Pretty much Russian Championships, in Saariselka

Week two of my season-starting excursion to Northern Finland took Ida, Pepa and me to Saariselka, Finland. It’s a nice little town way up north, somewhat of a resort town for alpine skiing. During the heart of the winter apparently there are hundreds of kilometers of cross-country skiing trails, but since we’re here at the beginning of the winter, there is only a maybe 7-8k out-and-back segment of trail with manmade snow that has reliable skiing. It won’t be long until they open all the other trails around here, because it just keeps snowing, flurries all day and a considerably accumulation overnight! Sunday morning after the races Ida and I even got out onto the tourist trails which had great natural snow and grooming.

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