The virus was already in the news when I left but no state of emergency yet. Fortunately I didn't go to any virus-ridden ski resort but pulled my sled alone in the wilderness, nobody much around to spread the virus.
On the road:
A view after a few km from the Käkkäläjoki bridge parking lot:
That's a swamp. In summer hikes swamps and lakes are things to avoid, in winter they're the easiest to ski (although bigger lakes can be bad when it's really windy).
The cabin I stayed the first night in (photo taken in the following morning), called "Nallatupa", about 10 km from the road:
The outhouse looked rather funny, too (photo taken in the evening, in rather poor light):
A break just to take pic looking back:
The next night I stayed in Stallojärvi cabin, and it looks rather pretty at night:
I never get tired of Northern Lights, and Lapland obliged:
On the Southern sky there were lit night clouds:
In the morning I woke up early, sunrise was blue:
Stallojärvi cabin in blue morning light:
Just pretty clouds:
Somebody slept here:
So I had to take a selfie, too. Snow was pretty hard at this point, I didn't sink in at all (my tripod legs did though):
Has there been a party here or what:
Looks like a small tragedy happened here:
Tired snowman?
Hare tracks:
Cabin in sight - on the next ridge, and the ravine ahead was steeper than it looks:
Korteoja cabin. I had to do some shoveling before I got in:
... not to mention when I wanted to visit the outhouse:
Korteoja cabin is somewhat remote. Looking at the guestbook I saw I was the second visitor this year, and that there'd been just 17 visits in the last year all told. And locals told me later they never go there either, it's not en route to anywhere they go.
Getting there was actually somewhat hard, I had to cross a river (frozen but the banks were steep) and some ravines, not so easy pulling the sled in deep snow. I tried to find an easier way back but didn't have much luck, it took me two hours to get where I took this photo, only 500 meters from the cabin as crow flies (I can't fly, alas):
From Korteoja I headed back to Stallojärvi. A bird has walked in circles here:
Rainbow-coloured cloud. I don't recall ever seeing one quite like this:
Ice flowers in the cabin window:
Another sunrise:
Mountains in the horizon, probably in Norway:
Snow can be hard on trees:
Back at Nallatupa. Someone coming here in summer might wonder why the chimney is so tall...
Northern lights showed up at night again, turning pretty bright for a while:
No longer as bright but impressive nonetheless:
Skiing back along a river, there were actually gaps in the ice in some fast-flowing places so skiing on the river was a bit dangerous:
All in all a very nice trip. Temperature was a little below freeezing point at daytime, dropping to -20 degrees at night, most days were sunny, so apart from one day with very heavy wind, weather was almost perfect.