Cross Country Skiing, Central Park of Helsinki

January 2011

Spent some four hours on skis at Central Park of Helsinki, in distance about 37km. Used classic style Fischer Zero skis, which did not need any wax preparation for climbing. Although this type of skis are basically made for zero degrees snow and even warmer, they worked quite well on these conditions.

Ski tracks were in excellent condition and absolutely crowded by people. Temperature was about 6 degrees below zero and it stayed cloudy the whole day. There's been no sun on several days, perhaps the mechanism introduced in this TV ad would eventually bring the sun to the southern Finland, too?

Here's the route:

A small stream near Maunula

The 'main highway' of the Central Park

Maintained paths, from left to right;
for skiing, for horse riding and for walking

A pair of Police patrolling in the forest

Blue dimm sky behind Paloheinä fields

Ski tracks through Niskala Arboretum

Snowshoeing in Nuuksio National Park, Finland

January 2011

Did a 13km snowshoeing hiking trip in Nuuksio (Noux) National Park. The weather was miserable, light rain and temperature above zero degrees (Centigrades), making snow soft and sticky. There was a lot of snow in the forest, although becoming days will pack snow a lot. Perhaps due to the weather conditions, there was no sign of any animals at all (a day off?).

This trip was also to test a down fill jacket's capability to keep a body warm during longer breaks in cold and windy conditions. Tested down jacket was Halti's new model, Whiff 550. During the hiking, the jacket was packed into one of its pockets, thus it did not reserve much space in the backpack.  Have to say that Halti's down jacket fulfilled its requirements (created by the undersigned), keeping a sweat body warm enough.

Here's the hiking route:

Some streams were not fully frozen

A snowshoe path near Holma-Saarijarvi lake

Wet snow can do some damage to trees

A nature can make an emoticon

Snowshoeing in Central Park of Helsinki

January 2011

Did the 2nd snowshoeing walk into the forest this year (today's Epiphany). Here's the route: link to Google Maps (about 11.5 km in 3h 40min).

Strong wind with a relatively mild minus degrees brought an interesting hiking weather, as the wind dropped huge glimpses of snow from the big trees. Like bombing but not life dangerous.

In Helsinki, there's more snow now than in Lapland. Last time the temperature was above zero was in the mid of Nov-10. Now the weather forecast promises above zero degrees (in Celcius), so most probably this was the last snowshoeing day in the powder type of light snow in the south of Finland.