Walking in Lapland Kiilopää

 

Quite a long walk over Kiilopää with Mary, Kirsty, Michael, Katia and me.

Through the woods with interesting shaped bleached trees down to the river in the valley. This small man-made dam had a path leading to a sauna in the woods at the bottom of a garden, nice plunge pool.

Apparently good moose country. The riverside meadows were very pretty.

When we arrived at the sausage grill there was a group of guys trying to feed the Kuukkeli or Siberian Jay. Michael said light the fire and cook some sausages that will attract them. Kirsty lit the fire, Michael put the sausages on the grill and the Kuukkeli appeared. 

Apparently the guy in blue is a famous Finnish TV star similar to Bear Grylles. I guess he was a little put out at Michael laughing at him for not knowing sausages attract the Kuukkeli. Well we didn't know who he was, Katia did though.

We crossed the river and followed a path through the forest. Unfortunately the path started moving in the wrong direction so we established our position using Komoot and headed across the forest floor towards where we thought the correct path was. 

This adventure moving through the woods without a track was great. I even got a great shot of a Kuukkeli. 

The off track walk through the forest, past interesting fallen trees and this complex dead standing tree, final came to an end when we rejoined the correct path and set off for Kiilopää.

As the path rose the trees started to thin out and the views got much longer.

The sausage stop did not have a grill and was very windy so we got into the shed and ate our sandwiches and sausages cold. We actually passed the grill on the way from the stop but it was too windy to set a fire anyway. We were the only people at the stop. We moved along the higher ground away from Kiilopää.

A nice couple with a pair of wonderful white samoyet dogs called Fidel and Willie told us all about their journeys in the area. The dogs were very friendly and incredibly soft.

We left the bike track and started down the valley which would eventually lead to the Kuukkeril stop we used earlier in the day. We even saw a moose print and googling it later I can confirm it was definitely moose. Although I would like to see a moose they can be dangerous so I'll settle for a hoof print.

It was a long trudge down the valley but there were many things to see and it was really nice walking down a path rather than a bike track.

We followed the stream past awesome broken trees and meadows. I searched for the moose but it was nowhere to be seen. 

Back at the sausage grill we sat and whilst Kirsty got the fire going for a couple and to see if the birds would return, a great dane was trying to eat my afternoon snack bar. I was sat at the grill and Nero the great dane's face was in my face but he was very friendly, thankfully. 

A relatively short walk through the woods got us back to the car.

This walk was over 10 miles and took several hours but the hills were easy and the going good. There was a lot of contrasting scenery on the walk and I would rate it very highly.