The Njiellalanjávri expedition

Last week I went with Jarmo Ruuth and Duncan Simey to look at Njiellalajävri lake and surroundings in the Käsivarsi wilderness area. This is a far-away area almost at the Norwegian border. We saw no one in the area except for a few reindeer. There are not even common hiking paths. The Internet knows very little about this lake, not even a picture. Despite the incredible beauty of the lakes and the rock! We knew the area only through satellite images, geological surveys and maps.

While it was a wonderful trip with hiking, beautiful barren scenery and even some skiing, the main purpose of the trip was to look at the odd lake, Njiellalajävri in the high plains. This up to 2km long lake has no outflow but per our measurements drops 7cm/day. There’s also known limestone layers, some visible directly at the lake. 

Water drop in the lake, 12 hours before this rock was covered in water:

We looked at the lake and tried to identify where the water goes. It could be just filtering through broken rock or other permeable layer. Or it could possibly go through limestone layer and form caves; we don’t know which of these is the case. But the water amounts are large, approx. 10 000 m3 per day. Interestingly while the lake bed is all broken rock, there are a few odd silt-filled clear depressions. On the beach and under water, from one meter to tens of meters across. Just the way the bottom is formed, or places where water goes in and draws silt with it? Again, we don’t know.

On the other side of the mountains, on Toscaljärvi, more than 100m lower Duncan identified significant rushing water sound under a cliff and a large boulder field, feeding a medium sized river. Water coming from the mountain plains, or filtered through rock layers from Njiellala? We don’t know. On either end it is clear that there’s loose rocks and air between them, but it is impossible to see under, so we don’t actually know what’s in the ground.

You can hear the sounds in this video:

Interestingly in Toscaljärvi the same river later falls into Finland’s (only?) underground river again in a limestone layer, for about 100 m. A sight to see, and already known about since 1950s but not feasible to enter as the cave is too full of water. And running too fast even for divers.

We also toured the area looking for different rock layers. And possible cave entrances, including smaller boulder caves. Nice holes were found but everything was very small, few meters at most. 

We did about 64 kms of hiking in five days. Rock hopping, most of the time. In my case with a still painful knee, which amazingly held up.

Entering the Toscaljärvi green, lush paradise after hiking in rocky mountains:

Toscaljärvi underground river, from where it flows as a river to the sink and then to the exit:

Toscaljärvi resurgence:

Waterfalls near Toscaljärvi:

A small canyon and mini-cave:

Njiellalanjávri:

Potential sinks in Njiellalanjávri, from small to the massive ones:

Hiking:

Camping:

Flora:

There are additional, more detailed articles also about limestone in the area and the small cavelets we found. And there will be more in the 2023/2024 Luola magazine published by the Finnish Caving Association. See also the reports about swimming in the area. Or skiing(!). 

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 and coordinates (c) 2023 by Jari Arkko, Jarmo Ruuth, and Duncan Simey. All rights reserved

Njiellalanjávri swim

Our caving expedition to the Käsijärvi wilderness area involved camping and research around the Njiellalanjávri lake. Of course, I had to swim there every night to clean myself of the day's sweat and dirt :-) Even if it was cold. Well, maybe these more like quick dips into the lake. Anyway, spectacularly nice water and scenery!

And this hiker was clean in the sleeping bag every night. To me that makes a big difference...

The lake is in these coordinates N 69.23190 E 21.41887 , a 50 or 25-kilometer hike from nearest road depending if you come from Finland or Norway. Very far away in practice, I'm not sure how passable the Norwegian direction is, for instance.

One interesting feature of the lake is that it drops a lot -- and without any visible outflow river. This lake's size varies between two kilometers long to almost drying up entirely during the year. When we were there it was maybe a bit under a kilometer long. Still, it dropped maybe 7cm every day, e.g., the rock below was right on water level just 12 hours prior to taking this photo:

Also interestingly, this lake is so remote that google yields no search results, not even a single photo. We had been able to locate one old research photo taken in plate camera times, nothing else. This article could be the first public article with pictures of the lake!

Here's the lake:

For more sauna and swimming stories, check out planetswimmer.com and saunablogger.cool websites! 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. 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. 

