2014-11-02 62 27

Location

In Neulamäki, Kuopio. The point lies in a forest, near a skiing trail.

Participants

Tilley

Expedition

The snowman we built after the swimming trip. The creature portrayed is "Gruffalo" from a children's book by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler. Translated into Finnish as "Mörkyli".

Today's hash was so close, that it had to be visited. Only about 5 km straight, and 8 km via roads.

There were some hindrances, however. When opening the curtains on the morning there was a few centimeters of snow on the ground, and it was heavily snowing more. After breakfast me and my daughter visited the nearby swimming hall - she don't want to miss her weekly swim for any reason. When stepping out of the door, we noticed there was already about 7 cm of snow, so the best method of transportation on the unploughed roads was obviously a pulk. We grabbed one from the shed. She sat on the pulk, and I pulled it. After the swimming trip we built a snowman on our front yard. Then we went in to eat lunch, and then she went on to have a daytime nap with her mother.

A view to lake Kallavesi along the way.

So it was time for me to do the hash-expedition. I quickly grabbed my gear, and went to the bike shed. There were two options: The easy one was my wife's electric bicycle. The hard one was my mountain bike. I decided to take the trip at least moderate exercise in my mind, so I chose the mountain bike. It had good fat tires to cope with the snowy conditions. When turning from our snowy home street to the bigger one, I noticed that the main bicycle paths were already ploughed. Blah, I wouldn't have needed that. However, another problem arose. The temperature was couple of degrees on the plus side, so the thin spots of snow on the bicycle path were melting into water, fast. This made me realize I had forgotten to attach the quick-release fenders on the bike. Oh well, it's clean water that's spraying, there hasn't been any salt dispensed on the bicycle paths yet.

The signs say "two-way skiing track" and "danger of life". Oh, ever so true.

Couple of kilometers to go, I turned to the gravel road right at the shore of lake Kallavesi, circling the hill Neulamäki. This was unploughed, so fortunately no more water. Of course there were many car tire tracks, which made steering a bit difficult now and then. I was also now happy I had chosen the full-suspension bike, because there were lots of big potholes invisible underneath the snow.

At least my bike got to the hashpoint.

Nearing the hashpoint, I turned to a trail, which in winter works as a skiing track base. It was good to ride. Yesterday's well-below-freezing temperatures had hardened the surface below the snow, and my 2.3 inch Nokian Gazzaloddi Core rear tire had good grip even on the ascents. I kept close watch on the GPS to spot the location I would need to go off-road. The trail turned into favorable direction, and I managed to get the reading to 270 meters before needing to exit the trail. Even then, there was a small path leading about the right direction, and I could ride on it about 100 meters. Then I continued on foot carrying my bike. Why carry the bike all the way? Perhaps because I was used doing my hashpoint trips carrying an object weighing ~10 kg - my daughter. :) The snowy forest was very calm. No movement of any kind, except chunks of snow dropping from the trees. The air was moist and fresh. The forest was an airy one, and the forest bed was quite easy to walk. There was no mentionable undergrowth or other obstacles except rocks. Soon I was at the hashpoint. I took some pictures for proof.

It was time to head home. I walked to the same path through which I had entered the forest. Soon I was at the bigger trail, and this time it was descent almost all the way. I hammered on really fast. But the fun was quickly over when I reached the bigger gravel road. I grinded the two kilometers back to the bigger bicycle paths, even took a shortcut to add to my "terrain-time". Then again about 6 km of water-spraying to home. When reaching home, the toddler had just woken up from her daytime nap, so I joined the home-crew for a afternoon snack. Mission accomplished!

Distance cycled on the whole trip: 18 km. Distance walked carrying the bike: 300 m.