The Winter That Wasn't

This past weekend, the last inconspicuous bits of snow vanished from our yard, a full month earlier than last year. In fact, this milestone would have occurred even earlier, had it not been for one little last gasp of winter. Our yard was already snow-free on March 12th, before we got a sudden 10 cm (4 in) snowfall three days later. It didn’t last long.

In the thirty-odd years I’ve lived here, the snow season has never ended this early. By now that’s not much of a surprise, considering how this year, we really didn’t have much of a winter. Back in the dark, cloudy days of December, when the snow should have started piling up, it was always just a couple of degrees north of freezing and all the water falling from the sky came down in its liquid form. Not as pretty and persistent as the white crystals we usually get.

While we had a maximum of something like 80 cm (2.5 feet) of snow in our yard last year, this winter we barely made it to 14 (half a foot). And I had to clean snow from the sidewalk only once all winter, for Christ’s sake, not three times a week or so like in a normal winter. Even worse, I went skiing only once, for a mere seven kilometers (4.5 miles). The previous winter it was more like 180 (in miles, 110), and I'm not the world's most ardent skier.

The first "last" patch of snow, March 12th.

Maybe I could have gone skiing a few more times, if had bothered to travel further afield. But the normal skiing possibilities near our house, where we often can step into our skis right in front of the driveway, were dramatically reduced. With the help of man-made snow, the ski center at Paloheinä kept at least one short loop open most of the winter – a really sad substitute when you’re used to skiing for kilometers and kilometers over open fields and through dense forests.

I certainly hope this winter doesn’t point to a disturbing trend. When I first moved from sunny Georgia to Finland, I suffered greatly from the long, dark winter days. That is, until I decided to embrace the winter and enjoy the snow. After all, that sea of white stuff just outside the door isn’t going anywhere for a few months (normally), so you might as well make the most of it. And I’m happier for having it around, since winter days are short anyway and the somber, gray alternative to snow can be downright depressing.

I’ve always joked that if, for some reason, Helsinki no longer had snowy winters, I’d have to move either further north (closer to the Arctic Circle) or further south (where at least you can see the sun more than once a month).

Even though the unusually warm winter this year might well be a jarring reminder of climate change, I’m still hoping things return to normal for the next few winters at least and I never have to make good on my promise to move. I'm kind of settled here. 

Nothing left to measure.

Winter Blast

For the last couple of weeks or so Finland has been experiencing an impressive blast of winter weather, thanks to a persistent high-pressure system that has brought blue-dome skies, more sunshine than we’re used to, and nighttime temperatures that are unusually bitter for March. 

As late as last week, the mercury would rise to almost freezing almost every day, but plunge down to well below -15 Celsius (5 Fahrenheit) at night, even once down to -24 (-11 F). Even now, as daytime temps finally reach beyond the freezing point and the melt off has slowly begun, we still have some 60 centimeters (two feet) of snow in the yard. 

The month of March is on track to be colder than December – an unexpected late blooming of winter that I’ve never seen in all my time in Finland. To be honest, it has suited me just fine.

The stubborn departure of frigid weather has given me a chance to do some wintery stuff that I’d put off to almost the last minute, making the most of the cold spell with a winter blast of my own. 

Out on the ice on a sunny afternoon.

I began a couple of Sundays ago by taking an offshore walk -- that is, a long stroll out on the frozen sea. I wasn’t alone. There were hordes out there, in fact. Venturing out on a flat expanse of snow-covered ice stretching toward the open sea is just too enticing for many, especially in the waning days of winter, when the sky is full of sunshine and the ice hasn’t begun to weaken enough to make the exercise suicidal. 

Make no mistake, being on the ice in the wrong place (such as under bridges or where a current flows) can be very risky. But on my outing, I prudently kept to the parts of the ice that had clearly been tread recently by other people, mainly well-worn paths crisscrossing between the small islands scattered offshore, islands I have kayaked around in the summer. I hopped from one to the other for a couple of hours, visiting places that ordinarily require a boat to reach.

I haven’t been out on the ice like that for almost thirty years. It was more personally convenient back then because I lived downtown, only a few blocks from the shore of the Baltic. And in those days, there were even more destinations to walk to. 

We walked once to Suomenlinna, the island fortress a kilometer offshore from Kaivopuisto, the city park at the southern tip of mainland Helsinki. Not only was a temporary boardwalk laid down on the ice for pedestrians back then (at least during the coldest winters), but a seasonal bus route ran across the ice to Suomenlinna, giving visitors and residents a way to reach the island after the public ferry stopped operating for the winter. 

Such a direct, solid route is not possible nowadays, as the giant passenger ferries leaving for Estonia and Sweden now use the channel separating Suomenlinna and Kaivopuisto, preventing the water from ever freezing enough to bear the weight of anything heaver than a swan. 

