2017-06-20 67 28

Location

Savukoski, Sotajoki. The point lies in a dry pine forest.

Participants

Pastori
The Wife

Expedition

Kemijoki

Even though Pastori and Wife live in a pretty scarcely populated area they faced and extraordinary experience today. The hashpoint of the day was relatively close, only 139 km from where they were staying and in a very scarcely populated municipality, Savukoski. Savukoski only has 0.16 people per square kilometer and is thus the least densely populated municipality in Finland and the third least in Europe, with only Greenland and Svalbard being less dense. There are ten times more reindeer than people in the area. Pastori and Wife though this was a magnificent place to visit. The distance was nothing in such a remote location where people were used to life moving slowly. The address of the point was also cool, being on Korvatunturintie and another about 100 meters into the forest. If they were lucky, they might catch a glimpse of Santa's red hood. (Translator's Note: As we all know, Santa Claus lives in Finland, on a fell called Korvatunturi and the point was on the road leading up to that fell, hence the hope to see Santa.)

So, off they went with a packed lunch. The sun was shining, though the temperature wasn't exactly summery, albeit normal for the northern location: about +7 degrees Celsius. The trip took some time since Wife was taking pictures from the top of bird watching towers and of vast swampy lands and the tops of fells. The beautiful river Kemijoki was at their side almost the entire way there and it was tempting to stop and admire its rapids and strong currents. They crossed such places as Pelkosenniemi, Savukoski, Martti and on and on they went up towards the north-east and towards Urho Kekkonen National Park (http://www.luontoon.fi/urhokekkosenkansallispuisto) and Korvatunturi (http://www.korvatunturi.fi). There aren't very many roads around these parts so it was lucky that the point happened to right here right now and the weather was nice too. Although, not even rain would have stopped Pastori and Wife from trying to reach this hashpoint, that's how much they wanted to conquer this graticule. As the point got nearer the sky started to get darker but the trip to the point itself was very easy, about a 100 meters into the dry forest and they were done in about 5 minutes among the light drizzle of rain. The closest they got was 0.9m. They skipped the picnic though, instead eating their lunch in the warmth of their car on the bank of the river Kemijoki on their way back. As a cherry on top for spending the entire day hunting for the hashpoint they had a delicious cordon bleu meal with chocolate cake for dessert at Samperin Savotta, a hotel-restaurant (http://www.samperi.com).

All in all they traveled for 282 km, walked for 200 m, spent 7 hours, stopped to take photos 24 times, stopped for coffee 2 times and stopped to eat their packed lunch once.