Särkijärvi Sauna

Särkijärven Majat is a small collection of villages in Särkijärvi, unsurprisingly by the lake Särkijärvi :-) We stayed there on our way to the Käsivarsi wilderness high up north.

And of course we had a sauna! Unfortunately, we were too tired for a swim in the lake.

Särkijärvi itself is closer to Muonio, perhaps a more well known name. The cottages are in coordinates N 67.91060 E 23.93047. The website for them is here. 

Reindeers in the village:

Cottage:

For more sauna and swimming stories, check out planetswimmer.com and saunablogger.cool websites! 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. 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. 

Punkaharju: Beaches of the Road of the Century

Vuosisadan tie (road of the century) or Punkaharjun Harjutie is a road built on a narrow ridge between two lakes, Puruvesi and Pihlajavesi. The road runs for several kilometers and at times the ridge is barely wider than the road. The views and the nature around the road are very beautiful, pictures of this road and ridge some of the classic Finnish tourist pictures. 

It is indeed a recommended destination. And along the road, there's one place where one can easily stop and swim in not one but both of the lakes. They are not marked, but are not hard to find, and both are reachable with few tens of meters or at most few hundreds meters walk. They are located by the small parking lots belonging to the small kiosk on the ridge. The beaches are:

• Vuosisadan tien uimaranta, Punkaharju (N 61.7764671 E 29.33367913)
• Kuikonniemen uimaranta, Punkaharju (N 61.77667132 E 29.33640790)

A lot of fun in the clear waters, sunshine and late-August pleasant but cooling waters!

More information about the ridge can be found here in Wikipedia (English) or here in Finnish. The two lakes on the sides of the ridge are Puruvesi and Pihlajavesi. The article about selecting the road as the "road of the century" can be found here. Other swimming experiences from the same trip include the Hospitz beach in Savonlinna, read about it here.

Vuosisadan tien uimaranta pictures:

Kuikonniemen uimaranta pictures:

For more sauna and swimming stories, check out planetswimmer.com and saunablogger.cool websites! 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. 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. 

Hospitz sauna and beach

 

You have to agree that the name is weird, but regardless of that, Hotel Hospitz is a nice boutique hotel in Savonlinna's city center. It is small, just few rooms in two floors. But it has a bookable sauna in the basement, with direct access to the beach in front. Such a nice swim!

Here are more pictures of the beach. Note the Olavinlinna castle in the background. We think we saw a one of the Saimaannorppa's by the castle waters, by the way. The water is very clean all around, despite being in the city - perhaps explained by the rapid flow through the constrained part around the castle.

Here's the sauna:

I also liked the breakfast, served from a boat:

Here is the hotel itself:

Here are some pictures of the castle. Note the big smokestack:

Note also one of the early designs for a water closet, high up on the tower side above the lake:

And Savonlinna:

For more sauna and swimming stories, check out planetswimmer.com and saunablogger.cool websites! 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. 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. 

Malmin uimahalli (Malmi swimming hall)

The Malmi swimming hall is one of the halls operated by Urheiluhallit Oy, a corporation running several sports facilities in Helsinki. For some reason I had never been there, had not even heard about it. I ended up visiting on its 40th birthday celebration. Quite an achievement, though undoubtedly achieved through several major renovations. In its current state, the hall is quite modern and nice. 

There is a 25-meter pool, three warm therapy pools and one small kiddie pool. And an ice cold water pool, though on the day of my visit it was broken and "waiting for parts from Europe" :-)

Much recommended!

For more sauna and swimming stories, check out planetswimmer.com and saunablogger.cool websites! 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. 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. 

Not just a lifebuoy

I had not seen this before, but at the Oittaa beach on the Bodom lake there's a clever "lifebuoy", with integrated emergency boat for the rescuers to use. Very nice! We need more of these!

The official beach web page is at Espoo's website, here. The Oittaa restaurant web page is here. There's also a Retkipaikka article here. And obviously. Tony Hagerdlund's excellent blog covers it as well here.

My previous article about swimming in the neighborhood of Oittaa was here -- about the "murder cape", a site of a famous triple murder many decades ago.

For more sauna and swimming stories, check out planetswimmer.com and saunablogger.cool websites! 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. 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.