was oversized for a trip like this, since photography was not my first priority. Looking at the pictures afterwards, I think the picture quality of the compact camera was more than good enough and for the most part the pictures of the DSLR were not of mentionably better quality. When I got home I started to look at other alternatives, and after having found a good deal in a local Rajala camera store I bought a m43 system consisting of the Olympus E-P2, 14-42 mm and 40-150 mm lenses, which together weight less than just the EOS 60D body. I've since sold the 60D with several lenses.

Things I forgot

I actually missed only two things: A spare spoke would have been nice to have and would have brought some peace of mind, when one spoke broke on the back wheel. The other things was a small binocular. There were a few northern birds I would have liked to look closer at, though I think I identified them with reasonable certainty. I've since bought a very light and small monocular, the Luger MM 6x18 weighing only 76 g, which should suffice for these needs.

I've probably forgotten to mention something really important, so feel free to ask questions. The gear list should be at least 97 percent accurate, but might still contain some small errors.

Overnighter with the kids

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 13:53:00 +0000

The kids wanted to go to Mathildedal for an overnighter again, which suited me fine. I didn't want to go with them in the worst bug season and it then took this long to find a suitable weekend. Mathildedal is about one hour from Turku by car, unnecessarily much in my opinion, but the area is great. Compared to the areas north of Turku, there are a lot more lakes, which I happen to like.

The weather forecast promised good weather and one of the warmest nights of the summer. We packed the backpacks, got in the car and started walking about 18:30 in the evening.

The preferred camping spot was not much over two kilometers from the car, but when going out with the kids the distance is secondary. And the progress is far from linear...

There are obviously not enough stones in the lake.

The wild rosemary is starting to get some color.

The bog bilberries were unusually sweet and tasty. Usually they just have a diluted blueberry taste, but this time they tasted great.

Nearing the tent spot. I had actually planned to seek out a place north of Matildanjärvi, since I assumed that the best spot at Puolakanjärvi would be occupied, but we met a couple of day hikers who told us nobody was there.

We had some fishing gear with us, but since the kids do not yet handle the gear independently we did not do much fishing. I had my hands full with putting up the tent, doing some photography and preparing the food.

It was a beautiful evening.

Pancakes, a most noble outdoor food.

After the sunset a surprisingly large number of mosquitoes appeared. It was a lot worse than in Lapland three weeks earlier. The kids went into the tent while I took some more pictures, testing my new camera.

We went to sleep sometime between ten and eleven in the evening and slept until seven in the morning. The night was warm and I just had a thin silk liner instead of a sleeping bag. The kids slept well in their fleece blankets.

The morning wasn't entirely bad.

I don't see much enthusiasm over the porridge.

Exploring the surroundings unnecessarily close to the water while I took down the tent and packed the backpack.

Heading back.

Taking pictures of cranberries.

More berries.

A short break with müsli bars.

White Waterlily (Nymphaea alba).

It is still at least a month until the cranberries are ripe, even though some have a nice color already.

The fall is coming.

A small island in Matildanjärvi.

Almost there.

We arrived at the car just as it started to rain. The outing was great and the kids have been asking (numerous times) when we will go again.

Tour de Pöyrisjärvi part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 10:01:00 +0000

The first part of the write-up is here.

Around 4:30 in the morning I was woken by the sun shining right on my face. With the side panel open there was nothing but the bug netting in between. I took a photo of the beautiful sky and then shifted my position in the tent to get some shadow and slept for another three hours.

I now noticed that the bugs had bitten me quite a bit on the legs the previous evening. During the whole trip there were very few mosquitoes, but on this place and that of the following night there were midges around. Not enough to be really irritating, but this was the kind that bite without you noticing it before it's much too late, like the following morning.

I made my usual breakfast and started riding a little before nine in the morning.

The route first took me up to Palolaki.

Reindeer.

And then down again.

It was fun going down, but I went a little too fast and didn't have time to avoid a very sharp rock in my way. I heard the stone hit the rim and immediately braked to confirm the snake bite puncture.

Pumping up the a fat tire takes its time.

The route continued soutwards towards Vuontisjärvi and was occasionally very rocky. When crossing a creek I found this nice flower:

I filled my water bottles in the creek and went up the following hill for lunch.

After lunch the landscape closed in and the trees became taller and taller. Near Vuontisjärvi I saw two guys fly fishing and two paddlers dragging their canoe past a rough part of the river Pöyrisjoki.