Two days after my expedition over horizontal ice, I tried a route in a different direction, 90 degrees different. Just a few kilometers from my house is a spot along the Vantaa River called Pikkukoski (“Little Rapids”). There are no actual rapids there, but there is a fine swimming beach and a 15-meter-high (50-foot) kallio (“rock outcrop”) with a mostly vertical face on one side. (When my sons were small I used to take them rappelling off part of that wall.) 

Three winters ago, someone came up with the excellent idea of pumping river water up to the top of the kallio in order to form massive ice cliffs and create a perfect little ice-climbing garden in the middle of suburban Helsinki. 

I’ve done a tiny amount of guided mountaineering, including glacier walking with rope and crampons, but I’ve never done ice climbing, and the idea of giving it a little try at Pikkukoski has kicked around in my head all winter. With the season coming to a close, I decided not to wait any longer. 

A company called Adventure Partners offers novices, like me, a chance to conquer a bit of vertical ice at Pikkukoski. For our two-hour session, they provide all the needed gear, even the boots, plus instruction and, most importantly, close supervision as me and the other four clients took turns climbing and belaying.

The feeling of being able to move up the ice, poised only on the front points of your crampons and the tips of two axes barley biting into the ice, was absolutely awesome. And exhausting. 

I wasn’t sure I’d had any strength left after reaching the top the first time, but I did manage to make four more trips up the cliff before it was time to stop. Although it was a bit pricy, I was completely satisfied. Hands down, the coolest thing I’ve done all winter. 

I finished out my weeklong “winter blast” with more ordinary winter fun, namely skiing. Almost solely on principle, I went downhill skiing one afternoon. In recent years, I’ve gotten in only about one ski trip a winter, which is a shame, since I have my own skis and the nearest hills are only about 45 minutes away. All that’s needed is the cost of a lift ticket. Maybe my only excuse is that no one else in the family is that keen on slalom. 

In any case, I do much more cross-country skiing nowadays, and in that regard, this season has been very good. I’ve put in more kilometers on the tracks this winter than ever before (yes, I’m one of those folks who like to measure and keep track of such things). I just passed the 160-kilometer (100-mile) mark, which might not seem like a lot for some more serious skiers I know, but it’s more than twice as much as I did last winter. 

Normally, I go out for only an hour or so, skiing around the woods and fields near my home on the edge of Helsinki’s Central Park, not far from Paloheinä, the city’s most popular skiing spot. Recently, though, I decided to try something a little different, namely skiing from my home all the way to downtown Helsinki (or as close as I could). 

I got this somewhat contrived notion because of a new pedestrian bridge that was built last summer over a busy thoroughfare at the southern end of Central Park. The bridge makes it possible to (theoretically) ski continuously from Central Park almost to the Opera House at the head of Töölö Bay, if anyone other than me would want to do that. 

When I finally got around to making the 12-kilometer (seven miles) trip last Saturday, it was clear that conditions were deteriorating. A lot of the tracks through the forest were littered with twigs, needles and other plant material typical of late-season skiing, when there is no longer fresh snowfall to replenish the ski paths. Such debris on the tracks has a high degree of what renowned skiologists refer to as “negative back-and-forth non-ski glide factor” – in other words, it’s sticky. It can really cramp your skiing style.

I did make it to the bridge, but not much further, as the tracks beyond that petered out onto gritty, thawed-out sidewalks. Still, by checking this off my list before winter finally ended, I had one more reason to feel content that I’ve gotten all I want to out of the season. I’m really to let winter go, and just in the nick of time. Let the melting begin. Summer, I’m ready! 

The new Aurora Bridge links Central Park
with downtown Helsinki.

Skiing

Finns, inhabiting a country that is in deep freeze much of the year, are fanatics about winter sports.  You name it, if a sport requires snow or ice or teeth-chattering cold temperatures, there is a Finn somewhere ready to jump at the chance to do it.  Or at least watch it.  Skiing, ski jumping, hockey, snowboarding, skating, ice-fishing are all popular, though ski jumping – for reasons anyone who has seen it up close will appreciate – is a sport that most people are happy to experience as mere spectators.  With their feet planted firmly on the ground.  Conversely, ice fishing is a solitary (some might say reflective) pursuit.  While I’m sure it has its own special joys, I pity the soul who would see ice fishing as a spectator sport.


Of all these sports, by far the most popular with folks who actually want to get out in the bracing air and enjoy themselves is skiing, and mostly this means cross-country.  Downhill skiing is quite popular, too, especially in Lapland where Finland’s only world-class slopes are located.  Still, downhill skiing will never have nearly the impact on Finnish culture as the traditional cross-country, or Nordic, skiing that Finns have been doing for millennia.  It was some 5000 years ago that the idea of using two slabs of wood to travel across snow first caught on across the northern fringes of Europe and Asia, including present-day Finland. 

