Thursday 29 December 2011

Ylläs - Christmas above the arctic circle

Numb toes, burning cheeks and brain freeze - that can normally describe skiing in the north around christmas time. And of course i got my share of these extraordinary sensations this time as well even though it felt warmer than i remember is normal. 

The last time I spent the christmas in the finnish ski resort Ylläs must have been ten years ago, and I must say it felt like coming home. When i was a kid we always used to go there at least a couple of time every year to the cabin my grandfather built in the seventies. It was here that i first learnt to ski and where i did my first adventures in the mountains. It was here that I truly fell in love with skiing and it was here that I really learnt how much it means to spend time with my family. 

When I was free to do as i please, bigger mountains and adventures put their spell on me and I felt like I didn't have the time for the little knolls in the north. Maybe I felt the same thing for the family, but it sounds heartless to put it in to words. 

But things change, and so do people and in the same pace that the game is getting transparent, the feelings for what inherit value recur. Mountains can for sure bustle up the process. 

So this christmas I had the fortune to hang out with mum and dad, one of my cousins and her boyfriend, my once and his wife as well as my grandfather. It was a great gathering with lots of good food, wine, treats as well as early morning race training, long days in the slope, followed by some cross-country skiing and a short ski tour. Its simply amazing to spend time with the family, and I value it more and more the older I get. I can't wait for the next time! 

Check out the ski area at www.yllas.fi
And the best bar at www.barkaappi.com

This is as light as it gets at this time of the year



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