Saturday, December 24, 2011

Winter solstice S12O

The start of the Christmas holidays, the winter solstice, a subzero temperature and a thin layer of snow. What could be better than a short overnighter to fantastic place that happens to be about 20 minutes from my home? Packed and ready to go:



I found this place, Alttarvaha, this fall. The irony is that it's so close to my home, and I have lived here for 6 years! The trails are really awesome there, really for my liking:









And there is couple of campfire places and this big hut:







Inside some typical careless people had already visited, and left a bunch of empty beer cans is this booze bottle:



Definitely nothing to do with outdoor enthusiasts. The good thing was that the benches were so wide that one could sleep on them:



I have slept a couple of times in the hut of Huso on the ground. Not a good idea, because inside a hut, the ground is a very cold place. Now I slept for the first part of the night relatively well. A call of nature ruined the last part, even though I didn't drink so much water before going to sleep. I was using my 3-season sleeping bag, McKinley Yukon, because I thought that it isn't so cold that I would need my winter sleeping bag, Marmot Never Summer. More about my gear in a separate blog post later. In the morning I made instant coffee:



I was testing also my new down jacket, Alpkit Filo, and smartphone Samsung Galaxy Nexus:



And then I headed home. Very nice Christmas start.

Slideshow of photos here.