Russian karelia, paanajärvi pt.3

 Day 5 of the trip.
There was a pre-planned route made by the planning team for the whole trip with our camps marked out. We didn't have to follow it exactly, but use it as a rough guide.
I was the lead guide in the morning, with Seishi bringing up the rear and we switched over in the afternoon.We had a meeting the previous night to discuss our route, where we would take breaks, lunch and worked out about how far we had to go and how long it might take. The route in the morning looked fairly straight forward. I had to pretty much follow a stream from where we were to a small lake and a bog just over a kilometre away, go around the bog, up and over a ridge to another small lake, go around that lake, then following contour lines of another ridge go around and not over it to eventually head in a South Easterly direction to our lunch spot at another lake. From there Seishi would take over and take us up and over some big hills, rock faces and down the other side to our next camp.

So up at six as usual, had breakfast and packed up camp. As daily guides we had the extra weight of the First Aid kits, sat phones, gps and extra rope in our packs. The gps is only for emergencies. All navigation was done by map and compass. So if I mention bearings, I mean compass bearings.
Everyone gathered just before eight. Then me and Seishi told them our plan. I let everyone know that it was going to be the longest hike of the trip, because there was going to be alot of climbing in the afternoon and it would be slow going. I would be setting a good pace in the morning to get us as far as I could and give us more time in the afternoon.

I led the way with Seishi at the back. I thought we could have gone along the side of a hill following the direction of the stream, but immediately saw that it was too steep so changed plan to go down to the water level and carry on from there. After about half a kilometre of climbing over fallen trees I thought it might be easier to walk on the other side of the stream so we crossed over and marched on. At some point I thought it was a bit quiet so I turned around to see only one person behind me. We waited for the others to catch up, then had to wait for them to catch their breath and carried on, eventually getting on top of a ridge and following it down to the start of a bog.

A water and snack break

I had a chance to take new bearings while I waited for everyone to catch up again and decided to skip the first small lake and instead go straight over the bog and take a slightly different route to the next lake.
Some people don't like bogs. They can be very waterlogged. You can get sucked in and stuck in the mud. But they are flat, there are no obstacles to climb over and you can walk in a straight line exactly where you want to go.

We got through the bog without incidents and on the map it looked like we had a slight incline over a ridge, then down to the next lake. It was way steeper than I thought it was going to be, but thats the way we had to now go. So, after a few moans and groans from my fellow students, up we went (I thought it was fun). At the top I took new bearings again, went over the top of a hill and down the other side to find the lake.

Ten minutes rest

Looking over the map during our break I changed the route again to cross another bog, seeing as it went so well last time. The teachers had a quiet word in my ear and pointed out a tiny lake on the map, that wasnt really on our way, but might be fun to try and find, and make it more challenging (you can see them plotting something above). Bring it on!

Across the bog, up another hill, over the top and then we met quite a steep drop which would have led us to the tiny lake. I was on for going down it, but I think I was the only one, so we followed the top of the hill to the east until I found a place where everyone was happy climbing down, but it put us off course. I was told that it was ok if we didn't find the lake anymore, but I still wanted to get there and not long after got back on course and found the bugger.

Next stop was lunch, so I took a new bearing and headed off. We came to a ridge which I expected and followed the ridge round to find the lake. Oh hang on. I didnt find the lake did I. No, because I assumed the lake was going to be at the bottom of the bloody hill, not half way up, but you know what they say about assumption. So I led us around the hill and came to a massive rock face.

 I consulted with my guide pair and we decided that the lake must be further on around the rock face. No, it wasn't. We kept going and going until we came to a stream. I told everyone to take a break and after a few words of advice from our teachers on how to find out where we might be, by how long we had been hiking, speed we were travelling and what was around us, me and Seishi headed up the hill to see if we could see the lake from higher up. We couldn't see anything through the trees and were about to give up when Seishi noticed the ground was getting boggy. I told him, it cant be because we're on top a hill and all the water would run down. Apparently not in Russia. We found the lake right at the top of the hill. I had misread the contour lines on the map thinking they went up and then down to the lake but they went up and up again. By the time we got back to everyone, they were cold and hungry so we had lunch where we were and Seishi led us in the afternoon.

We cracked on with it after lunch, a slower pace than in the morning. All but a few people complained that I was going too fast and were knackered already, but we were also about to start climbing.

Not leading I had time to take some pictures. Pretty nice views as we got a little higher. My little camera is not so good at long shots though.

We knew we had to, at some point, head over the top of the hill and it was going to get rocky. It was difficult to know when exectly to start heading south. We had a chat and had to take a guess at how far we had come, but we knew what bearing to take and it didn't really matter exactly where we were as long as we were heading in the right direction.

 Up we went and took a rest at almost the top of the hill. People were getting pretty tired now. It was getting late in the afternoon and we still had to get over this hill and find a suitable camping place on the other side.

Not a great pic, but you can see where the toes and claws were.

