Holiday in Hossa – Week 22

With the customer gig behind us, we all began to look to the future…and our future was Hossa. The ski trip was originally planned to take place at Salamajarvi National Park, but due to a lack of snow this season, we changed locations to Hossa—a good deal farther away but with an abundance of snow. Google maps estimated an 8 hour trip, but with multiple breaks along the way and questionable road conditions, it ended up taking 12 hours. When we arrived, it was well past 9pm, nighttime was upon us, and we spent an additional hour locating the campsite where we were supposed to be for the next week.

Google lies! It took 12 hours, not 8…

Due to the late hour and everyone’s general grumpiness, Mikko-teacher decided to let us spend the evening in the campsite’s common lodge versus attempting to pitch our open shelters in 3 foot deep snow under the black cover of night.

First night, having a candle-lit dinner…not planned but still a welcome surprise

The following morning was my guiding day so Mikko, Lee, Silja and I woke up early and prepared breakfast for everyone. Afterwards it was time to set up camp, so we spent the morning finding a campsite and putting up the green army tent and our shelters.

Our base-camp laavu, where we prepared all of our meals.

Because the daily guides were responsible for preparing the communal food, myself and the others didn’t get a chance to put up our shelters until later in the evening when we returned from skiing. Somehow I forgot to bring rope to pitch my shelter, so I had to use a bit of stronger string I just happened to have in my bits and bobs bag. Definitely not ideal, but it held for the duration of the trip and I learned my lesson with regards to cordage.

In the afternoon of the first day, we all strapped on our skis for only the second time this season and headed out into the Hossa Hiking Area. It was surprisingly warm given the time of year with the temperature around zero or even a bit higher. While this was nice for hanging around camp, it made skiing a challenge as the snow formed great clumps under our skis, making us stick to the tracks.

Starting out for the first time…:)

For each time we went skiing, four sledges were used to give us practice for the upcoming Bear Ski where we will spend nine days out in Lapland on our own, with nothing but our skis and our sledges. Therefore everyone was very eager to test the sledges and get in some valuable practice. At least, eager for the first few days. By the third day, nobody was fighting for a sledge anymore…:) Each time we began a skiing adventure, the guide that was orienteering broke trail in the virgin snow and the next few skiers continued to break trail on either side in an effort to help those pulling the heavy sledges.

The planning group decided the skiing routes for all four days, with a few challenges thrown in for each of our guiding pairs. The main lake in the Hossa area was shaped like a horseshoe and given the warmer weather, there were quite a few patches of weak ice or even holes along the various routes. So when I started our first trek out into the wilderness, there might have been a few heart palpitations when it came to the lake crossing. Everyone loosened their bindings, unclipped their backpacks or harnesses and removed the handle loops on their ski poles from their wrists. In this way, if someone were to go through the ice it would be quick and easy to remove any equipment that might weigh them down. We all crossed without any problems and continued on our way…this time.

Crossing the lake for the first time…nail-biting experience…

Monday was our first full day of skiing so we started early and hit the trails. This day it was Ludo and Heidi who were guiding us up and over the hills of Hossa. Ludo took the lead first and chose good paths until…the steep hill of death. The only other option was to follow a snowmobile route, but Mikko-teacher said this wasn’t an option due to the risk of being hit, so over the steep hill we started to climb. I didn’t even have a sled and I still found this to be very challenging. After about an hour, we all made it and happily found our lunch site.

Ludo taking a break from breaking trail

Lunch time! I’m starving!!

Only half-way through the planned route, we ate lunch as quickly as possible before returning to camp. Due to the weak ice, Heidi had to find a new route home. It was my first time with a sledge and already struggled up the small hill at the beginning of the route, so when I saw Heidi start to climb another steep ascent, my heart fell to somewhere below my stomach. How the hell was I going to pull this ridiculously heavy sledge up that hill? Thankfully Andrew was behind me and agreed to be my support, so with one shaky step at a time, I began to haul the heavy sledge between the narrow gap in the pine trees. Barely half way up, I was already exhausted and looking behind me showed that Andrew was as well. Cheeks red, sweat rolling down our temples, we kept truckin’ upwards for what felt like hours. When we reached the top, well it was a very happy moment mixed with immense relief!

