Thursday, May 14, 2015

Answers from the woods

Yesterday evening I spent some time planning what to do today. I decided to visit Nuuksio, to walk from Pirttimäki to lake Sorlampi and explore the area north from there. I thought that early in the morning there wouldn't be many people at Pirttimäki, even though today is a public holiday.

However, it turned out that a trail running event ("Bodom trail") was taking place in Pirttimäki today. I didn't fit in with the people who were wearing fancy running tights and shoes. I had tall rubber boots, tactical trousers, a worn outdoor jacket and a field cap.

There was a newly marked trail criss-crossing the forests and swamps, going to Sorlampi. I talked to a person waiting by the trail for the runners to arrive, and she said that almost 1000 people were taking part in the competition, and the longest route (which I was following) was 21 km, marked in such a way that the runners didn't need to have any orienteering skills.

The running trail visited the same six lakes which I had planned to visit, and thus I followed the trail when convenient. I had started early enough so that there were no runners yet on the trail, but every once in a while there was someone from the organizers waiting by the trail, to help the runners to find the right path to follow.

I visited six different lakes: Sorlampi, Pikku-Sorlampi, Malmilampi, Lintulampi, Hynkänlampi and Sultingsträsk. At Sultingsträsk there was yet another event going on: the lake was circled by people, each one having a fishing rod (or several) and eagerly trying to catch fish.

The photographs were taken on April 30th in Sipoonkorpi National Park.

(Posting title is from the poem A Dent in a Bucket by Gary Snyder.)

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