I arrived at Vuontisjärvi for a 45 km road section to Kalmakaltio. My map showed a store in Peltovuoma, but it was fortunately closed. Otherwise I might not have been able to resist the temptation to buy a Coke, something I don't drink otherwise. In theory it would have destroyed the self-supported nature of the trip, though in practice it would not have mattered much.

It started to rain quite a bit and thunderstorm closed in. The thunderstorm went towards southeast while I rode more in the northeast direction, so I managed to avoid most of it. The temperature quickly went down to about 10ºC (50ºF), but I had no problem keeping the warmth in shorts and the very thin Haglöfs OZO rain jacket.

Again I pushed on for a few hours more than would have been really comfortable (notice a pattern here?) and came upon a suitable camping spot around 19:30. Still, I wasn't as tired as the previous days and it actually felt like from now on the body had adapted to the insufficient energy content of the food and really turned up the fat burning mechanism of the body.

The dinner, a Real Turmat Chicken in Herb Sauce, tasted very well and was complemented with a Ridderheims Red Devil beer sausage afterwards. Delicious. During the evening and night the weather changed between sun and rain showers, but the amount of rain was still quite small.

I got up in the morning and made my usual porridge and coffee. By now I was pretty fed up with the porridge, but had no other option than to eat it. Maybe rice porridge from some sort of rice flakes and milk powder would be a good variation.

The riding started with fairly dull weather, but no real rain. The goal for today was to arrive at Maaterlommol, which would mean a long day. The trail was more like a road in the beginning, so I made good speed.

At this time of the year, the heather brings a lot of color to the landscape.

I still took the time to enjoy the landscape.

Soon the sun came out and brightened up the landscape.

Beach riding.

There was even sand without a beach.

Some (for me) unknown toad species.

I soon met a backpacker who had been walking a week on mostly the same route I was going today and tomorrow. I was the first person he met in a week. He confirmed my assumption that the south part of Maaterlommol would offer a very good camping spot. He also recommended a camping spot between Pöyrisjärvi and Näkkälä for my final night in the field, one which I later would find very nice.

Nearing the Norwegian border the landscape again opens up.

I took lunch here. For lunch I had a British Fuizion rice pudding provided by Korpijaakko. Bad timing, I should have taken a Norwegian Real Turmat now that I was in Norway again.

It felt like it took longer to boil the water now. The wind was probably the main reason for this, but the thick layer of soot on the pot might have contributed.

The blueberrys were ripening, three weeks later than in the south part of the country.

The trail continued along the border between Finland and Norway. The fence visible on the picture is not the border, it is a fence meant to keep the reindeer on one side of it.

A fairly flat open landscape.

A view into Øvre Anarjohka National Park in Norway.

The trail continued along the reindeer fence for a few hours until it turned towards Kalkkujärvi.

This section had some good parts, like the one below, but was in places also very rocky and hard to ride.

And then there was mud.

Bog water is good for the skin.

In the evening I entered a sandy region again.

A slight detour up to Dihkkecohkka.

The view south with Pöyrisjärvi far back.

The ordinary place to cross Maaterlommol.

I continued to the south part of Maaterlommol to find the nice camping spot. Again it was getting a little late and I came to have another twelve hour day.

It was nice indeed. I put the tent some 30 m from the beach.

I took a refreshing bath in the lake before dinner. The water was actually not very cold. After dinner I ate the last of my beef jerkeys, something I will bring more of the next time.

The night saw some rain and hard wind, forcing me to close down the tent fully until the morning. At this point I had mostly run out of trails to ride and had no hurry anywhere. Kare Eskola had told me about a possibility to continue westwards and at some point turn south to Kaaresuvanto, but I concluded that it would have been a little too tight. Hence I had a lot of time and decided to enjoy it slowly. After the morning coffee I went out for a walk in the surroundings.

My tent spot from another direction.

Máderjohka.

Checking out the route for today. The map showed no trails, but I found a good route starting with the sandridge going inwards from the right in the picture.

Máderjohka would be no problem to cross.

My tent is in the middle of the picture.

I decided to eat lunch before leaving. For lunch I had very special plans: A Real Turmat Pasta Vegetariana, which have an excellent tomato sauce taste, spiced up with pieces of a Ridderheims beer sausage with chili grade explosive. I was actually warned in the supermarket about this one, but it turned out to be great. In addition to the normal stuff it contained habanero, ginseng, taurine and guarana. Just what a mountain biker needs!