Tim and Andrew – happy to make it down the hill…they weren’t so happy after going up the next one…

Back at camp, I was prepared for a good night’s sleep. I struggled to stay awake for dinner and quickly collapsed afterwards. The following morning the planning group was responsible for cooking so Mira, Robin, Tim, and I all huddled around the common fire, making porridge and laughing about all the falls from the previous day. After breakfast, Mikko-teacher explained to us how to make a quincy – a basic snow cave used for thousands of years as an emergency shelter in snowy conditions. We then paired up and began the long process of piling snow into a small mound. It took the greater part of the afternoon to make a mound big enough. We let the snow rest for a few hours before starting to dig out the middle. As I was on cooking duty, I had to leave Ludo to dig on his own for a bit. I was surprised by how much he accomplished when I returned. Building the quincy took more energy in a lot of ways than skiing did. As a result we decided to call it a day after dinner.

Ludo and mine’s quincy – I’m so proud!

Wednesday it was back to the skis with Robin and Araz as our daily guides. Robin was our first leader and he did a great job picking a suitable route. We also had a beautiful location for lunch on this particular day.

Our lunch-time laavu

Beautiful spot!

Araz took over after lunch and led us on an interesting route back to camp, that ended with us skiing quite a distance down the road…

Some parts of the routes were more challenging than others.

To top it all, when we returned to camp around 9pm, Mikko-teacher told us we had to finish our quincys and sleep in them for the night. Already exhausted from pulling the sledge along Araz’s route, I felt a bit murderous when Mikko-teacher told us this. But I rolled up my sleeves and returned to the quincy to finish digging out the inside. And I’m glad I did. It felt good to finish it, but wet, sweaty, and tired, I decided to give my quincy to Charlie for the evening and spend one more night in my shelter – without her snoring 🙂

So nice!

Quincys are surprisingly warm – even if the outside temperature is -20C, the quincy is still -5C.

Sleeping are of our quincy.

During the first few days of the trip, Charlie had fallen ill and was taken to the hospital in Kuusamo. This meant that we needed an additional guide for skiing on our last day, so Ralph was kind enough to volunteer. He did a great job leading us to the top of the highest hill in the Hossa area, traveling through dense, old-growth forest. It was truly stunning scenery.

Old-growth forest on our last day – best scenery so far.

I ❤ trees!

The downhill to our lunch spot was super fun and we had a lovely chicken soup before heading back to camp. And then things became even more interesting. Following a similar route to the one Silja followed on our first day, Andrew came to the lake a few kilometers south of our camp. He decided to try crossing the lake where we were…did I mention there were holes in the lake? Well we found them…in the dark. Luckily the ice was thick enough to hold our weight and we managed to all cross safely, but again I experienced the thundering pound of a racing heart beat. What a great way to round out the ski trip!

Our overall skiing area.

Once back at camp, we found Lee, Robin, and Charlie with the cars packed and ready to go, so we piled in and made our way to the cabins where we would spend the final evening. Mira, Andrew, Charlie and Ralph prepared some delicious fajitas for all of us and we went to bed happy.

Coming back to the laavu on our last night – so happy to be alive!

Throughout the entire trip, I learned a very important lesson about timelines and expectations. Basically, if you are unsure about how long a route will take, don’t say anything to clients/customers/fellow guides. They then fixate on the time given and only grow disappointed and angry when things take longer than predicted. We encountered this problem almost every day. I also discovered that skiing with a sledge takes much longer than I had thought, especially with sticky snow conditions like what we had at Hossa.

The sun didn’t shine for a single moment, but it was still beautiful.

Overall – I enjoyed this trip and learned quite a bit about winter camping and forest skiing. I am more excited now than ever about the Bear Ski where I will get to do all of these things on my own. In some ways it will be easier, in some ways harder, but isn’t that true of most things in life? Weather will play a big part in how the trip goes, much like it did here in Hossa. It was nice to have warm sleeps, but the skiing was incredibly difficult because of the snow. Fingers crossed that conditions will be better in April!

Goodbye, Hossa Hiking Area – see you again, maybe never!

We drove back to Kuru and I then took a recovery day before heading back to Hetta for a few weeks of husky happiness. More on that later.

Hope you enjoyed reading about my skiing adventures. I can’t wait for the next one!

-Em