 We found bear prints and another lake on top of the hill, before we started climbing down.

It was a little dangerous going down here. Loose rocks and holes all over the place to fall and break your legs in. A few people fell, but no injuries.

When we finally got to our proposed campsite, it was no good. No water source and no flat ground. It left us one choice: to head towards the big lake a few kilometres away. There were one or two places we could have stopped on the way, but the following day was a rest day so we decided to soldier on to the lake.

Finally, got there just before it was dark. Not the best ground to camp on, but we weren't going any further. Some people had enough energy left to put up their shelter before they crashed out. I thought it was a good day overall. It wasn't mine or Seishi's fault the day was so long. A bit of a crazy route planned by the planning team and the original campsite was no good so we had extra kilometres to hike.

More to follow.

Laters.

Russian karelia, paanajärvi Pt.2 of ?

I don't really have many pics from the first real hiking day, because I was worried the battery on the camera was going to run out before the end of the trip. The morning went pretty well. We made good progress through the forest, found our rest stops and a lot of bear poo. When we stopped for lunch we were well ahead of schedule, I think that might have been when everybody switched off. We set off after lunch heading north, thinking it was just a few kilometres over a hill or two to a lake and our campsite. I'm not sure what happened? We didn't find the lake, but we did find a massive bog.

Apparently we had passed the lake a few hours ago, but it seems as if no-one had been paying any attention to the maps. But we were now. We were lost! After Tim had got sucked into the bog up to his knee's and we helped him out, it looked like it was going to start getting dark soon. Our guides decided to head south east to try and get out of the bog and back on track or at least find solid ground to camp on for the night. A few more people got stuck in the bog on our way out, but it was nothing serious..

This was our camp the next morning. We had to put our shelters up in the dark again. Me and Seishi put our shelters up together this time so we had a fire in the middle. The heat from the fire gets reflected from the inside of the shelters keeping us a little warmer.

Thursday was a scheduled rest day, just because we had been travelling since Monday. I found this lot making all sorts of noise doing some kind of hippy forest yoga.

Because we still didn't really know where we were after getting lost the day before, in the afternoon a few us went on a mission to find out. We went up-stream from where we had camped to hopefully find a lake and not another bog.

 Here's a picture of an eagle (if you can see it) I snapped with my mint wildlife photography skills.

We found a lake! which meant our campsite was about 2.5km north west of where it should've been. It meant a little more Hiking the next day.

That night Seishi tried a different fire technique. Got 2 decent sized logs, shaved the top off of one and put the shavings on it, lit the shaving's and put the other log on top and they burnt hot and for a long time. It took a while to get it going, because it was raining, but it worked well.

We were up at six every morning (except rest days) and packed up and on our way by eight. Crossing another bog above. Trying to find a good place to stop for lunch.

Filling with a few pictures here.

Someone had a feast. We think the bones are of a young moose, but we don't know what ate it?

The orienteering went really well this day. Even though we had extra kilometres to walk we got to our camp early enough to put up our shelters in day light. It was a really nice place and probably the most comfortable nights sleep I had the entire trip.

Here we are cooking spag bol and drying our stuff for the next day. We did this every night, some nights because of the rain, but most nights because of the sweat. Rubber boots are good for hiking through bogs and this type of terrain, but not so good at letting your feet breathe.

The next day it was mine and Seishi's turn to be the daily guides. Which will be coming soon.

Laters.

Russian Karelia, Paanajärvi National Park pt1 of possibly many

If you ever drive on a Russian road, you will never complain about pot holes again! We drove to the border station in Kuusamo on normal roads, went through the Finnish side on a normal road and into Russia. Fari got put in a small interview/interrogation room with a drunk Russian for two hours and we had our passports and visa's checked three times, drove through the passport station on a normal road, had another passport check and then this...

OK, so this wasn't the road into Russia, I got this from the web. The road into Russia from the border station was much worse!! I couldn't get a pic cos the van was shaking and bouncing around so much. No pics of the border, I'm not sure if pictures are allowed but we were advised to keep our cameras in our bag's. After about 20 minutes we had driven past the watch towers and away from the camera's (if you think I'm joking about that think again) thinking we were finally on our way and there was another bloody passport check. No bother though, just a quick stop and we set off on a three hour drive on the mental road to the Paanajärvi visitor centre in some village.

 I don't know if it was Paanajärvi village or not? all the sign's were in Russian. All I know is that everyone drives a Lada and there were some lush mullet's about.

 At the visitor centre to get our passes to get in the national park

Another 60km drive to the park rangers cabin where we could leave the vans and trailer safe and our hike began. We didn't actually stay in the national park because it is forbidden to light an open fire inside the park and because we use open shelters we need to light a fire in the opening to help keep us warm, cook our food and dry our wet clothes.

