This blog post I will bring you to the far north of Finland into the heart of Pallas-Yllästunturi National Park. “Tunturi” is the finnish name for treeless rocky and highly eroded mountains within the wide open region of Northern Finland. I stopped here in the park after crossing Norway from Finlands northeastern arm to its northwestern arm. In case you are not too familiar with Finland, have a look at the shape of Finland on a map … you will immediately see what I mean. Time in Finland is one hour ahead of the central european time. Changing the timezone twice within less than 200 km of driving was so very exciting for my navigation system in the car making it mess the estimated arrival times for the next couple of days 🙂 But back to our destination. The national park consists of the two parts Pallastunturi and Yllästunturi. I focussed on Pallastunturi and parked my car at the visitor center. From there different hiking paths circle the surrounding mountain tops. You will get a good overview if you check the well made webpages of Metsähallitus about Pallas- Yllästunturi. Basically everything you need to know about the area you can find there. As usual in my blog posts the emblem of the park at the end will link you to the same location.
Below is a map of the hike, click it to be directed to the original. It will open in a seperate window. The hike starts from the Nature Center (Luontokeskus) towards southeast and then keeps to the far east. From there we head north to hike over the summit of the Palkaskero. While returning back westwards we pass a strange wooden structure. It is a reindeer fence. From the ‘locked hut’ we simply follow the path south to reach the parking again.
Choosing photos for the blog I ended up with much more that I could not resist to pack into the post than normal. Please leave me a comment if it is too much for you…
But lets get started… after the very first meters that go quite straight southeast, this little trail left uphill. I have to confess that the very first meters here were not always very good to see. Maybe I did not take attention and missed a turn, but due to the good weather and sight, I just continued in the hope to be back on the trail quite soon. It paid out…
Trees here in the tunturi are very sparse.
But we have the small plants and their colors are fascinating, especially in autumn times.
As further we get uphill as more stones show up here. Everything looks very kind, but we are about 170 km north of the polar circle.
This is the look down to where we came from. Here in the surroundings Finland is pretty flat, giving spectacular views…
…at some point also to the area behind the mountain that we currently circle. In the background more tunturis.
It is time to continue along the poles that mark the trail. It is time to approach the summit.
But the views keep stopping me by forcing me to take photos.
One more here …
… one more there …
… a few steps than this …
… oh we gain altitude…
… and finally here it is! The summit!
My contribution 🙂
I stayed a little to enjoy the nature.
Then it was time to plan the return. The parking is hidden behind the stone in the foreground. But you can see the reindeer fences in the valley (the yellow area above the trail marker). Ok, so lets go there…
… but no rush.
The trail goes a little criss-cross and partly quite steep. It happens that sometimes you can use your hands for support.
Still a very well prepared trail if you remember how remote we are here.
Some more photos while we are slowly walking down the mountain.
And there it is, the reindeer round-up. It is used for the annual reindeer counting and sorting.
We have to go through this gate.
And after a very beautiful hike we approach the visitor center again where also find the parking.
Hope you enjoyed the day with me in Pallas-Yllästunturi National Park.