A Walk around Muonio

As Nordic ski racers, we are incredibly lucky and spend many months of the year travelling around the world, training and racing in faraway lands.  Most of the winter is spent living out of a suitcase and moving from place to place.  But with the focus centered squarely on racing fast, training and resting takes the priority over sightseeing on these trips.  It’s easy to get into the habit of seeing the only ski centers, hotels, and their connecting roads at each race location.  Visiting other places in the local area is often overlooked in favor of time off our feet, letting tired muscles recover.  However most times, these outings become refreshing breaks from the normal rigors and routine of training.  I promised my brother that I would take pictures of all the towns that I visit while travelling this season and I think I will be able to thank Eben for helping me get the full experience of this winter’s travels.

Yesterday afternoon I went for a long walk around the town of Muonio.  With warm temperatures and a sunny sky, it was hard not to go outside.  I didn’t even need my puffy coat and my biggest regret was forgetting to wear sunglasses!

The red area on the map shows the province of Munio which was established in 1575 and has a current population of around 2500 people. We are staying in the town of Muonio in this province and it's about 300km north of the Arctic circle and a couple of kilometers from the Swedish border.

Here are the Lomamaja Pekonen cabins, our home in Muonio. We are staying in the cabins on either side of the cars which happen to be the exact same cabins we rented last year.

One street that goes through town

And the other street in town

A very bright sun for northern Scandinavia. I boosted my immune system today with a healthy dose of Vitamin D.

This is the church that overlooks the town. There is a cemetery behind it that has candles next to each grave and makes for a neat after dark.

S-Market is one of two grocery stores in town. The other option, Kmarket, is somewhat visible in the background. Groceries are somewhat limited at this latitude so we've eaten a lot of meat, potatoes, beets, and other root vegetables. I was very surprised to see Ben&Jerry's ice cream in one of the stores here, but at alsmost 7Euro/ pint, it's a bit out of our budget.

The sport store in town caters almost exclusively to Nordic skiing, Nordic walking, and snowmobiling.

There is a wide river flowing through town with marshy sections like this one which is across the road from our cabins. There are also a lot of lakes in the area.

The ski area, Olos, is at the base of this hill. If you look closely you can see the big windmills that spin over our heads while we ski.

Reindeer Sightings

Last year in Mounio the warmest wax we used was in the blue range so this year’s packing list lacked many of the warmer waxes so the unseasonably warm weather here has quickly drained our small supply.  The ski shop in town is also not accustomed to stocking a lot of warm waxes at this time of the year and have been sold out all week.  Today Pepa, Clare, Hannah, and I drove to Levi, the nearest alpine ski area, approximately 60km to the south, in search of klister.  We were somewhat unsuccessful in this regard but were able to find Finnish souvenirs, a great coffee shop, and lots of reindeer!

Not long into the drive we saw the first few reindeer and immediately pulled over.

We got out of the car and Pepa eagerly chased after the reindeer hoping to get close enough for a good picture.

But we were a little too aggressive and scared them away

If only we had a bit more extra room in our luggage for the trip home...

More reindeer on the way home

We were those tourists that stop in the middle of the road and take animal pictures

Pepa really wanted a picture with one of reindeer but my photography skills aren't great. You can kind of see a reindeer butt in the trees behind her.

And it begins!

The winter season has begun!  Two days ago I travelled with the rest of my Craftsbury Green Racing Project teammates from Vermont to Muonio, Finland.  The travel was easy and I quickly felt myself adjusted to the time change and the European lifestyle.  We flew to Roveniemi, Finland which is situated on the Arctic Circle and drove an additional 3 hours north to the town of Muonio so we are very far north right now.  Having been here last year I was bracing myself for cold but was surprised to see the sun and not feel chilled to the bone.  I should probably savor the daylight though as we are losing at least nine minutes of it a day.  Apparently it has also been an unseasonably warm fall so there isn't any natural snow yet.  Luckily the local ski area, Olos, saves huge piles of snow under sawdust all summer and rolls it out in the middle of October.  There is a 3km ribbon of snow looping through the woods and we are SKIING!  The loop is busy with lots of skiers from across Scandinavia and Russia but conditions are actually great.  Hopefully it will cool off soon so that it either snows or they can blow more snow and expand the loop.  But at the moment I'm just so excited to be skiing again, that the short loop is a million times less boring than any of our normal rollerski roads!  I'll post more stories here and there will be additional updates of our travels from my teammates found at www.greenracingproject.com.

Ready to ski

Yesterday I picked up all my new Fischer skis from Caldwell Sport in Putney.  Zach and the guys at Fischer have put together a great fleet for me and now I just can't wait to test them all out!  I've worked with Zach in years past but when he was living in Boulder it was tricky to find time to connect.  Now that Zach and Amy have moved back to Vermont, I'm looking forward to the opportunity to work very closely with them for ski selection and service this season!

In the spring, we sat down and assessed what I currently had for skis and what needed to be added.  I had a handful of classic skis that I was very confident in but my skate ski selection was not as strong.  Then in June, Zach went to the Fischer factory in Austria and with the help of the reps there, picked skis which would fill in the gaps in my fleet.  It's going to be a long season of being on snow in northern Finland in October to the last races at home in Craftsbury in April and I'm going to see lots in of very different race venues.  To be prepared for all these varying snow conditions, one needs a lot of skis!

Travelling with this many skis is only beneficial if you know when to use each of these.  In the past as my ski fleet has grown, I've found myself overwhelmed and end up repeatedly using a single pair of skis race after race while the rest sit untouched in my ski bag.  This year though, Zach developed an idiot proof system, designed to help me become very familiar with each pair of skis and then pick the best possible ones for each race.  

This is the fleet report of my skis and is separated into classic and skate skis and then color coded according to grind and snow or wax conditions.  All of my skis are also labeling with the corresponding tags.  I still have a lot of work to do testing the skis, trying them against each other and in different conditions, and logging many kilometers on each pair, but that's the fun part!