2017 Trip – Day 3

Distance Average Speed Max Speed
22.4 km 15.5 km/h 31.4 km/h

Spent entire morning preparing kit, waiting for bag and then packing stuff from bag. Timo provided new sled with significantly larger sled bag (as it turned out this was essential). Lunch and food supplied in two huge bags was far too much, but could be cut down by discarding less vital stuff and some judicious decanting.

Helped a couple of groups to depart and bag arrived just as the last of the guests set off at about 1130. By the time I had showered and re-packed my stuff it was after 1300.

Drove directly to Janisvaara by the direct route up the main trail in about 30 minutes. Had a hasty lunch and lightened sled then returned back down Janisvaara road and across main trail. Did standard loop to re-join trail further up, drove N and then found another route to the left. Not sure if I have driven it before, but certainly ended up on knife trail. Route eventually led to forest road which led back to main trail.

Before returning to hut, drove to top of Janisvaara hill and photographed sunset complete with Moon and Venus.

Managed reasonably well in hut given how many years it is since I last did so. New LED lanterns worked very well.  It looks like they give nearly as much light as the petrol lantern with vastly less weight, faff and risk. Unfortunately they are not quite as battery efficient as I had hoped. They seem to get through three AA Lithium-Iron Energizer cells in about four hours.  Given the number of new batteries I brought with me some economising is going to be needed.