When I go hiking or skiing, I like to do a loop and there’s a couple of loops around here that are only accessible during winter.

The other one is too long for snowshoes and I only did it a couple of times on skis and to be honest, I’ve no idea why I did it the second time. If your feet are hurting after 3 km of skiing and there’s 10 km left, a normal person would turn back. Me, I just adjusted the tape around my heel and pushed on. I wish I could call it Finnish sisu but I’ll just have to plead insanity instead. The thing is, skiing uphill hurts the most and I knew that I would have 1 km of skiing uphill before reaching Ryggskog. It wasn’t pleasant, trust me.

Fast forward to present day then. My blister problem has been solved and this longer loop was available to me again. The only problem was the lakes – there are three of them to cross and I knew that there is a lot of water on the ice and I don’t like getting my feet wet. So I was putting my hopes on the snowmobiles to pave the way for me, because when the snow is removed, the water will freeze. Sure enough, this is exactly what I got – frozen tracks all the way across the lakes. But I had to be careful to not step outside the track because I would sink instantly; occasionally I when I would stick my pole on the side it came up covered with slush.

I had hoped for some sunny weather on this trip but the cloud cover was rather persistent. I didn’t mind though, I just made the most of the few opportunities I found. I had set out around lunchtime and I had calculated that I would be close to home by sunset, the idea was that if the sunset was going to be any good, I had a chance of catching it. It turned out that my timing was impeccable, the sun was indeed setting when I was almost back in the village and by some amazing strike of luck, the sun finally peaked out between the clouds right then. I was able to catch the last rays, but the sunset as a whole wasn’t anything interesting. I had to settle with the satisfaction of having done this loop without suffering any pains. And I can tell you, that counts for a lot!