Climbing hills and fells: Vuokatinvaara and Sallatunturit

Juha Haataja

Climbing hills and fells: Vuokatinvaara and Sallatunturit

Juha Haataja

1
Walking up the hill at Vuokatinvaara
3

Lift cabin

Ski lift

Signs

Broken boards

Forest

Steps

View from the hill

10

2
Intermission: Hotel aesthetics
11

Decorations

12

Steps

13

Bath

14

Mirror

15

3
Lake Hiisijrvi sands
16

Life of Formica cunicularia

17

Lake Hiisijrvi

18

Swimming pool

19

Sand plant

20

4
Climb to the top of Sallatunturit fells
21

Geranium

22

Trees

23

Forest

24

Rocks

25

Steps

26

Sign

27

Tower view

28

5
Summer cottage living
29

Reindeer

30

Sallapiv event at Salla on July 19th

31

Crow

32

Self-portrait

33

Oven

34

Cloudberries

35

Red

36

Birch

37

Lake Keselmjrvi

38

Lake Keselmjrvi

39

Silhouette

40

Moonrise

41

Night

42

Night

43

6
Back to Sallatunturit fells
44

Rocky

45

Fallen

46

Fir

47

Vaccinium uliginosum

48

Empetrum nigrum and Vaccinium vitis-idaea

49

View

50

7
Walking around Sallatunturit fells
51

Drops

52

Swamp Keselmjnk

53

Pond Ponnolampi

54

River Kaippahanoja

55

Dry

56

Fallen

57

Moss and lichen

58

Cloudberry

59

Path

60

Geranium

61

8
Srknniemi amusement park
62

Dolphins

63

Jump

64

Up

65

Up

66

Down

67

Juggling

68

Wave swinger

69

Afterword
I took the photographs in this book while traveling to the village of Salla in Lapland, Finland, between Wednesday July 17th and Wednesday July 25th, 2013. I traveled with the children, driving the car for 2200 km in eight days and taking almost 2800 photographs. During summer there are a lot of events all over Finland, for example the swamp soccer world championships at Hyrynsalmi, which was just starting when we drove past the site. However, we didnt seek crowds, and thus avoided such events when possible. We stayed for two nights in a hotel at Vuokatti, by Vuokatinvaara hill. On the day we arrived there I walked the seven kilometer long Eino Leino path, which goes around and up the hill. It was good exercise after the long drive in the car. From Vuokatti we traveled north, stopping on the way at lake Hiisijrvi, where you can see the eects of a catastrophic water level decrease by 14 meters in 1761. Farmers tried to lower the level of the lake to get the new meadows for cultivation, but this resulted in water rushing out of the lake. A preserved area of the sands from the former lake bottom is available for visitors. The sand is very ne and dates back 9000 years to the ice age. In Lapland we stayed four nights in a summer cottage near the Sallatunturit fells, by lake Keselmjrvi. We we arrived at Salla, the length of day was 20 hours 58 minutes, and it didnt get really dark at all. It was cold, during night +5 C or below, during daytime +10...+15 C. But there were very few mosquitoes or other biting insects, which was rather good for walking in forests and swamps.

70

I climbed twice to the top of the bigger of the Sallatunturit fells, the second time with children. My oldest daughter counted the reindeer she saw in Lapland: 89. And additionally three deer while returning home. On the return trip we went to Srknniemi amusement park, where the children stayed for almost nine hours, enjoying the rides and events. Originally I didnt plan to make a photo book, but after coming back home I remembered photo books I made in 2009-2011, while taking part in SoFoBoMo. SoFoBoMo was a group event where photographers all around the world made solo photo books in PDF form, in 31 days, start to nish, and you needed to have at least 35 photographs in the book. SoFoBoMo doesnt exist any more, but I liked it, and based on those experiences I decided to try to make a photo book once again. All photographs in this photo book were taken by me with the Panasonic LX5. I used Aperture for making the initial selection and organization of the photographs, and Pages for typesetting. I used Ghostscript for processing the PDF le generated by Pages, and Blurb for making a printed version of the photo book. As always, Im grateful to fellow photo bloggers: for inspiring, for teaching. I wish you happy moments with this little book! Juha Haataja July 29th, 2013 Vantaa, Finland http://lightscrape.blogspot.com/

71

This is a photo book made by Juha Haataja. All photographs were taken by the author using a Panasonic LX5 camera while traveling to Salla in Lapland between July 17th and 25th, 2013.