Skiing the Planet: October 2023

Tuesday, October 31, 2023

Wurmberg: Busy Skihill in Harz

I've never heard of this place. But, it is a cozy national park, relaxing, forest, some caves around... and it is also a 971 meter high mountain, the highest in Lower Saxony. So obviously there's a ski resort with lifts. Including a gondola! The views are nice, the weather like sunny, and to my luck there was also some fresh snow on the sides of the ski slopes. Can't complain:

But the views, they really are something:

There were also some lift lines at the bottom of the mountain... also parking was challenging due to the popularity of this place in the weekends:

Here's one of the biggest slopes:

And here's one of the side slopes which I liked actually much more. Quiet.

Wurmberg is a year-around destination, for hiking, cave visits, and then in the winter skiing. Their ski season runs typically from mid December to late march. Read more about Wurmberg from the lift operator's page, or wikipedia (English, German).

Friday, October 27, 2023

Late fall swim

It is always a bit sketchy to visit our summer cottage in late fall. It is cold, freezing, the facilities are pretty basic, and if the road is icy we can't cope with the steep hills on the road. Not with my crap car at least. But, it always ends up being a wonderful visit. Dipped in the cold lake once at least, had a wonderful warm sauna in glowing fire light, the lake and sunsets were beautiful. And I saw for the first time northern lights! Amazing that I have not succeeded in seeing them before, but for some reason not.

The lights were super strong for a few minutes, and I had assumed you could only capture them nicely on camera, but not with your eyes. I was wrong. You can see very strong ones, if you're lucky! Considering myself very lucky then. It was worth waiting for all these years :-)

Northern lights:

Other photos:

For more sauna and swimming stories, check out planetswimmer.com and saunablogger.cool websites! Read more urban exploration stories from theurbanexplorer.net, and other underground stories from planetcaver.net. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot or TGR. Photos and text (c) 2023 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. I never take photos of other saunagoers or swimmers and visit when there is simply no one else or the facility has been closed or booked only for me.

Opening day + 1 at Vihti... at children's slope...

Wow, I missed the opening the day by one day, but no matter. The slopes at Vista are running at full speed! Or slope, rather. There's just the children's training slope. And full speed is not exactly Ludicrous Speed, it felt a bit like standing on a carpet and waiting for it to move. For sure it was worth to pay 39€ for the lift ticket to ski on this for an hour? Still, wonderful. Everyone seemed to be having a lot of good time. I did too! Kudos to Vihti, Hyvinkää, and Talma opening their slopes so early this year!

And I've been in Vihti so many times before, it is wonderful always. Here are some earlier articles:

And many more... you get the point, I come here a lot! For good reasons.

Here's the webcam photo that attracted me to come here this time:

More photos:

Saturday, October 14, 2023

Love a swim and smell of kerosine in the morning!

I was in a conference at the Arland airport this week, in the "Clarion Hotel Arlanda Airport Terminal" as they like to call it :-) It is directly connected to the shopping and restaurant space of the airport, one does not have to walk outside to get here. But the really cool thing is their rooftop pool. One can enjoy a warm outdoor pool while breathing fresh air mixed with some kerosine smell. Love it! Particularly in the mornings!

Here's the conference side entrance to the hotel:

Compare also these pictures to the marketing material from the hotel:

Saturday, October 7, 2023

Second-hand clothing store at my airport!

I don't fly as much as I used to, so it was the first time I saw the Helsinki-Vantaa airport new shops. These include a nicely decorated and expanded Moomin shop and a second-hand clothing store. Very nice! Nothing for men / sports, however.. maybe next time.

The second hand shop:

Weather was miserable (unlike in my destination :-) ) but inside the airplane it was nice and cost, and there was a good breakfast. I had used a soon-to-expire upgrade voucher... could have been my last voucher, I won't reach status next year. Enjoy it while you can, I guess.

For more flying stories, check out the planetflier.com website! And of course the Planetcaver, and Planetskier blogs for other stories in Blogspot and TGR! The photos and text (c) 2023 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.

Go-Around from HEL

It did wake me up! The Finnair A320, OH-LXD, was landing late in the night. Suddenly the engines were turned higher up and the plane started rising. A few minutes later the captain announced that due to unexpectedly high tailwinds, they could not slow down quickly enough to land. So around we went...

See above for the route. Funnily enough, we landed on the same runway. Why would you land with a tailwind runway?

Anyway, I caught a picture from where we overflew the airport after the go-around. We were not at the runway when the go-around was initiated, maybe a kilometer from it. Altitude I can't say for sure.

In the start, the plane was again caged:

Plenty of space in the back for me to sleep during the flight:

But interesting, some excitement for the flights :-) I'm not sure I've been on one before, maybe once due to some unexpectedly slow traffic.

(When this happened now, I was returning from my trip to the alps.)

Sunny, Extremely Icy

Birthday. I needed some skiing for that. And, the only real skiing on this side of the planet was in Hintertux, the friendly location for year-around skiing on the glaciers. Sadly, the glaciers are shrinking. Now on first of October their state in Hintertux was worse than last year in the worst of the summer in the end of August. That's not good. But, some ice left. A bit of snow also on top in some places, even some unskied snow! But wow, were the main slopes icy. Extremely icy, as the weather forecast indicated.

Here's a short video:

Such a nice place, Hintertux! Just look at these views:

Skiing:

Slopes. And queues!

Captain obvious?

Crevasses. Massive crevasses, cf. the size of the snow cat below for instance. And deep, tens of meters. Would be very interesting to explore! But not safe :-(

Mountain views:

The author:

On this trip I stayed at the Mariasteinerhof in Mariastein, one hour away. Previous articles about Hintertux have appeared here, here, here, here, here and here. I've also been caving here, see this. Or SUPping under the glacier, see this. Not to mention using the saunas and pools in the many fine hotels here, see for instance this.