Kuusamo – exploring the East side in “almost Lapland”
February 2021
As typically Finns do, we escaped the city during February towards the North. Destination: a cabin in the woods – of course.
I have normally visited the West side of Finland whenever travelling to the North, but this area was on my bucket-list for a while already. The first day the weather stayed moody for our first hike of the trip.
We could not skip the Riisitunturi National Park when visiting the area. It was a dream to finally being able to see the so known tykkylumi trees from the North. In fact, we loved the place so much, and the weather was so perfect, that we basically spent the whole day there. During the morning:
And during the night:
It was by far the most exciting experience I have had. Hiking the whole day around the park with snowshoes, having lunch at a fire place, and hiking under the northern lights. It took a big effort to spend the whole day photographing at -20ºC, but I would definitely repeat it.
The area where we stayed was also ideal for bird photography, so for those days that we were tired after hiking, it was just perfect.
The last hikes did not go as planned, but random days are sometimes the best of them all. We still wanted to see the sunset over the fells, so in the last minute we decided to go for a hike. In a matter of minutes we experienced all the possible colours of the sky.
We could not have enough taking pictures of the place, we had to stay until it was dark enough to stop. But indeed it was the best possible way to end the trip.
