I almost hesitate to post this thread for fear of Jinxing it. We first started to plan a trip to Kittilä for February 2021 but the pandemic scotched that for us.
We rescheduled it for 2022 but the airline cancelled our flights at the last minute so that was a bust too and we ended up having a miserable weekend at MudMoot instead. ( Not the event's fault, we were just in very low spirits. )
So here we are, trying again for 2023. Fingers crossed.
The plan is to fly in, unpack the toboggans and haul the kit to a local supermarket and garage for supplies.
From there we head out into the woods on snowshoes with two sites in mind, both on state owned forestry land, one 3 miles from the town the other 6 miles out.
We are travelling from the UK in two parties. The advance party will stop at 3 mile camp, pitch up our shelters and then work on building snow shelters, Iglu or Quizhee depending on the conditions. The Main party flies out a few days later and will make directly for 6 mile camp after picking up supplies where we will rendezvous with them.
They are more constrained on the dates because of school term times, hence their shorter trip. We are also going to be joined by another party member who is arriving from Europe and meeting us out there at some point.
That is the outline plan. Of course things often change on the ground but it is always good to have a basic plan in place.
For my part, I will be testing out the Wayland Shed on this trip although I will have alternative shelter available for back up.
Much of the preparation gear wise is already in place from previous trips and the run up to the aborted trips of the last two years but as I dust off the kit again and start to pack, I thought it might be interesting to put a running post up about the preparations.
One of the more recent additions I made to my kit was a tool for making snow blocks for an Iglu. I posted about this before but it does no harm to talk about it again here.
The idea is that if snow conditions are good, it can be used as a block cutter but if snow is looser it can be used as a mould to shovel snow into to make the blocks, in the same manner as making sand castles in a bucket.
When not being used for that purpose it can be used as a base under the stoves for cooking or even a wind break if that is required.
I am sure there will be other minor modifications made to kit in the next few weeks but I will post them up in this thread as they occur.
We rescheduled it for 2022 but the airline cancelled our flights at the last minute so that was a bust too and we ended up having a miserable weekend at MudMoot instead. ( Not the event's fault, we were just in very low spirits. )
So here we are, trying again for 2023. Fingers crossed.
The plan is to fly in, unpack the toboggans and haul the kit to a local supermarket and garage for supplies.
From there we head out into the woods on snowshoes with two sites in mind, both on state owned forestry land, one 3 miles from the town the other 6 miles out.
We are travelling from the UK in two parties. The advance party will stop at 3 mile camp, pitch up our shelters and then work on building snow shelters, Iglu or Quizhee depending on the conditions. The Main party flies out a few days later and will make directly for 6 mile camp after picking up supplies where we will rendezvous with them.
They are more constrained on the dates because of school term times, hence their shorter trip. We are also going to be joined by another party member who is arriving from Europe and meeting us out there at some point.
That is the outline plan. Of course things often change on the ground but it is always good to have a basic plan in place.
For my part, I will be testing out the Wayland Shed on this trip although I will have alternative shelter available for back up.
Much of the preparation gear wise is already in place from previous trips and the run up to the aborted trips of the last two years but as I dust off the kit again and start to pack, I thought it might be interesting to put a running post up about the preparations.
One of the more recent additions I made to my kit was a tool for making snow blocks for an Iglu. I posted about this before but it does no harm to talk about it again here.
The idea is that if snow conditions are good, it can be used as a block cutter but if snow is looser it can be used as a mould to shovel snow into to make the blocks, in the same manner as making sand castles in a bucket.
When not being used for that purpose it can be used as a base under the stoves for cooking or even a wind break if that is required.
I am sure there will be other minor modifications made to kit in the next few weeks but I will post them up in this thread as they occur.
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