This turned out to be the best lunch of the entire trip.

Around noon I started riding. After the crossing the creek I soon came to the sand ridge.

Clearly I was not the first one here.

The fatbike worked well without a trail.

A pair of long-tailed skuas in their natural environment...

... an environment I was clearly not a part of according to them.

An interesting looking creek. There are obviously a lot of rocks under the bog.

Easy terrain.

After a while I came to a trail again and turned south. Pöyrisjärvi seen from west.

More and more trees crept into the landscape as I continued.

After I little over three hours I arrived at the camping spot recommended by the backpacker. I put up the tent, made coffee, studied the map and finally spent almost two hours listening to the fantastic melodies and orchestrations of Luca Turilli from my smartphone, not asleep but not quite awake either.

After resting I went out for a walk, going up a hill to get reception for calling home to my family. The evening and surroundings were nice.

Dinner time. Until now I had eaten only Real Turmat meals, with the exception of the Fuizion rice pudding, but I had one Travellunch Chili Con Carne with me and decided to try it. It was a true disappointment after the Real Turmat meals: It tasted artificial, the bag did not keep the warmth and it did not even seem to reconstitute properly.

My last night went without problems. Friday was here and I was to return to the civilization. But not before breakfast.

The "road" between Pöyrisjärvi and Näkkälä.

Arriving at Näkkälä.

I decided to take the road to Hetta, which was about 40 km of asphalt, instead of riding the trail I had ridden last Saturday. I wanted my impressions from the trip to end with the landscapes of the last two days, instead of that of the Hetta-Näkkälä trail.

I arrived in Hetta early in the afternoon and rented a room at Paavontalo. After a shower I went for a pizza. A plate of fresh vegetables tasted fantastic, as did the beer, but the pizza was a slight anti-climax. While it tasted great with lots of garlic and blue cheese, I found it hard to eat the entire pizza. Though I had fantasized about eating lots of food, my body had adapted to the smaller portions of the trip. Before going back to the room I bought some food for the evening and later managed to eat a delicious large piece of smoked Atlantic halibut.

My bus left for Rovaniemi at 7:30 on Saturday morning, took some four hours and then I had a long wait for the night train to the south in Rovaniemi. I got on the train, slept and got up around five in the morning to change train in Tampere, but was told to go back to sleep since the train was four hours late. I got back home just before noon on Sunday.

Here is a slideshow with a lot of pictures.

How do you sum up a trip like this? In one word, just fantastic!

I will discuss the gear I used in a final installment.

A late addition, the video:

Tour de Pöyrisjärvi part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 14:24:00 +0000

The Pöyrisjärvi trip started with a very good weather forecast and for once even a reasonable amount of planning. I had six full days of riding time as well as an evening with about five hours. The route was pretty much clear, though I had only a vague idea about the terrain and hence had not planned any camp sites.

On Friday I packed everything I needed, or at least thought I would need. I got uncharacteristically systematic this time and made a spreadsheet with exactly everything, including the weight of the items. Having a list of the items needed makes the actual packing of stuff a lot easier than otherwise, and I managed to not get too stressed about it. Around 19:30 I started riding to the railway station, maybe 7 km away, and got there in time.

After two hours on the train I got to Tampere, where I got on the night train north. Since my last time on the night train the railway company has renewed the sleeping cabins with air conditioning and a little more space. I slept all the way to Rovaniemi, with some interruptions, where we arrived at 7:50 in Saturday morning. Now I had almost four hours of waiting until the bus further northwards would leave. I had hoped to eat a pizza before that, but it was too early in the morning to actually be able to get one. After riding through Rovaniemi downtown I returned to the railway station and waited for the bus.

The bus left at 11:30 and took its time, but at least I got some solid advice about the route from Kare Eskola, who has lots of experience from the area. He was going to mtbSeikkailu 2011, a supported mtb tour in the region, featuring very hard riding. See Matti H:s write-up in Finnish for that one. At 16:30 the bus arrived in Hetta and after eating pasta with chicken at Café Silja I started riding.

The route started through mostly sparse pine forests on a sand ridges. The front felt slightly heavy to steer at first, but I quickly adapted to it. I actually had more weight in the front drysack due to it containing all the food and some other stuff. For the next day I packed it slightly differently to even out the weight between the front and back drysack and then I no longer noticed anything odd with the steering.

It took less than a half hour to encounter the first dead lemming (Lemmus lemmus), a very common sight during the trip.

