When was skiing down the Pasvik River I saw these smokestacks and some houses on the other bank, that is the Russian town of Nikkel one of the most polluted places on Earth. Everything is dead around it, this is in a pristine arctic wilderness setting. They also used it as a staging ground for hundr...

I went on a ski tour 3 days ago with starting elevation of 400 m asl. Still plenty of snow here, up to 1m in the flatter areas. It's melting quite fast though. Edit: from the Trip Report Archive it looks like randoskier had a blast in the North. Yeah I had fun in Kirkenes, sometimes it is good to d...

Paul Lutes wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 19, 2022 8:34 pm

Seems ..... unnecessarily cryptic.

The purple cow barks at midnight ; ) ....

@randoskier it looks like you had a beautiful trip! Did the finnish ice fisherman share any perch (as depicted on the painting) with you? One of my favorite freshwater fish (together with the whole salmonid range). Perch is good eating fish but he caught only grayling. They probably have a ton of P...

lowangle al wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 19, 2022 5:33 am

That looks like it was a great trip and a good way to end the season.

Thanks Al, twas! The skiing was flatter than I am used too, but the trip had a lot of geographic interest and wonderful cabins along most of the way. The people in this region are very nice as well.

....!

Cabins with soul

Finn cabin, the Piilola wilderness cabin..the 280cm Forest skis belong to an ice-fisherman I shared the cabin with.

Into Finland. A peaceful border. Skiing WEST into Finland! West! The fence is for the reindeer herded by Sami people (Lapps) on both sides of the border. Finnish Lapland has 180k people and 200k reindeer.

Most of them are free and well-kept, some even have a soul.