Hiking to Tunturi Kiilopaa

14 Sep. 2006 Urho Kekkonen National Park


Is it a kind of crop circle??

It was raining. We spent lazy morning on the second day. The sun came in the afternoon, so we went out for a short hiking. The clouds were moving pretty fast by the strong wind. The weather wouldn’t be steady.

We went up to Mt. Kiilopaa. I don’t know if I could say it as mountain. It is actually a hill, as you can see the in the photo below. The path is straight up to the top of the hill. ‘Mountain’ is called ‘Tunturi’ in Finnish. Sounds cute.


As we expected, it started raining as soon as we departed. The weather was very changeable. Raining, shining, here, over there, then a rainbow showed up, raining again, so we could see all weather in the view.


At the top of the hill, we asked a lady to take a picture of us. She had been taking many pictures there, so I assumed that she would be a good photographer. You need to choose the right person to ask to take a photo, you know.

She was willing to take a photo, then she started talking to us. Where do you come from? From Japan? I thought so, I am pretty interested in Japan! I am from Ivalo, coming here some time. I am glad to talk to you, because I didn’t have opportunities to speak with Japanese people…

So we went down the hill chatting. Rained again, and we saw beautiful rainbow. ‘Hey, stand there together so that I can take your picture!’ she took several pictures of us with her camera.
‘You should come to Ivaro next time. We could take you to Norwegian mountains by car. We have just been there. It was beautiful and fun driving. Give me your mail address so that I can send you these pictures.’ That lady was very friendly and nice to talk to. I love to talk with local people.


‘ Hey ladies!’
When we got back to the accommodation, a cute guy spoke to us. Who is he?
‘Did you go up to the mountain?’
Oh, he is the guy whom we met yesterday. His face had been covered with sunglasses and a knit cap the day before, so we didn’t recognize him. Oh boy, I didn’t know he is so good looking!
‘Yes, we have just been there. The weather was a bit rough, but it was beautiful. We saw the rainbow too.’
‘Good for you! Well, I am having dinner now. See you later!’
He headed for the restaurant; we headed for the dry sauna. Well, actually we should have gone to the restaurant too. Because we regret a lot that we didn’t ask neither his name nor contact. We didn’t see him since then. Oh well.

In early September, the day was still long. It was not completely dark around 10pm. The weather got better in the evening. The sky looked beautiful with clear air. We heard that you might be able to see northern lights even in summer sometimes. In fact, they said that they had seen northern lights about 2 weeks before. So we sometimes came out to look up the sky at night. We were not so lucky to see one, but at least we saw beautiful stars all over the sky.