Some singletrack. Most of the trail was ATV double track, ranging from being almost a road to being just some mud tracks in the bog. Occasionally it was rocky enough to be technically quite demanding.

Often it would have been just as easy to ride next to the actual trail.

The gold of the bogs. I ate quite a bit of these.

Boardwalk for ATV:s. One would think that it is easier to ride boardwalks with a fatbike, since the tire no longer fits in possible gaps between the planks, but the higher friction between the fat front tire and planks actually makes it harder to microsteer.

A fairly typical ATV trail. ATV:s are not allowed for recreational purposes, but the reindeer herders use them here.

Näkkälän välitupa - an open hut between Hetta and Näkkälä.

The whole area is a mix of bogs and sand ridges and hills, with some lakes thrown in between. The common cottongrass was still white here. As with everything, it is a lot later this far up in the north.

The riding continued. I ate some müsli bars to keep the energy level up. My feet were wet from a bog crossing that was not entirely rideable even with a fatbike. At one point a small stick jumped up into the rear wheel and as a result a spoke broke. I did not have a spare one (a big mistake), but I was not too worried about this. Still, I decided to make sure that I was not much more than a day of walking from the nearest road when the time to return would come.

No shortage of live lemmings either.

The first leg of the trip took longer than I had expected and I rode for over five hours before coming upon a good spot to spend the night. This time I did not make a dinner, since I ate just before I left and it was getting late (~22:30) by the time I had the tent up. I merely chewed on some beef jerkey before going to sleep.

The night was warm with almost no wind at all and it did not get dark. Though the sun was below the horizon for four hours, it was just by a few degrees, enough to give a lot of light. I slept well even with the lemmings squeaking around the tent and finally woke around 7:30. It was a nice Sunday morning.

I had spent a few minutes after getting to camp gathering small branches and used it to boil water with the BushCooker for morning porridge and coffee.

The camp in the morning.

I got going again a little over nine in the morning. I started with some trail-less riding before going down to the road leading to Leppäjärvi.

The road section didn't take too long and soon I neared the trail to Kultima. Before that I had to go through this gate, which hopefully was intended to keep reindeer out instead of cyclists.

Crossing Palojoki on a bridge.

You'd need a packraft to cross this one with a bike.

In places the trail to Kultima was very easy to ride.

I took lunch a little earlier than I would have like to, since after this particular place there would be no good water source for a while. Some sections needed some planning to make sure that good water would be accessible, but my two bottles of one liter each helped the situation. There were lakes regularly close to the trail, but many of them were hard to access being surrounded by very soft bogs.

A good lunch is preferrable followed by two cups of French roast coffee.

Syntiinlankemusjärvi (Fall of Man lake)

After the trail turned north towards Salvasjärvi from Kultima it became worse. Clearly it was too bad for some poor animal.

The riding was occasionally quite hard and it was a little too warm (20ºC, 68ºF) since there was no wind at all. At this point I also took notice of some noise from the bike. One source of the noise was the rear rack, where a screw was coming a little loose. It was easy to fasten and gave me no more problem during the trip. The second problem was the right crank, which also was coming loose. The reason for this was that I replaced the bottom bracket just before I left and while I did fasten it with about the proper torque, it usually needs retensioning later. My small bike multitool did however not allow enough torque to be applied, and I had to retension it every day for the rest of the trip.

A slight miscalculation. Looking carefully at the map I should have seen that a short and wet bog crossing would have been possible. Instead I just followed some ATV tracks and found myself in a long and wet crossing. It was sort of rideable. With maximum effort the bike went forward and did not sink too deep. I repeated this 50 m at a time, resting at the occasional bushes and finally got over.

Siilaslompolo

The Saami village at Salvasjärvi. It is mainly used in the summer.

Continuing northwards. At this point I was getting very low on energy and took an energy gel. Like in Tahko 180 km this turned out to be counterproductive. About 40 minutes after eating the gel I started feeling sick and started vomiting. After emptying my stomach of everything I felt better and could continue. I consider this to be the final proof that energy gels are not for me.

Entering Norway.

I felt quite weak at this point and a pair of long-tailed skuas (Stercorarius longicaudus) started to attack me, flying very close to me. Maybe they were expecting my imminent demise...

By now I just wanted to stop at the first suitable place, mainly needing access to water. It still took some time finding one.

