Korpijaakko

– my personal views on all walks of outdoor life

Recommended read and other stuff

5 Comments Posted by Korpi-Jaakko on 08/03/2011

Here goes another recommended read and it is actually very up-to-date as the trip which is about to be reported started today!

Anni and Tuomo, Wilderness Guide students from Northern Karelia, are heading for a three-week skiing trip to Northern Sweden. They start from Nikkaluokta and ski from there to the Kebnekaise area and finish to Sarek National Park. They are starting with sleds weighting nearly 70 kilo each and use winter camping system very close to the system our expedition will be using in Svalbard. They have also same partly same egar including Hilleberg Keron 3 GT tent and Cumulus sleeping bags.

Anni’s and Tuomo’s blog will be updated occasionally during the trip and there is also interesting writings about their three weeks hiking trip in the Northern Karelia last autumn. Unfortunately the blog is only in Finnish, but if you are still interested take a look: karhujenjaljilla.blogspot.com

Anni and Tuomo also spent a year in the New Zealand and kept blog while travelling there. The blog is partly in english and can be found from here.

The Sarek massive, photo taken on a trip last March. We had spent the previous day and night in a snow cave because of a storm.

At the moment there is another group of aspiring guides in Sarek National Park at the moment. I got a satellite phone call from them a moment ago and they had spent the last three days in a snow cave because of high winds and poor visibility preventing climbing to the fells. Tough luck, but hopefully the weather will get better!

Last weekend I dug a snow cave with friend and we spent a night there just for fun. But I guess that three days in a snow cave isn’t much fun… I am writing a longish post on snow shelters, so come back to check it later this week.

A picture inside our deluxe snow cave last weekend. More about snow shelters coming soon...

And if some of you dear readers (I see from the statistics that there are quite some visitors even though comments are few) know good service for weather forecasst and avalanche risk estimates that cover the Swedish and Norwegian fells, please leave a comment. In addition free map services covering Sweden and Norway (especially the Svalbard) are welcome!

Oh, and give a guess about the weight of my expedition gear and you can win a free meal!

Addition on 9.3.2011:

Kari “Vaiska” Vainio the leader of the Ultima Thule 2011 expedition to Svalbard is at the moment guiding a group in Sarek National Park. You can follow Vaiska via SPOT messenger . We used a SPOT on our trip last March and it worked very well. We sent an OK message on every break and all the messages went through. There has been some discussion and debate about the reliability of the SPOT but for us it worked well.

Our route in March 2010 as plotted by SPOT and saved as a screen shot.

5 responses to “Recommended read and other stuff”

Mark Roberts 08/03/2011 at 23:50
Ah, the five most common and disappointing words a foreigner in Finland will hear: “Unfortunately it’s only in Finnish.” 🙂
Korpijaakko 09/03/2011 at 11:52
Unfortunately so. And unfortunately Google translation is no good from native speaker’s view. It is helpful in some cases but doesn’t translate stories or translate the feelings.

Maybe I’ll come up with another round of recommended read this week as a bonus, and it’ll be in english.
korpijaakko 09/03/2011 at 16:07
Updated the post with a link to follow Vaiska’s group in Sarek via a SPOT messenger. They have just started skiing this afternoon. And I also added a picture of our route last year, also recorded with SPOT.
Joe 09/03/2011 at 17:51
We’re thinking of taking a SPoT2 on our Finnmark trip at the end of the month. I can’t really see people’s objections to them. They should never take the place of training and planning but they have saved lives and will continue to do so.
korpijaakko 09/03/2011 at 20:59
Joe: I agree. Knowledge, skills and proper gear should always be the foundation of any trip. SPOT is just a nice addition to the pack, just like a cell phone. For me SPOT would be (I don’t own one at the moment.) more a way to share my trip than a safety feature. If I’d want safety device, I’d get a PLB.