| Distance | 46.0 km |
| Average Speed | 14.6 km/h |
| Maximum Speed | 27.9 km/h |
There is no doubt that despite its scruffy condition, Jänisvaara remains my favourite of the two Finn-Jann cabins. It’s small size makes it much more suitable for a single guest and the whole place warms up faster than Kylkeinen.
I managed a reasonable night’s sleep and made good progress with preparations in the morning. I decided that I would return to the cabin for lunch so I was able to postpone some morning tasks such as washing up!
Victor & Clyde
At Timo’s suggestion I headed for the northern swamps where apparently Milla had recently driven with another guest, so there should be a clear trail. I went north via the power lines to avoid some logging and picked up Milla’s trail near the eagle’s nest turning.
Unfortunately, whilst Milla’s trail was indeed clear, so was everyone else’s!! As I have observed before in this area that there is no shortage of possible tracks to follow. Some are clearly just a single snowmobile, but others are rather more convincing. After going round in a big circle and following a track which seemed to be leading to the army area and so turning back I finally found Milla’s track leading to the northern forest road.
Heading back down the main trail I spotted a route to the right which I thought I had driven before. It went downhill to a lake and then I must have taken a wrong turning. It quickly became a single old snowmobile track which twisted violently between the trees and was practically un-driveable by dog team. Part of the problem was that with a light sled and six dogs I had too much power for this sort of trail so I removed the harness line from Nome to make it more difficult for him to pull but this wasn’t enough.
Looking at my GPS, it seemed as if there were several tracks I had driven before nearby and I kept hoping that the track I was following would emerge into one of them but it never did. To make matters worse it seemed to be getting closer and closer to the main road so in the end I had turn round and struggle back out again.
This diversion delayed my lunch and I was glad to get back to Jänisvaara to prepare it.
After lunch I headed down to the Tilsa road and then along to the top of the canyon trail. As I went down this I noticed very many snowmobile tracks running on and off the trail, particularly in the area with the cliffs where the bears hibernate. I mentioned this to Timo later and he said that there was a group of Swedish snowmobile riders in the area who had been causing a lot of trouble and were being hunted by the constabulary so it was probably them.
After the canyon I let the dogs find their own way back to the kennels, although if I hadn’t intervened at one point we may have ended up back at Kylkeinen!