Day 8: Luulampi

By late evening last night the weather had completely cleared up and all the clouds had gone. This is how bright it still is outside around midnight.

Thursday was forecast to be a dry, sunny day. It was already feeling quite warm as I trekked towards the breakfast buffet.

I thought I knew what to expect from breakfast today but it turns out it's one of those buffets that changes daily. Today we had the winning combination of croissants with meatballs

Once I'd made the best of breakfast and stepped outside, I saw my first reindeer of the day; he was hanging out outside the equipment rental shop.

The walk I was planning to do today was called the Luulampi trail. It's one that isn't doable in winter, so everything was going to be new. It started off fairly flat, with duckboards over boggy parts of ground.

I'd safely made my way across these when I turned around and saw a sign saying "Dangerous duckboards" for people coming in the opposite direction. How odd! Maybe it's dangerous if you're on a mountain bike.

After that the trail began to climb a bit and I soon had some forest views.

I soon had some reindeer views too!

These two looked like a mother and baby. The baby reindeer was really cute

The path led across a stream, which had a bridge but no water...

...and then started to become quite rocky underfoot.

I could see Kiilopää fell, which I'd attempted to climb in the mist yesterday afternoon, in the distance.

More or less the same view in winter:

The route I was on today wasn't going to take me all the way to the top of the fell, but there was still quite a bit of uphill to do.

Eventually I came to the reindeer fence.

I don't really understand the reindeer fence, because there are definitely reindeer on both sides of it. Maybe they belong to different people?

As soon as I climbed through the gate I spotted an entire herd of them.

I also found one solo reindeer who wasn't hanging out with the rest of the herd, giving me my most scenic reindeer photo so far

The walk did become incredibly scenic at this point.

I'd reached the highest point I had to climb to and was about to start going downhill.

There were some beautiful views on the way down.

The path was still quite steep and rocky, but at least going downhill is easier. The poles I've rented are really good, so they definitely helped.

Once I'd done a decent chunk of downhill I began to see a splash of blue in the distance.

This is the Luulampi pool, which marks the halfway point of the hike.

To be honest, once I got down to it it's quite a boggy little pool

Luulampi is also the site of another Finnish national park hut. This one was quite big and there was a very large pile of chopped wood for camp fires.

Past the hut, the route continued over more duckboards.

Then it began to follow the route of a small river.

There wasn't a lot of water in the river today, but the valley was very pretty.

From time to time the route involved crossing a few smaller streams. Luckily not a lot of water in these either!

And then it was steeply back uphill again!

This definitely wasn't a flat walk, but on a sunny day like today the views were gorgeous.

I don't think I'd have got much of a view if I'd tried doing this one yesterday

Eventually I made it back up to the highest point of the walk...

...and it was time to start going downhill again. I was initially a bit confused by these signs which indicate downhill! Then I figured out they must be a warning for the mountain bikers.