I finally crossed a creek with a good tent spot close by and set up my tent. This was around nine in the evening after a fairly long day. It was interesting to see that as soon as the drive and concentration to move forward was no longer needed, I started to feel really weak due to having almost no energy at all. While setting up the tent I crawled on all four instead of standing up, since that felt too hard. I felt too sick to be able to eat any real food, so I just boiled some water and made blueberry soup (from powder). I drank it, slept for half an hour and felt good enough to start to take in some more calories in the shape of müsli bars and beef jerkey.

The tent spot was still quite ok.

I woke earlier on Monday morning and felt much better. I even had company in the tent.

Boiling 0.9 l of water again.

Butter to increase the caloric content of the morning porridge.

Airing out some stuff before leaving.

I started a little over eight in the morning and soon entered my dear homeland again.

The trail continued and was easy to ride. Unfortunately it went the wrong way, which I discovered after a while. That should teach me to pay attention to the map.

After a while I came to the Hetta-Kautokeino road and followed it for a kilometer or so before coming upon the trail eastwards. I now noticed that I had lost the ballhead of my tripod. The stupid thing had no real locking mechanism and probably unscrewed itself because of the vibrations and shaking. Bad design and also my fault for not recognizing the failure mode. This would come to restrict video filming and self documenting.

A lemming did not appreciate my presence on its trail.

Aggressive little critters.

The boardwalk was not rideable in its entirety.

Fast singletrack...

... as well as bike pushing.

I came from there.

A poor lonely pine at the top of Spalloaivi.

Easy enjoyable singletrack with a slight descent.

This pine looks a lot better.

I arrived at Kaamusjärvi just as Jackoja and his buddy (Jaakko if I heard correctly) were leaving. This was an excellent camp site and for that reason they did not continue until noon. From reading fillarifoorumi I knew I would run into them, since we had almost the same route the first days. I had seen their tire tracks the day before.

Their backpacks look a little big and heavy.

I stayed for lunch.

The lunch was a Real Turmat Cod Casserole, which was excellent.

Beach riding at Kaamusjärvi.

The trail continued southwards, where it joined the trail/road between Näkkälä and Pöyrisjärvi. It was not real road, but probably good enough for a real terrain car. A SUV would not come far on it, though.

Jierstirovanjärvi.

I continued towards Pöyrisjärvi, where I run into Jackoja and his buddy again. They had just eaten lunch. We shared the raft at Iiskonsalmi. I then continued a little faster, since my fatbike was a little better suited to the in places rather soft ground.

The Oivuksenranta beach, a narrow strip of sand between the Oivuksenvuoma bog and the lake. A little over 2 km of fatbike heaven. Part of it was under water, but I could still ride all of it.

The soft bog started just a few meters from the beach.

The beach riding was over for now. The beginning of the Pöyrisjoki river was easy to cross by going a bit into the lake, where the water was only knee-high.

Looking back at the beach. If you look carefully, you can see Jackoja and Jaakko crossing Pöyrisjoki on the lake side.

I continued towards Kalkujärvi. At one point there was an almost bizarre landscape with sand, grass and juniper. Again I started to get low on energy, but this time I avoided the energy gels and made a sport drink instead. The sport drink actually felt a lot better to drink than just water and I also think the body absorbed it better since it contained some sugar and electrolytes. This had again been a very warm day and I probably drank some eight liters of water during the day.

At around seven o'clock in the evening I started to look for a suitable camping spot and a little under two hours later came upon this one.

It was on a sand ridge and open enough to provide a good view. A creek was nearby and I took a refreshing bath in the Lappish jacuzzi (sit down in a cold stream). Again I had had a long day of riding, over twelve hours including less than two hours of breaks. I was tired enough to have trouble getting my dinner down, though I managed to eat all of it. Good thing the Real Turmat bags keep the food warm for a long time. A cup of blueberry soup and a little beef jerkey helped keep the hunger away.

Some twigs gathered for boiling water the next morning.

Good night!

Continued here.

Tour de Pöyrisjärvi

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 14:23:00 +0000

I'm back from the Pöyrisjärvi bikepacking trip. Seven days of riding in mostly dry (and almost too warm) weather. I had long and hard days, as well as a few easy ones. I enjoyed every moment of it, even the hard ones. The fatbike worked very well in the area. It provided enough suspension on the rough ATV trails and also floated well on the sand and boggy parts.

The route is shown below and mostly corresponds to the planned one. The total distance was around 400 km, of which 80 km was road.

