2024-12-23 68 23

Location

In a forest near Vuontisjärvi, Enontekiö.

The point on a topographic map: [1]

Participants

Kripakko

Expedition

We were spending this Christmas in a cottage in Enontekiö, far away from other people and so far in the north that there would be polar night, very likely sub-zero temperatures and plenty of snow. Of course, when we booked the cottage months ago, we could not know how the weather would actually be. It eventually turned out to be a good choice since the weather at Christmas has been predicted to be warm and wet in most parts of the country, including Oulu (our home city), but not in Enontekiö where it should be freezing and nice throughout the holidays. This December has also in general been exceptionally warm and not snowy, almost depressing, though thankfully it snowed quite a bit last week. The temperature was around −5 °C today in the afternoon.

We were particularly interested in experiencing the polar night. In high enough latitudes beyond the polar circles, the sun does not rise at all for some days around the winter solstice. On this day in these geohash coordinates, the highest altitude of the sun at solar noon is about a degree below the horizon (see e.g. [2]). It is not dark all day, but there is a period of civil twilight around solar noon that produces all kinds of beautiful colours in the sky unless there is a thick cloud cover. It is like watching the sun rise in slow motion, but instead of the sunrise occurring, it eventually gets darker again.

This hashpoint was in a luckily just a few kilometres away from the cottage. I normally would not expect to get easily accessible hashpoints in this graticule, especially in the winter, but this was only half a kilometre off the road. Not easy but not too difficult either. I could borrow snowshoes from the cottage and be able to walk in the snowy forest. Parking the car might be a bigger problem because there might not be ploughed parking space that I could use.

I went and drove to Vuontisjärvi and looked for parking space. At first, I saw that only a few driveways had been ploughed in addition to the main road. I did not want to block them or randomly go to people’s yards unless absolutely necessary, so I went on. I eventually saw a pair of bus stops and stopped to consider. I technically should not park in a bus stop, but I reckoned that the risk of blocking traffic would be minimal and left the car there. In the countryside, nobody really cares anyway.

I started walking with the snowshoes, first along the main road and then along a snowmobile route. I made decent progress until I had to turn into the snow-covered driveway of an abandoned house. Walking in deep snow was slower and heavier but still much faster and easier than it would have been without snowshoes. I walked by the abandoned house and then followed the compass direction down the hillside. Eventually, I arrived at the hashpoint without issues. To my surprise, the low level of daylight was still enough for taking acceptable photos. I also did not need artificial light when I walked back to the road and then back to the car. On the way back to the cottage, I went to find a quick geocache, and by then it had gotten significantly dimmer. The long winter night had begun.

Tracklog

Will be added later

Photos

Where I parked the car. Lake Vuontisjärvi is in the background. About 900 metres to go.
The snowmobile track was easy to walk on.
The abandoned house.
Some paw prints that I could not recognise. Could be a red fox or an arctic fox, but since I did not measure them properly and the patterns do not match, I am not sure.
Untouched forest further on.
Proof of location.
Proof of date and time.
Stupid Grin™
How the hashpoint looked like after I had left.
My footprints on the way back.
Some nice colours in the sky. It was unfortunately mostly cloudy.