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Thursday, December 29th, 2011
Kellostapuli – 500 something meters (maybe even 400 something)
In the last couple of months none of the mountain posts on this site have been on a mountain under 6000 meters. Well, I thought I had to change this fact to make the alps feel big again, so I went ski touring in Finland.
Kellostapuli is a knoll just north of the finnish ski resort Ylläs in finnish Lappland. It could be called the off-piste mountain in this area and this is where I did my first ski tour a long time ago. I think I was almost fourteen years old and at that time these hills where real mountains to me. I remember the feeling of passing the ski area boundary all by my self on my telemark skis. It was a huge step to journey in to the unknown and ski the steeps for the first time.
I was venturing on forbidden land. I don’t think my parents even knew where I had gone, but it was all part of my breaking loose from my own mental chains. For every step up the mountain, what had been familiar entered in to the world I called my own, and it was one of the nicest feelings of freedom I had ever experienced. There was a laughter from inside of me telling me through sensation that; this is life!
For the years to come i would climb this mountain innumerable times and then ski down the north and north west sides, get about two hounded vertical meters of skiing, cross the lake and then walk back to my family’s cottage. I came to become the ritual that finished off every worthy ski day back then.
Now, some fifteen years after my first ski tour adventure I were once again back where it all started for me. Being somehow used to fifteen hour ascents I was pretty relived when it now took fifteen minutes to get to the top.
Looking at the surroundings, a smile came to my lips and I could remember the feelings of exhilaration I had a long time ago.
After five turns down the north west face I hit the tree line and the stratugis changed to light powder snow. For a minute or so I enjoyed playing around the trees in perfect conditions before I arrived at the cross country track and the lake.
Half way over the lake i turn around and look at my latest ski. It didn’t look neither big nor steep anymore, but being on a mountain alone, whether it’s big or small, always gives me feelings of peace and joy. For me thats two of the best things to experience in life.
Ylläs seen from the approach to Kellostapuli
Ylläs seen from the top of Kellostapuli
Kesänki seen from the top of Kellostapuli
The ski down the north west face
Kellostapuli seen from Kesänkijärvi
Ylläs seen from our porch
Wednesday, December 28th, 2011
Ylläs – Christmas above the arctic circle
Numb toes, burning cheeks and brain freeze – that can normally describe skiing in the north around christmas time. And of course i got my share of these extraordinary sensations this time as well even though it felt warmer than i remember is normal.
The last time I spent the christmas in the finnish ski resort Ylläs must have been ten years ago, and I must say it felt like coming home. When i was a kid we always used to go there at least a couple of time every year to the cabin my grandfather built in the seventies. It was here that i first learnt to ski and where i did my first adventures in the mountains. It was here that I truly fell in love with skiing and it was here that I really learnt how much it means to spend time with my family.
When I was free to do as i please, bigger mountains and adventures put their spell on me and I felt like I didn’t have the time for the little knolls in the north. Maybe I felt the same thing for the family, but it sounds heartless to put it in to words.
But things change, and so do people and in the same pace that the game is getting transparent, the feelings for what inherit value recur. Mountains can for sure bustle up the process.
So this christmas I had the fortune to hang out with mum and dad, one of my cousins and her boyfriend, my once and his wife as well as my grandfather. It was a great gathering with lots of good food, wine, treats as well as early morning race training, long days in the slope, followed by some cross-country skiing and a short ski tour. Its simply amazing to spend time with the family, and I value it more and more the older I get. I can’t wait for the next time!
Check out the ski area at www.yllas.fi
And the best bar at www.barkaappi.com
This is as light as it gets at this time of the year
Wednesday, December 28th, 2011
One of the ten biggest freeskiing moments 2011 according to ESPN.com
The ski of the south face of Denali got listed as one of the ten most memorable moments in freeskiing 2011. Check the slideshow here!
(photo: espn.com)
Saturday, December 24th, 2011
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
I wish all of you friends out there a great feast and a good start of the new year!
Saturday, December 24th, 2011
Home
Winter white trees in a landscape of black and white in a place called home. Only the warmth shining from a house here and there is lighting up the countryside. This is a world without shadows. There are only contrasts from what’s here and there, nothing more, nothing less.
It’s a place born out of stillness, and some how it feels like it never started moving. The grey cluds are holding the villages and the forest in a firm grip to protect the creatures from the sun that barely manage to climb the horizon.
When I breathe I get a mild sensation in my nostrils of sticky cold from the lowlands blended with moisture from the ocean. It reminds me of when I was a kid.
Yes, this is my roots, and I can sense the wave of memories wanting to overtake me behind every corner. But I’m trying to be strong; I don’t want to plunge in to the stream of remembrance and thought. It is here that I want to be, in this moment, and I want to enjoy the sensations of now, because they will pass sooner than later. Time is always short.
In between every grand adventure life takes me on, I want to land, it only for a day – where the seed of all dreams where planted.
I want to dive in to the familiar feelings and grasp the sensation of belonging to something. And even though external adventures are almost practically impossible in this choked winter landscape, that for me is standing still – I immerse myself in to an inner journey tasting of calm, distress and joy, half eaten by the rats and mice of time.
But I have to be fair to this place. In the greyness of tediousness my dreams galloped in the opposite direction and lifted me, took me away. In a world that meant nothing to me as a child I created my own little utopia and saved up the energy, just like a little boy saving up for his first bike, to someday fly to where I belonged.
Nowadays I thrive when I’m back home. I lean in to the past and I give a loving smile to that boy I once knew. I’m kind of proud of him.
Now though, everything has changed. What was once a prison leading to dreams of escape is now only a winter landscape dressed in grey. When it doesn’t try to hold me back, I can see the beauty of it all and the meaning other people find in it.
I can see the beauty in a landscape of black and white, with warmth and love shining from houses in the cold; the beauty of the memories from the past or from the low clouds giving the countryside a hug, somehow trying to substitute the sun.
Contrast, cold, feelings of emptiness, memories once again trying to sneak in and a prison wall with marks from my escape. The old feelings have vanished. What’s left is only what I once called home.
Wednesday, December 21st, 2011
The andes ski adventure – Episode 5, Aconcagua, Argentina
The last episode of our autumn escapade through the andes is here at last. In this one we are taking on Aconcagua, the highest mountain outside of Asia. We get to walk some gravel, endure some hard winds, enjoy some good falafels, freeze our toes of and finally actually ski some nice turns.
If you like this move, check out more of Bjarne Sahlen’s great mountain movies at his video blog at: endlessflow.posterous.com.
Wednesday, December 14th, 2011
