Day trip to Levi

Did a day trip yesterday to Levi for October turns. Levi and Ruka are the only open ski resorts in Finland. Icy experience on the slopes, but glad I went!

Levi is about 1000 kilometers from my home, so while driving is an option (if I had a car), it is not an option for a day trip :-) I wanted to fly, but since I was booking the trip less than 24 hours in advance, also the tickets to the closest airport, Kittilä, were sold out. But I managed to get the last tickets for a flight to Rovaniemi, also high up north and near the arctic circle. But still a rental car and a two-hour drive away from Levi. 

Still, it worked quite well. My flight was an early one, left home after 5am and the flight was at 7:30am after a nice breakfast at Finnair's new Schengen lounge. I was in Rovaniemi nine-ish. A bit of waiting for my ski bag and getting the car I was in Levi 11.30am. I also had a late flight, 9.30pm, which meant that I had to leave 6pm-ish from Levi. This still left plenty of time :-)

I used the time to ski. It is very early season, though, and there was no natural snow anywhere to be seen. It has been an exceptionally warm year up north as well. Levi has used stored snow from last year and snow-making machines to set up some of the slopes. And of course, there were reindeers around the slopes, always fun to ski with them:

The Levi World Cup run seemed ready, but no one was allowed to ski there, I guess they are saving it to the World Cup race that was coming up in a few weeks.

So, on the main slopes right in the village they had three slopes open, one of them being a park which was on my day used for a competition only. The two remaining ones were kind of the same wide slope, just with slightly different starting points, two lifts served them. Half of this wide slope was used for racers. I think I saw ten-ish national racing teams, from Japan, Bulgaria, Italy, etc. Not sure if they practice here often, or if they've arrived to practice on location while waiting for the World Cup.

And the slope that had snow ... well, it had ice. It was hard, cold ice with very little snow to grip on. Levi's relatively steep main runs were making each run a challenge, particularly with my not so sharp edges :-) On the first run I wondered if I'd get to the bottom safely and if I'd do more than one run... but it was ok in the end. The racers prefer ice though.

Ice ice no matter which direction you took:

Temperature was around three degrees when the sun was shining, and I think minus something when it wasn't. At the top ski lift hut the thermometer must have even showing wrong though:

I also visited the Levi Hotel Spa before leaving Levi. It is also called Waterworld Levi, a large and popular spa right in the village, 300 meters from the slopes. Very nice, they have an inside-outside pool, a complex indoor pool with a large number of water jets, water slide, many jacuzzis, a regular lapping pool, saunas... 24 € for an adult entrance. Popular with many people, families, etc., but not too crowed at the time I was there. I've also been here before. Recommended.

Skiing pictures below. I started by parking my car under the slopes... 

But it looked much better as you got to the slopes:

Restaurant Horizont at the top of the ski hill. They offered one type of meal, traditional mix of fried potato cubes, sausages, and egg. Affordable, I think it was 13.50€.

Levi area is very beautiful:

Spa:

Finnair's Schengen (Platinum) lounge in Helsinki-Vantaa (link):

Flights:

Rovaniemi airport (link):

Return back to Helsinki-Vantaa was in thick fog:

Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot or TGR. For more sauna and swimming stories, check out planetswimmer.com and saunablogger.cool websites! The photos, videos, and text (c) 2024 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. The spa pool picture is from the spa's website, copyright by them.