Over night adventure to Yli-Luosto

I'm super great full for the crazy friends in my life.

My life would be so much more duller without them.

And after all,

the best side-kick for an adventure is a person, who says

"Yes, it's a good idea to walk over 4 km in dark forest after full working day!"

"Let's do it!"

So about 9.30 pm we started walking with snowshoes

from Perhe-Luosto parking area

towards unknown.

Our goal was to reach the Yli-Luosto wilderness hut for the night.

4 km of walking.

Piece of cake!

We just follow the forest side between the swamp and the fell

and will arrive to the hut about in two hours.

The weather was really mild,

only little bit below zero.

The snow was deep and sinking to knee

beside our snowshoes.

Our whole world was the size of our headlamp spotlight.

The "forest" was newly cut

and the trees small and bushy.

So there was only bad choices to go.

We were sweating and cursing

and changing turns opening the path.

As we reached the point when it wasn't fun anymore,

but just heavy work,

we also realized it would take us so much more longer to reach the hut.

It became the never ending forest for us.

My friend pointed out in the bushed we were,

a big snow pile,

asking what is it?

I said as a joke,

that it looks like a big ants nest or a bear nest.

She looked at me but continued a few steps towards the pile.

Then she asked what about these big foot prints leading to the pile?

I looked to the prints and continued teasing her,

well, they don't look like a moose track.

She looked me little bit scared "But then it..."

I took my serious face and said to her that just keep walking.

She didn't need more, she started to walk away from the pile

with some haste in her steps.

I was smiling behind.

Until I heard some crushing branches behind us.

Then I started to walk little bit faster too.

I didn't dare to look back to the pile.

Finally we found the summer hiking trail.

Although it hasn't been used after snow fall by hikers,

the animals had been walking on it.

The snowshoes where caring better on the trail

and it felt like we would be flying onward.

The rest of the way went super fast

and before we noticed we reached the hut.

About 1.30 am.

Fire in the fireplace and roof on top of us where welcoming things.

I looked longing to the simple wooden bunks

and started to dig up my mattress and sleeping bag from my back bag,

when my friend said "oh, I didn't realize here is no mattresses"

Face palm.

Waking up to the new bright morning

and after good and heavy breakfast,

we started walking back.

As I didn't want to go back to the bushes

and my friend didn't want to cross the bear nest again,

we decided to follow the summer hiking trail all the way back to the cars.

The summer hiking trail went up to the fells,

so now in day light we could maybe see some nice views.

We started follow our own tracks back.

As we reached the point were the summer hiking trail was untouched,

we couldn't see our last night tracks coming on the trail.

This was little bit weird.

Maybe we actually were in some kind of Narnia last light.

At least now in bright day light it felt so.

The whole forest looked different.

Although the weather was nice,

views were beautiful and the forest full of interesting things to see,

at some point we started to get tired again.

The snow wasn't still caring us

and the day light started to vanish before the polar night.

We tried to follow a moose tracks every time they were going in some what right direction,

as the snowshoes were caring us little bit better there.

Finally on top of last fell we crossed some snowmobile tracks.

This was an pleasant and relieving sight.

Lucky for us the snowmobile track went straight back to our cars.

Later in the evening,

after sauna and stomach full of cheap frozen pizza,

I was feeling extreme happiness.

It was a rough adventure,

but definitely worth doing.

And I would have not done it

without my crazy friend.