Show Pöyrisjärvi on a larger map

It will take a while to process the experience and put it in writing. 24 GB of photos and video also takes some time to go through. Due to the slightly longer nature of this trip I will do a trip report in three parts: Part 1 (Saturday to Tuesday), Part 2 (Wednesday to Friday) and finally a post about the gear used. I should have the first part ready in a week.

Pöyrisjärvi bikepacking trip gets closer

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 15:17:00 +0000

Next Friday I'll take the night train to Lapland and then get on the bus to Hetta. I should be there at 16:20 in the Saturday afternoon. The plan is to ride long days and sleep seven nights on different places in my tent. The total length should be around 360-400 km, of which 60 km is on road and the rest is ATV trails, some singletrack and some bushwacking. Depending on my progress I'll probably check out some more dead end trails, which should yield more kilometres. The planned route is the following (view it in satellite mode, since the map is unusable):

Show Pöyrisjärvi on a larger map

Most of the gear is easy to choose, but I'm still working on some details. The shelter and sleeping gear has been tested well enough (Tarptent Double Rainbow tent, North Face Beeline 900 sleeping bag and Thermarest Prolite 4 Short sleeping pad). The bike is also a clear choice. I'll take my Pugsley with a frame bag and a drysack both on the front and rear rack, with a small LowePro Slingshot backpack for the camera gear. The rest is typical lightweight or ultralight outdoor gear.

I'm still debating whether to take my old MSR PocketRocket canister stove or the BushCooker wood gas stove. Since the weather forecast does not show too much rain now, I'll probably take the BushCooker complemented with some Esbit tablettes.

Regarding the water, I'm currently leaning towards taking some water purifier tablettes with me, since there are lots of lemmings and mice this year. I haven't read any reports from Finnish Lapland yet, but in the Swedish mountains people have gotten sick from the water and the Norwegian Institute of Public Health currently recommends against drinking water directly from the nature, also for outdoor purposes. I've never purified water in Lapland or the Scandinavian fells before, but it might make sense now. The reason the water is usually drinkable in Lapland and the Scandinavian fells is not because there are no disease carriers in it, but rather since it is cold enough to hinder bacteria growth and anything usually gets sufficiently diluted. The area I'm going to has some big rivers that surely are safe to drink from, but there are also lots of smaller streams I'm forced to use. A dead reindeer or a bunch of drowned lemmings upstreams in a smaller stream might be all it takes to get sick.

I also finally got my Sealskinz waterproof socks, which I had to order from the UK, since all shops I've visited in Finland, Sweden or Norway were out of size L. I'll take only one pair of SPD MTB shoes, and they will get wet, at least when fording streams with rocky bottoms.

During my recent family vacation in Sweden and Norway I spent a small fortune on Real Turmat outdoor food, so that should be pretty much covered. I still have a lot to plan regarding the food. I'll aim for about 3000 kcal per day, which would leave an energy deficit of at least 2000 kcal per day. It should be manageable, since my body should be fairly efficient at using body fat for energy. I might complement with a protein powder drink in the evening, if it looks necessary.

Toreskyrkja backpacking overnighter

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 13:17:00 +0000

I managed to sneak away from the family for a short overnighter in the Gausta area in Telemark county, Norway. We stayed in a hut at Kvitåvatn, for some reason a Danish place in Telemark. From having watched some documentary films made by DR Derude, I actually understood the Danish pronunciation without problems. Anyway, this was a nice base camp for a family vacation with good walking almost right from the hut.

After having been up the closest fell with the kids and wife earlier during the day, I started walking after having eaten dinner, a little over eight in the evening. My plan was to walk fairly hard for around three hours before making camp.

After a ten minute walk from the hut I arrived at Kvitåvatn at 928 m, where a T-marked (for Den Norske Turistforening) started towards the peak of Toreskyrkja (1392 m). The lower part of this trail was a little wet and worn, but became better above the treeline.

Kvitåvatn with Gaustatoppen (1893 m) in the background. The overexposed sky has automatically erased the ugly tower from Gaustatoppen.

T marks the trail.

Our hut was at the other side of the lake.

Bunchberry

The landscape is opening up at around 1000 m above sea level.

No need to carry water in Norway. There is always plenty of great tasting drinkable water. EDIT: The Norwegian Institute of Public Health actually recommends against this currently due to the risk of tularemia. Lots of mice and lemmings this year.

The route is up there somewhere.

At the horizon is Hardangervidda, the largest mountain plateau in Europe. Riding across Hardangervidda on singletrack with a mountain bike or fatbike would be an interesting project, but I haven't yet checked out any routes or if the national park rules allow it.

