Simi scraping a pair of skis on day 1. © Liz Stephen
November 11, 2010 (Muonio, Finland) – We arrived on Monday night to Muonio, Finland, after a solid 30 or so hours of travel time. We are way up here, where it is dusk all the time. The sun is always rising or setting, but here you don’t base your plans around the hours of daylight. There are hundreds of kilometers of skiing in the middle of winter here, and almost all of them are lit.
Daylight is man-made, rather than created by the rising of a large star, and darkness is plentiful, so there are many chances for night skis, which are some of my favorites. Races kick off tomorrow (Nov. 12) with a skate sprint, then a 5/10K classic race on Saturday, followed by another 5/10K skate on Sunday.
Kikkan and I with our jam-packed High Sierra backpacks. © courtesy of Liz Stephen
Just when you thought that High Sierra couldn’t make a bigger backpack, they do, and Kikkan and I still managed to fill them. Now they really don’t fit in the overhead or under the seat in front of you. Walking to my seat on the plane is what it must feel like to be the master of the game “Sorry”. I have to say it to every passenger sitting in the isle seat, as the side pockets full of water bottles hit them in the face as you pass by.
We are lucky to have the support of one of our wax techs, “Juqui”, (really unsure of the spelling on that one) here, not to mention two fired up coaches in Bryan Fish and Pete Vordenberg.
Day 1 of skiing in Muonio on great snow (l-r) Kikkan, Andy, Liz. © courtesy of Liz Stephen
There is really good snow here and about 25K of skiing, so no complaints will be coming from up North, and we are WAY UP NORTH. Check this place out on a map. The quickest way will be to find the arctic circle and go 250 kilometers north. Up here, daylight literally disappears to the tune of almost 9 minutes a day, or about an hour a week!
