Aakenustunturi and The Snoring Blue Mussels

Aakenustunturi, Kittilä

We decided to take a rather spontaneous

get-away with my girlfriends.

And I have to admit,

I have never been so poorly prepared for an adventure.

With all the wonderful art projects keeping me occupied,

which I'm, believe it or not, getting payed for,

the preparation for the over night winter adventure went so,

that the evening before I run to the shop to buy food supplies

and on the morning we were supposed to go,

I start packing at 6 am,

which included

just mustering everything up in unorganized piles,

wondering where is my backpack

and finally finding it from the basement.

All it while fearing I would forget something important

and would be caring too much unnecessary things with me.

 

But as we started to drive towards Kittilä

and the day started to break,

all the anxiousness melted away.

The adventure truly begun,

when we realized the road and the parking lot,

we were planing to use, where not winter maintained.

We were lucky for our four wheel drive and

other visitors using the spot,

so we were able to get there

and find a small snow pocket on side of the road to park the car.

The first part of the trip was up hill,

as we had to cross over the fell Aakenus.

The view from the top was definitely worth of all the effort.

A huge swampy forest valley spread below us,

surrounded by high and white fells.

The winter colors where amazing.

It crossed my mind again,

how many beautiful places I still have to visit

this close from home. 

Rest of the way was more or less down hill.

Which was nice, as we had spend a lot of energy already.

Luckily we had had a good pace,

so there was still some day light hours left for us.

Other thing I kept wondering,

was the amount of snow.

There was soooo much snow!

Way more than in Sodankylä,

were we have been waiting the arrival of the real winter

and the big snowfall.

But here was snow everywhere!

Just an one and half hours drive away from home.

The wilderness hut we had picked,

was the oldest in the whole area.

And actually this was the latest moment to visit there,

as Metsähallitus is closing down the hut from use during this year.

So naturally we made a call advance

and asked, if it was still in use and ok to visit.

They show us the green light.

We knew to expect an old and primitive hut,

but it still took us by surprise.

The hut had not been used in a long time,

so it was frozen inside out.

There was really primitive fireplace

and insulation was mosh stuffed between the logs.

And there was no firewood in the woodshed.

Soooo, this would be an interesting night.

We all were prepared to sleep indoors and plus degrees,

but it looked more likely that the night would be rather cold for us.

As resourceful female adventurers,

we started to gather anything we could burn.

We collected some dead wood from the forest

and cut everything we found from the empty shed.

The plan was to try to dry the wet wood around the fire

and put 50/50 dry and semi-wet logs in the fire.

As I was lighting up the fire to the fire place,

I grinned to the girls.

"The fire place is full of mouse poop."

French Lady seemed confused and asked,

"Why people would put that in there?"

Now it was my turn to be confused.

"I don't think it is people whom has put the poop there.

I think it is the mouses."

She had heard me saying "moose poop".

That would have been confusing discovery in the fire place indeed.

We were able to have somewhat warming and hissing fire,

which was warming us, when we were sitting next to the fire,

but it didn't warm up the rest of the hut.

And as soon as the fire would die out,

or we would run out of things to burn,

it would be freezing again.

Luckily I had taken by big sleeping bag

as I'm feeling cold at night time in general,

but my companions where not that lucky.

French Lady had been prepared with two sleeping bags,

so she was quite ok.

For Miss Tiny Gastropod we needed to be more creative,

so we filled my drinking bottle with boiled water and but it in the woolen sock,

so she could have something warm to hug during the night.

She also got the place most close to the fire.

Although all the odds where on my favor,

I was the one not to sleep at night.

The cold creeped through my sleeping mattress

and my dear ladies where snoring so loudly,

that it was impossible for me to fall a sleep.

Finally I felt in some kind of in-between place,

where I ask the girls to stop the snoring

and they explained to me,

that it was not them who made the noise,

but it was the Blue Mussels they had brought with them,

that made snoring sound during the night time.

At the morning I made a small fire

from the couple logs we had left.

Not to warm the hut,

but give us little bit coziness

as we had warm breakfast

before cleaning up the hut

and heading back to the car.

On the way back we staid a bit lower on the fell side,

which made skiing a bit easier.

But still didn't compromise the views.

I have said this so many times

and will say it again.

I need to come back here some day.

A warm and loving thanks to my dear adventurer companions.