2015-03-09 63 28

Location

In Rasimäki, Valtimo. The point lies in a forest next to a field.

Participants

Pastori
The Wife

Expedition

Pastori, snowshoes and the kicksleds' parking spot along the village road.

Today’s hashpoint was only 2 km from Pastori’s home as the birds fly, so it was an absolute must to go there. Following the road we could get to about 300 meters from the point, but the rest of the stretch was a half meter thick snow. How was that going to work out for Pastori and The Wife?

Pastori snowshoeing on the field.

Luckily Pastori had two pairs of snowshoes in store. So we attached them to a kicksled, and went on kicking along the icy village road. The Sun was shining, snow-covered fields were glistering and journey went on nicely. Then we parked the kicksleds on top of the snow bank alongside the road, put on snowshoes and went on testing the buoyancy of the snow. It was surprisingly hard due to some night frost. On the field the snow supported the snowshoe-walkers quite nicely, but in the end the last 50 meters was inside a forest and presented some problems of sinking. With a proper thicket the signals of the satellites were quite unsteady, and when standing in the same spot the distance to the hashpoint varied from 0,5 m to 23 m. The mandatory pictures were taken and then back to home and sauna!

Pastori and The Wife at the hashpoint.

This morning we tested the water’s different forms of existence: ice, snow and steam. Pastori concludes on the basis of his research, that every one of these is good in it’s own place. Icy surface for kicksleding, thick snow for snowshoeing and steam and water for having sauna.

The whole operation from the preparation to sauna took about 3,5 hours and now we have an euphoric feeling while waiting for the next suitable hashpoints.