2015-11-18 61 25

Location

In Huttula, Jämsänkoski. The point lies in a field near a house.

Participants

Tilley

Expedition

View from the hashpoint towards my car.

Today was again the day I was going to Helsinki in the morning. Amazingly lucky again, a hashpoint appeared almost right in my path, only 200 meters to the side of the route I use! So an easy catch, right? There was one possible problem about the location, though. The point seemed to be very close to a house. So would they mind if a guy dressed in black and waving a camera and a flashlight around would appear in their back yard at 05:15?

A closer inspection with another map revealed, that the point was about 10 meters from a barn in the corner of a field, the actual house was more than 50 meters away. So I should at least go the site and see what it would be like, and would there be there fences, burglar alarms etc.

The morning was a bit rainy, when I woke up at 4:45 and started driving. The drive went uneventfully, last 5 km following a fully-loaded timber truck, which I didn't want to pass since I was not familiar which the intersection I wanted to turn to. A couple of kilometers before the hashpoint, I got an idea and stopped to the side of the road to gear up: I put on my neoprene-rubber boots and my headlight. Doing that would save me some time near the hashpoint, to keep the visit brief and disturb the residents of the house as little as possible.

At the hashpoint.

I was ready to tackle this point. I drove the remaining 2 kilometers and turned to the smaller road. The hash-house was not very well visible to the road at all, there was a large hedge of trees beside it. Excellent. I stopped my car at an intersection of a track going to the field the hashpoint was in. I grabbed my camera and ran the 50 meters to the point. It was right on the edge of the field, and very easy to reach within a good accuracy. This time I would have managed with sneakers, too. I could see the house behind the yard, but there weren't any lights or noise, so the residents, if any, were probably sound asleep, as any reasonable person would be at this time of day. I tried not to point my headlight or camera flash into the direction of the house too much not to startle them. I took a couple of pictures and went back to the car. The whole visit lasted about 3 minutes. About 15 minutes more, and I was once again at Jämsä railway station to continue my commute by train.