This was the only time we hiked on a road and it was just because it was getting late and we needed to get out of the park quick to set up camp for the night. Every day of the trip two students were assigned as the daily guides. The guides were in charge of getting everyone up and packed on time in the morning, checking that the campsite was left as we found it, planning our route for the day including rest stops and lunch by water sources, the following nights campsite and getting us there safely, carrying the first aid kits, satellite phones, gps and 20m of rope.

Our first daily guides had a bit of trouble following a road and couldn't find the intended campsite. Luckily they found a small stream crossing the road that we could use as a water source so we headed into the forest a little to set up camp.

 This was my camp for the first night, as you can see it was a little cold during the night and we had some light snow, it was no problem in my new sleeping bag though so I didn't need a fire and I cooked breakfast in my Jetboil (a gas powered stove I found at a flea market for 15€). 

The daily guide pairs were also food pairs for the trip. My pair was Seishi and we were supposed to camp near each other, set up a fire and cook together. As it was pretty much dark when we found this campsite, I thought sod that and just banged my shelter up as soon as i found some flat ground. I did go and find Seishi when I was done and we got our fire going, I cooked up my first pasta meal and as soon as I had finished eating it started hammering down with rain or sleet so I charged back to my shelter and jumped in my sleeping bag.

The next morning our daily guides got us up, we had a quick briefing about the day and headed off into the wild to try and find out exactly where we were. The daily guides had each a detailed map of the area they would be guiding in, but everyone had topographic maps of the whole area so we could keep track ourselves of where we were and where we were heading. We were supposed to stay on top of this and not just follow behind relying on our guides to get us to our destinations, the trip was basically a big orienteering exercise.

Our guides brought us to this lake, by taking a bearing of the direction of the lake and knowing which direction we had come from the road the night before we were able to identify the lake on our maps so we knew where we were. We took a short water break, watched an eagle flying over the hills on the left and carried on. This turned out to be an unexpectedly long day.

Just a quick note about the water. We drank the water straight out of the lakes and streams. 80% of the water in this area flows from Finland. There is no human interference, by that I mean that there are no towns, villages or anything between here and Finland. The water has a clear run, filtering though the soil, rocks, moss and whatever else and it is crystal clear.

The next part will be coming shortly. Laters

Number 10

So as it turns out, the reason I couldn't find all the flags orienteering last week was because some of the flags were put in the wrong places, even in the wrong forest in some cases. Henkka owned up to it on Friday and said sorry. That leaves me wondering how some people found the flags that were totally in the wrong place's?? Anyway, we get another crack at it next week and Henkka promised the flags would be in the correct locations.

I completed the First Aid 1 course last week. Learnt how to do CPR, Heimlich manoeuvre and other good stuff. One important thing to remember is to control an unconscious patients head when moving them from say a seated position to the recovery position on the floor, and not to let go of the head half way so it bounces off the floor (sorry Irina). A bunch of paramedic students come up from Tampere to teach us how to brace broken bones, deal with concussions, sprains and strains, and different lifting/carrying techniques. Hopefully I wont need to use any of what I learned in a weeks time when we head to Russia for a 10 day expedition. We continue next month with First Aid 2.



 Russian planning group presentation

As Andy is our Russian speaker, he is kind of the main guy. Well that is if he gets his visa sorted out in the next week? He's ok to get into Russia cos he's from Belarus but his entry into Finland was slightly dodgy so he needs to make sure he can get back in after the trip.

Some info on the local area and history. Oh and by the way Andy is now a full-on carnivore. He's been eating ham and sausages all week like there's no tomorrow.

Our main route. It's only about 55km long but far from a walk in the park. No paths, just forest floor, bogs,  plenty of hills and rocky cliff faces to climb and a river crossing. That's with all our kit on our backs. Every morning we pack up camp and move out leaving little or no trace. I've been going over my kit list and trying to cut weight wherever I can but my backpack is gonna be heavy. The only good thing is that it will get lighter as the days go on when I'm eating all the food I'll be carrying. Not gonna say too much about it yet apart from I'm looking forward to it.

Here is the beggining of a spoon I'm working on, Its the first one I've done so I can only get better.
I started off by chopping a few pieces of Aspen, and selected a peice with the least knots and grain runing pretty straight. I actually started on the outside of the wood because it had a natural dip where I could form the bowl of the spoon.

I made the bowl of the spoon by placing a hot coal from the fire onto the wood to burn the main shape out as it's easier and quicker than trying to carve it out with a knive, and used a stem of Wild Angelica to use as a blow pipe to concentrate the heat on where I wanted to get the shape.

 Basic shape of the bowl, carfull not to burn through the bottom.

 Next I carved the rough shape of the spoon with an axe.

Then with my knive I carved the shape and took out the burnt wood from the bowl. I took my time, no hurry.

After a little sanding, it's still not finished but its as far as I've got, almost there tho.


This was something else I was messing around with the same day. It was supposed to be a butter knive but looks like it kind of turned out to be a butter/survival knive.

I've got a few other mini projects I've been messing around with like a wood gas stove. I'll get them on here soon but I'm hungry so I'm going to eat.

Laters