Going up.

Wood Cranesbill grew in a sheltered place quite high.

Peak photo.

The trail ended, but by going a bit down I came upon really easy walking terrain and continued towards my planned camping spot.

The sun set, but there was still no shortage of light.

I soon came upon another trail.

A little over eleven in the evening I arrived at my camping spot, next to the lake 1269. I put up the tent and made a hot drink before going to sleep. This was my first field test of the BushCooker. I think it was a worthy one. Finding fuel was no problem, in less that five minutes I had more that enough.

I enjoyed the evening and went to sleep around midnight. The view from the tent with the side panels open was nice with the full moon and all.

During the night the wind picked up quite a bit and I had to close down the tent fully. The next morning there was almost no wind at all and the view was again quite acceptable. I always try to choose a tent spot with a good view, in addition to having access to water nearby.

I got up a little before seven in the morning and ate a quick breakfast of sandwhiches and water. Since the family was waiting at the hut, I decided not to make morning coffee, since I hate rushing it when drinking coffee. Good coffee should be enjoyed slowly. I got going again and aimed to walk for about three hours.

I left the trail almost immediately, since it went the wrong way and I wanted to find my own route using only the map and reading the terrain. Finding an efficient route was not problem at all, since it is actually very easy to navigate in this kind of terrain when the visibility is good.

A poor spruce has chosen the wrong place to grow on.

A view back. In this kind of terrain the optimal route is often very obvious and I did soon find a faint trail going my way.

An unidentified mushroom.

Yes, I have long legs.

Down there somewhere.

That's where I came from.

And the road I aimed for. About 6 km of road back to the hut.

This was a really nice overnighter in nice weather. I would probably do a lot of fell walking if I lived in a place with fells, but they are unfortunately far away from my home.

A slideshow with more pictures.

In another hiking related matter, Hendrik Morkel from Hiking in Finland wants to make a Video Guide to Lightweight Backpacking. It is funded through Kickstarter and I hope you consider supporting it here. I did, since I'm convinced that it will be great and is worth supporting. It is not only for backpackers either, since it will cover a lot of outdoor stuff.

Midsummer bikepacking video

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 20:36:00 +0000

I finished the video from the summer solstice bikepacking trip.

Tahko MTB 180 km

noreply@blogger.com (Yeti) — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 13:02:00 +0000

Tahko MTB is the largest mountain biking event in Finland. It is arranged every year the weekend after midsummer in Nilsiä in Eastern Finland. This year over 1800 mountain bikers attended. There are a number of classes to choose from and the full route is 60 km long. It consists of approximately one third roads, one third easy trails/doubletrack and one third real singletrack, of which only a small part can be described as technical. Most people ride one lap, but the longer alternatives are getting more popular. The longest course alternates between 180 km and 240 km every year. I chose the longest alternative, this year three laps and 180 km, having done the 120 km version twice. The 120 km version is usually considered a real test for a mountain biker, with the longest version being reserved for real athletes. I have no background in sports or athletics and being averagely gifted in this area, it was to be a real test for me. Still, though I have only been into these endurance things since 2007, I've never been a couch potato. I have ridden my bike to school and work for most of my life and I have also done some sort of exercise for my entire adult life.

Last year I did two laps in a fairly good time, 7 h 49 min, and thought that a third lap would have been possible in a reasonable time, leaving the total at probably just under 13 h. Despite not getting to do the training I would have needed in May and June, I felt my fitness level was only slightly worse than last year, so I set 13 h as my target. When we got closer to the race, the temperature forecast went up and up, finally ending at over 30ºC (86ºF). Since I'm fairly big (192 cm / 99 kg), I use a lot of power when riding and therefore the high temperature would be a real problem to me. This forced me to redefine my goal to just getting through the ordeal safely.

There were 14 of us from MTB-Turku sharing transportation and accomodation to Tahko, which is over 500 km from Turku. Nine bikes fit into Ulla's van.

Matti H

We arrived at the cottage early in the Friday evening and started to unpack the bikes and gear.

After an evening with bike talk and speculation we went to sleep before midnight. The cottage was like a sauna and it was almost impossible to get any real sleep in the heat. I should have brought a tent...

At 04:00 in the Saturday morning the alarm clock woke me up. After a quick shower and a breakfast consisting of coffee and a few sandwiches I went to the starting point. The air was comfortably cool. There were 38 of us on the starting line for the 180 km ride, surely a new record.

