Korpijaakko

– my personal views on all walks of outdoor life

Some pictures from the last trip

22 Comments Posted by on 25/07/2011

I’m spending the week enjoying the summer in the country side and preparing for the upcoming year in the wilderness guide school (which starts next Monday), but at the mean time I’m also writing trip reports about the last two trips in the Lapland. The writing will take some time as there is so much to say…

But assuming that some of you are still interested about the trips, here are some teaser pictures from the first trip i.e. packrafting the Valtijoki, Poroeno and Lätäseno rivers. And to be exact: we portaged 3,5 bad rapids/drops on the Valtijoki, the Iso-Kurkkio rapid on Lätäseno and in the end we paddled about 34km of still water in the big white water raft of our friends to speed up the progress. On the first trip I took about 40 GB of pictures and video and on the second trip around 16 GB of pics, so it will take some time to sort them out. Especially the video as I’m still working with the Ultima Thule 2011 expedition video (Yes, lazy me. Very lazy.)

So, pictures from likely  the wildest rivers of Finland (and from to joyrney to get there…):

Getting started on the road side north from Kilpisjärvi. Notice the terrible load on my Golite Pinnacle...

Everything seems better on the Norwegian side...

Passing the Pitsusköngäs waterfall. Didn't boat it. 😉 Some 35km of walking and 5km of rocky packrafting behind us.

Arriving to the open wilderness hut of Kolbmajoki. It's around 4:00 am and there where people inside sleeping so we spent the night in tent and next day in the hut as we had done the walking a day faster than planned.

At the beginning of Valtijoki. Getting ready for six days of boating. The Ursuit AWS drysuits were awesome.

Yours truly running the first drop of one of the rapid systems at Valtijoki.

Tuomas scouting the rest of the rapid system. We portaged it as we don't know enough about waterfalls to judge the safety...

The water level was low and Valtijoki is very rocky, and occasionally very shallow.

Me enjoying one of the many small drops of the Valtijoki. Notice the cord which got wrapped around my paddle. I cut it shorter immediately after that happened...

Yours truly in camp at Poroeno after the first day of boating.

Tuomas climbing up to a ledge to provide safety after swimming the class 4 Pirunportti.

Tuomas running down the class 4-5 Munnikurkkio rapid (I'd say max class 4 on the low water we had.)

The abandoned border guard station of Munnikurkkio. Psst, there is an open sauna there. 😉

Tuomas about to capsize in the Munnikurkkio rapid. The older Alpacka boat design is a lot more prone to capsize than the new with the big butt.

The white water raft crew that we catched up at Munnikurkkio. Great folks! Three of them wilderness guides...

Going lite with Shangri La 3 and the big raft. Still water and tailwind. 🙂

Sunset seen from the Iso-Kurkkio open wilderness hut. The evening/night skies were great!

The class 4+ Iso-Kurkkio rapid. A no-go for our skills.

Yeap, a swimming arctic lemming. They are surprisingly quick swimmers. And often angry!

Sunset in the last camp.

About 5km to go. The last 15km of Lätäseno is perfectly flat water with a minimal current.

Trip done! From left: Antti, Anna-Maija, Tuomo, Anni, Tuomas and yours truly.

Hope you enjoyed the pics. More text and some pictures to come later this week!

packrafting, trip reports

22 responses to “Some pictures from the last trip”

  1. markswalkingblog 26/07/2011 at 00:14

    Jaako, looks like a fantastic trip and some pretty tasty white water. What was the total weight of your pack for the trip?
    Look forward to your next posting.

  2. Juuso Juuri 26/07/2011 at 00:51

    Great stuff! Reminds me of my trip to Valtijoki many years ago. Not heard of packrafts back then, though…

  3. -maria- 26/07/2011 at 10:14

    Nice! Looking forward to your future posts.

  4. Peter Nylund 26/07/2011 at 12:09

    Looks great! Now make a more detailed post.

  5. Martin Rye 26/07/2011 at 15:25

    Great photos and good luck with the wilderness guide training.

  6. korpijaakko 26/07/2011 at 22:23

    Thanks for the comments! Didn’t expect so many comments so quickly!

