Under the midnight sun far North

Large flocks of reindeers were roaming the hills. Some braver ones were coming really close to the wanderers. Exhibiting their silky horns and wise eyes. Watching the wanderers pass by their barren lands. Lemmings were scurrying quickly over the paths, lots of them. Again and again, like small furry balls rolling down the hills. White owls were circling in the sky. Carefully scanning the terrain for careless lemmings. Here and there tiny fur stacks littering the path. Silent evidence of love struck lemmings fallen pray to the owls. The poor lemmings raised their voices in their attempts to attract a partner, revealing themselves to their predators.

Lapland, I can tell you, is quite a magical place in the early summer. Not only is the wildlife active, so are the plants. Plants have only six months of light, and they need to make the most of it. Almost all the flowers of the North were blooming. Creating beautiful patterns of color, light and texture over the rolling mountains.

 

I’m back home from quite a relaxing experience of nature, space and silence. My wife and I went backpacking for a week on the Hetta-Pallas trails in Finnish Lapland. We took the less traveled direction from Jerisjärvi to Pallas and forth to Hetta, 73 km all in all. Unfortunately a heat wave the previous week brought out the mosquitoes as well as the flowers. We had to endure the tiny devils buzzing around in the valleys. It was well worth it though, and fortunately we brought some great mosquito repellant.

We met four runners. They were doing the Hetta-Pallas trail of 55 km all in one day. It strikes me this trail would indeed make a great 50k race. The Midnight Sun Run. Experiencing the barren wilderness scenery trough a runners high in the mild yellow light flowing from the midnight sun. That would be serene, magical. I believe it could well attract people worldwide. If I didn’t have my full time job in Helsinki maybe I could arrange something? Finding partners shouldn’t be hard. There were plenty of available rooms in the hotels in Hetta. A concern for the Lapland tourism is how to improve profitability of the summer season. Backpackers camping in the wild don’t bring much dough to the locals.

Maybe some day... Or maybe some one else could make something out of it. In the meanwhile, I’ll consider returning next year for an alpine run training camp. Great trail. Lots of technical stuff. Lots of uphill. Lots of downhill. Some quite steep climbs. Some gentler ascends. Loads of fun.

-Written on the bus to Turku-

I’m going to run the Paavo Nurmi half marathon today. The past two weeks I’ve been out jogging only twice. Due to the stomach flu I caught in Lapland. I had a high fever initially and prolonged imbalance of stomach bacteria. Ouch! And of course I took some time off simply tapering. Plus 32 degree Celsius forecasted with blazing sun! Start time at 13:20, it is going to be a slaughter.