Holiday traffic in Paloheinä

Practically everyone here has skied at some point in their lives, and many do it regularly.  It’s been reported that some 15% of the population ski at least three times a week.  I can believe it on a day like today, Epiphany, a public holiday in Finland.  (Epiphany commemorates the Three Wise Men’s visit to Bethlehem, bearing the gifts of gold, frankincense, myrrh and, apparently, a day off work for Finns.)  When skiing today near Paloheinä, the premier skiing center in Helsinki’s central park, there were easily a few hundred skiers with me on the groomed trails that wind for kilometers through fields and woods.  I’m lucky to live close enough that it’s only a five-minute walk from my front door. 

Skiing begins early in life here.  Most parents have likely strapped baby skis on their kids’ feet before they turn three (for our kids it was under two).  Group outings on skis are a regular activity for kids, from in pre-school to high school.  After that, the level of interest (or willingness) seems to drop off dramatically for the current generation of young folks.  In fact, many of the skiers you see on the trail are middle aged or older, which doesn’t always hamper their ability to overtake me as I prod along the trail at my own deliberate speed. 

As you might guess, I ski old school.  I would love to fly across the snow using the sexier “skating” technique favored by the more serious skiers nowadays, but alas, I don’t have the coordination to manage it for more than a few meters at a time.  I don’t feel so bad about it, though, since like most foreigners here, I don’t have the advantage that Finns have of being able to ski before learning to ride a bike.  That’s not to say that I was a complete skiing newbie when I first arrived here.  In fact, strange as it seems, I had my first introduction to cross-country skiing way south of the Mason-Dixon Line. 

Back in March of 1978, a friend and I went hiking in the Great Smoky Mountains, a range of mile-high peaks on the North Carolina-Tennessee border.  Protected by a 770-square-mile (2000-square-kilometer) national park, the Smokies is the biggest chunk of mountain wilderness in the Southeastern US, a paradise for hikers and black bears, and a place my friends and I had visited many times before, also in winter. 

For this trip, our goal was to hike a couple of days along part of the Appalachian Trail, which in the Smokies runs along the backbone of the range over some of the highest elevations east of the Mississippi.  It was to be an easy two-night trip covering a bit more than 20 miles, starting from Newfound Gap, a high pass on the crest of the Smokies and good jumping off point for the AT.  

Helsinki boasts hundreds of kilometers of ski trails.

Though it was late March, practically full-blown spring elsewhere in the South, at Newfound Gap (at over 5000 feet, 1500 meters) there was almost a foot of fresh snow.  And this was on top of a previous snowfall of almost a foot that had earlier frozen into a rock hard surface.  The new snow made walking difficult.  A foot of soft snow itself isn’t hard to walk through, but when it hides “postholes”, it can present challenges.  By “postholes”, I mean deep “foot prints” punched through the hard crust of the old snow by the last hiker to pass through.  Completely hidden deep under the new snow, these quickly became little pit falls. 

As we made our way up the trail, we’d take one step in not-so-deep snow only to -- without warning –- hit a foot-deep posthole with the next step and plunge into snow over our knees.  It made for frustratingly slow walking, and after a mile or so of this, we’d had enough.  Luckily, there was an alternative. 

The stretch of the AT we were on parallels the Clingmans Dome road, a spur highway that runs along the Smokies crest that is closed to traffic all winter.  We decided hiking on the unplowed road had to be easier, and at the first opportunity, we crossed over the ridge to find it. 

The road was great, and afforded better views of the valleys below than we would have had from the trail.  And the snow covering the road, untouched by other hikers, made for much easier walking.  That didn’t mean, however, that we were entirely alone.  At a particularly secluded section of the road, we were surprised to meet a small party of cross-country skiers from Michigan.  I’d never seen anyone ski touring anywhere, and I was impressed that these folks would drive more than 500 miles (nearly 900 kilometers) for the chance to glide undisturbed across miles and miles of fir-covered mountaintops. 

It appealed to me, and two years later, with another friend I tried it for myself, touring along that same stretch of closed, unplowed road on skies we rented in Cherokee, North Carolina.  We liked it so much that the following weekend we made the three-hour trip again to Cherokee to buy our own skies.  Mine still hang in my parents’ basement in Georgia, mostly unused.  But I did venture out on them a couple more times before moving to Helsinki, where the forest scenery – while not as solitary and mountainous as in the Smokies –- is still perfect for skiing.  Especially when it’s all just outside your own front door.