Pirunkuru, my favorite place

There is a steep pass called Pirunkuru that takes you up to the Kesänki fell in Äkäslompolo. It has somehow a magnetic attraction to me. I notice every now and then that I am climbing up there. I guess I have done that nearly 100 times.

I have had many really different kinds of experiences up on that fell, alone, with my husband or with lots of kids. Some of the extremes:

• The best Aurora Borealis ever, with a bright red rim underneath the yellow and green flames in the clear night-sky and this on a Christmas eve with -32 degrees. 
• Finding a large snow igloo suddenly in the middle of nowhere. A group had practiced building one and they had stayed a night there on the fell. 
• 5 wolves trying to attack our kids. Actually they ran away when the kids made some noise to scare them, but it was exciting.
• Terrible snow storms making me struggle in snow up to my waist.
• Heavy winds making us practically fly down the icy slopes on thin cross-country skis.
• Fog where you could see less than 5 meters and we got lost. This happened years ago at a time before reliable cellphone connections and before I really knew the form of that mountain with my eyes closed. We returned in our tracks, the only time we have had to retreat from there.
• A man committing suicide and succeeding with it. We were too stupid to realize what was going on at the time. We barely saw him and he escaped sideways along the fell and hid in the snow, we later learned he froze to death.

But often it's beautiful, a quick climb with a nice view.

Here we come with the 5 little ones, 2 in tow at the moment…   This was also 2001

One evening years ago when climbing up Pirunkuru, there were some people telling me about a woman who has lots of small kids and climbs up Pirunkuru every evening. I came home and jealously told my husband. "Could you believe that somebody is brave and strong enough to do that every evening!" Tommi, my husband laughed: "It is you they are talking about!" No, I thought, he's wrong. At that stage I only climbed up there every second evening and had only 5 small kids so the description did not fit. Still now, every time I climb up there, I think about that mysterious woman. It is peculiar that I have never met her there…

Last week, late in the evening when the last rays of the sun made the snow purple, there were about 50 people up on the fell!! They were making a movie, Lumikuningatar, The Snow Queen, by H.C. Andersen. When you see a touching moment with a beautiful view in the movie and you simultaneously hear a crazy lady talking on their phone in the background, it is me. I also made some noise with my skiing. I am sorry. Maybe they can fix my noisy disturbances in the editing.

I was freezing so I needed to move on. You can see the movie in December. The next evening Pirunkuru was empty, nobody was there, but the scenery was even better.