Survivors - the return

Remember the outing of last February? Well, it's only December, but the weather gods this month are granting us with so much snow it feels like January or February already.

Here's the account of our last Sub24 of 2012, courtesy of Olivier:

The December edition of Sub 24 was indeed dominated by a Christmas feeling. We met at Bemböle in pitch darkness, the bike path had been miraculously cleared from the snow during the day and the biking was mostly comfortable almost all the way to Pirttimäki. 

Florian had come up with a beautiful idea of bringing skis on the bike to switch at Pirttimäki for some smooth 3 km skiing to our favourite hut. However he ended up being alone with his skis, though the skis tied to his bike had the most beautiful effect and impressed many pedestrians: 

It started to snow gently from Pirttimäki and as we walked to the hut I wondered if the forest has ever been that beautiful. All the trees heavy loaded with snow, lit by the light pollution and flashlights, being far away from it all. The hut was open and we were happy to take the challenge to make a fire from wet cold wood. And we were successful this time. 

 

Florian treated us so well with warm glögi and Pippari, but why of why did we forget to sing also some Christmas carols? Anyway, it was soon time to go to sleep. I learned a bit more on how to pitch up a tent on a frozen ground with only 20 cm of fresh snow. I think we slept quite alright and I would like to underline that Young is a real light-weight trekker: he had no mat and only a summer sleeping bag. This will remain in my memory for a long time. He even asked me if I really needed my mat because the snow was quite comfortable.

 

 

The trip back was a good opportunity to see in the morning light all what we had missed the day before. For the way back, the snow from the night was not yet cleared up and for me it felt like a long way. But still I didn't dare to feel tired because some were on single-speed bike. As it was cold and windy, Robin took the opportunity to remove his jacket that was preventing the wind to cool him down. He clearly demonstrated that protection against bitter cold is a matter of attitude.

I was very happy to have the opportunity to use my winter sleeping bag. The slight discomfort brought by the cold is completely overtaken by the feeling of being in one of the far North Canada adventure novel I was reading as a child. Many good ideas came to us in the midst of the forest. What about a Sub24 on skis only? What about a 2 or 3 days trip just on skis? Stay tuned not to miss any exciting trip!