Harriniva hotel – all inclusive adventure lodge. Arrival – nice local small airport Kittilä – is about 1h 20 min flight from Helsinki. The bus driver from the hotel was waiting. Transfer was included. About 1h 20 min bus drive from the airport. The food was Great in the hotel, 3 meals included (br, lun, din). The consiers (receptionist) was nice and helpful. The budget lodge (table, bed, shower) was warm and cozy. Unfortunately, the was NO soundproof. You can hear every movement of all people above and beyond. Also, airport shuttle back to the airport was 25 min late, but I still made it on time for the flight. 1d – I went to the cross- country skies. January – is a polar night. It was dawn between 11 am and 3 pm. The rest of the day – pitch darkness. The ski trail was not groomed. 2/3 of the lights were not working. I got lost in the darkness 2-3 d. – husky trip. About 25 km each day (took about 4 h). every person had each own sledge. That was good. But there were about 50 sledges on the same trail, moving painfully slowly, constantly on the brakes (which was not good for the dogs braking backs pooling sledge constantly when under the brakes). Tour guide made the group to clean the sleeping place (where all crowd was sleeping), feed dogs (several times) and clean their poop....Harriniva hotel – all inclusive adventure lodge. Arrival – nice local small airport Kittilä – is about 1h 20 min flight from Helsinki. The bus driver from the hotel was waiting. Transfer was included. About 1h 20 min bus drive from the airport. The food was Great in the hotel, 3 meals included (br, lun, din). The consiers (receptionist) was nice and helpful. The budget lodge (table, bed, shower) was warm and cozy. Unfortunately, the was NO soundproof. You can hear every movement of all people above and beyond. Also, airport shuttle back to the airport was 25 min late, but I still made it on time for the flight.
1d – I went to the cross- country skies. January – is a polar night. It was dawn between 11 am and 3 pm. The rest of the day – pitch darkness. The ski trail was not groomed. 2/3 of the lights were not working. I got lost in the darkness
2-3 d. – husky trip. About 25 km each day (took about 4 h). every person had each own sledge. That was good. But there were about 50 sledges on the same trail, moving painfully slowly, constantly on the brakes (which was not good for the dogs braking backs pooling sledge constantly when under the brakes). Tour guide made the group to clean the sleeping place (where all crowd was sleeping), feed dogs (several times) and clean their poop. Still a glimpse of frozen wildness was nice. Next husky trip cost 165 Euro was only 1h. but again, the scenery of the snow forest was great!!!
4d – snowmobile trip. I had my own snowmobile. I was a driver for 60-80 km. first time experience. At first, I was concern about too much vibration and zig-zag moving, but after a while I simply “let it go”. I let the snowmobile “to choose” its own pass. I was a bit concerned that the tour guide will make us (tourists) to change the oil for snowmobile or do some repair and maintenance. Luckily, not. another nice day in the wildness.
5d – reindeer safari + Sami culture. For 1.5 our guide told us about the life of the family owning this deer farm from 1800. We have seen “homemade” tools and garment (from deer skin, bones, horns..etc). than we had a chance to through the lasso on the post with deer horns. Surprisingly, I “caught” my “deer”. I’ve learned that there are around 200 000 reindeers in Finland (government limitation), none of them are wild! Then deer sledge slowly walked to the lunch place, where we had soup in ti-pi. Again, return in deer sledge walking slowly in the beautiful wildness. Was really warm this day, - 1 – 2C, light snow…a lot of snow.. really beautiful around.
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