At 05:00 we started and the real athletes soon disappeared in front of me. I felt rather weak and the first dirt road part until the Kinahmi 1 climb was quite hard. Shortly after the climb I threw up, getting rid of my breakfast and an energy gel. Not a good beginning. However, shortly after this I started feeling better and the rest of the first lap went quite effortlessly in 3 h 51 min.

In the beginning of the second lap I ate another energy gel, and immediately started feeling sick again. The first dirt road part was once again very hard. I really should try out the gels and get used to using them for events like this. At least the Dexal variant did not work for me. I managed to eat one more gel later, but during the rest of the ride my energy came from the sports drink, rye bread and cookies served at the check points. I don't think I got nearly enough energy from these, which affected my speed.

On top of the Kinahmi hill there was lots of people riding in a tight queue, something which was poor use of my energy. My own riding technique is efficient enough so that I don´t have to brake all the time, but in the queue I was forced to brake and accelerate all the time. The temperature started to bother me and henceforth I stopped at every check point to pour cold water over me to get the body temperature down at least a little. It was up to 32ºC (89ºF) during the day. I did put some extra salt in my sports drink and I think I was able to drink as much liquid as the body could take in, about 12 liters during the day, which still was a lot less than I lost. Despite this I started to get cramps in the middle of the second lap and I had to walk the steeper climbs. On the trail sections the cramps did not bother me, probably since the muscles are used in a more versatile way when riding on trails. Following Matti H's advice, I regularly counted down from ten in German as a self check. Safety was the first priority for me. At one point I had some disturbance in my vision, and the self check revealed that not everything was in order. After a short rest and some drinking I felt good again and continued. The time after two laps was 8 h 46 min, not especially fast, but not totally hopeless either.

Second lap, coming down from Kinahmi 1.

My progress was slow due to energy deficiency and cramps, but I found no reason not to continue into the third and final lap. Even though I was tired and felt slightly nauseous, my riding technique and the bike worked perfectly. The technical parts went without problems and I felt completely safe continuing. I did not allow myself to question what I was doing during the first two laps, but in the beginning of the third one I asked myself if I felt smart doing this. I got no answer. The dirt road section was again hard, but on top of the Kinahmi hill it again felt good riding the trails. The almost vertical climb of Kinahmi 2 (totally impossible to ride) was very tough and I had to stop and rest in the middle of it, much to the joy of the gadflies. After this climb the trail went mostly downhill and was a joy to ride. The remaining road sections were hard, but I was able to enjoy the trail parts. After the Tuulivaara check point I got my energy back, maybe because the end was less than two hours away. At the final El Grande climb the mosquitoes and gadflies were really angry when the crowd had disappeared and all focused their efforts on me. One final downhill section and a short flat part and I was done at 19:20 in the evening, after 14 h 20 min of riding, including maybe a half hour of breaks. I was not very fast, but I made it to the end safely and in these demanding conditions it was good enough.

After the race I did not really feel anything more than relief. No real joy or even great satisfaction. It seems like the race was more demanding mentally than physically. Today (Monday) I finally started to feel some satisfaction of actually making it. A partial reason for this was also that it took a lot of mental effort to stay sharp when driving the car home on Sunday while being somewhat tired.

I came back to the cottage, was congratulated by the others, drank a Coke (tasted heavenly), took a shower and fried some bacon before going to the pasta buffet. The bacon thing has been efficient at keeping the cramps at bay during the night following a very hard ride. It worked this time as well. During the evening we grilled sausages, ate, drank very moderate amounts of beer and contemplated the events of the day.

Around midnight we went to sleep and more or less suffered through the night in the much too hot cottage. It was a relief when someone had forgotten to turn off the alarm clock, which sounded at 07:00. A shower and a long breakfast with several cups of coffee followed. After some more bike talk and glorious plans we started packing our gear and bikes. The temperature was 15ºC. It would have been an optimal temperature for the race.

A little after eleven in the morning we started the drive back to Turku and after some seven hours the biking weekend was over. A big thanks to everybody in the MTB-Turku group!

A final analysis: Despite rather poor training (totally unsystematic and somewhat insufficient), not bothering to learn to use gels and weighing a fair bit more than a true competitive athlete, I made it to the end. It should at least mean that I'm strong enough on the mental side, which does inspire some confidence. Should I find the motivation to train better and lose some weight, a notably better result should be possible.