    Mark: My spreadsheet says that the total skin out weight was a bit under 25kg so the pack weight was likely about 23kg in the beginning plus some extra food (we planned to camp next to roadside and had some fresh food for the first evenign & following morning), so maybe 23,5kg? Nearly 8kg of this was boating spesific gear. Way too much for the Pinnacle to be comfortable as I didn’t have my Ridgerest as a virtual frame inside.

    Juuso: My colleague and his friend, both enthuasistic fly fishers, were very exited about packrafts for fishing trips…

  7. Il Dolce Far Niente 27/07/2011 at 21:23

    Wow, you guys had a very nice trip! Magnificent scenery

  8. korpijaakko 28/07/2011 at 03:02

    Thanks! Your sea kayaking trip looked great too! I have to learn proper sea kayaking skills at some point. (Maybe starting next summer?) There are so many intreresting places in the arctic (reasonably) easy to reach with a kayak.

  9. Antti 31/07/2011 at 19:51

    Some great pictures of a pretty sweet looking trip! The scenery doesn’t look too bad on Finnish side either. 🙂

  10. Mark Roberts 06/08/2011 at 17:41

    Good job on the whitewater, Jaakko! Those crafty Norwegians and their scenery stealing!

  11. Mark Roberts (@bckpckingNorth) 06/08/2011 at 17:42

    Good job on the whitewater, Jaakko!
    Those crafty Norwegians and their scenery stealing!

  12. korpijaakko 11/08/2011 at 23:25

    Thanks for the comment Mark and sorry for the delayd trip report. There is a lot of nice white water to enjoy in Lapland. Maybe a trip together sometime in the future? Norwegians be damned for stealing the scenery. And Swedes too. And Russians fro stealing the little bit of Arctic Ocean shore we used to have.

  13. Jukka Korpijaakko 08/09/2011 at 12:58

    Ikävästi olet blogillesi ryöstänyt sukunimeni. Kannattaisi miettiä kaksi kertaa ennenkuin alkaa…..

  14. korpijaakko 08/09/2011 at 15:03

    Hei Jukka!

    En koe ryöstäneeni kenenkään sukunimeä. Olen käyttänyt nimimerkkiä Korpijaakko pitkään (useita vuosia) joillain keskustelupalstoilla ja se tuntui luontevalta valinnalta myös blogini nimeksi. Huomasin myöhemmin nimerkkiä googlettaessani, että Korpijaakko on myös verraten harvinainen sukunimi ja olen tästä pahoillani. Mikäli olisin nimimerkkiä valitessani tiennyt tämän, olisin varmasti valinnut toisin, sillä tarkoitus ei ollut varastaa kenekään nimeä omaan käyttööni. Tästä syystä mm. oma kokonimeni on näkyvissä tuottamassani materiaalissa. Tässä vaiheessa nimimerkki (ja blogikin hiljalleen) on jo niin vakiintunut, ettei tee mieli vaihtaa.

    – Jaakko Heikka

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  18. Karri 25/04/2012 at 22:45

    Mahtavan näkönen reissu! Mihinkä aikaan olitte liikenteessä? Ollaan tässä suunnitelemassa melonta-/kalastusreissua elokuun ekalle viikolle, mutta vedenkorkeus tulee aina vähän vastaan tuossa vaiheessa. Millanen tuo joki on porojärveltä alaspäin? Pääseekö sitä alas pienemmälläkin vedellä hieman kahlaten ja kanoottia uittaen vai meneekö se aivan tuskailuksi?

  19. korpijaakko 26/04/2012 at 18:03

    Terve!

    Valtijoki-Lätäseno välillä olimme 11.-16.7. Kalassa olleiden tiedustelijoiden mukana vesi oli alkanut laskea noin viikko ennen meidän reissuamme ja olikin aika matalalla.

    Porojärveltä alaspäin joki on aika iso, Lätäseno vielä selvästi Poroenoa isompi. Avokanootilla en uskaltaisi kovinkaan moneen (isompaan) koskeen, mutta kyllähän jokea alaspäin pääsee: suvannoissa riittää varmaankin (?) vettä ja koskien ohi kanootin voi kantaa. Pienet kosket lienee kivisiä ja iso kivisiä ja hankalia. Mutta kuljettavissa.

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