February skiing and maintenance tour

At the beginning of February, we did an another tour of Northern Finland, first to Äkäslompolo for a maintenance visit and from there to my Mother and to my home region.

In both January and February, there was plenty of frost. The first time when we leaved Äkäslompolo there was thirty degrees below zero and at the second time it was over twenty degrees on several skiing days. In the cold, skiing is more challenging because warm clothing is needed with multiple layers and the face also needs to be protected from the cold. An additional challenge with frost is that the skis are not gliding. We ski with skating technique and in the frosty weather skiing is much heavier.

However, despite the frost, we did ski trips via Lämpökolmonen to Lake Tunturijärvi and towards Lake Ylläsjärvi. We did not ski all the way to Ylläsjärvi so we returned back by the same route before beginnig of Aurinkotupa route. This way we got a twenty-kilometer-long ski route. When we skied back, it was warm because the trail rises up from the Lake Tunturijärvi to Lämpökolmonen.

Once less frosty day we skied towards Kotamaja, from there via the Pyhäjärvi route to Karhukota and Latvamaja. This was an inspiring route change and for part of the route the skis glided very well. The skis had been at the Sportshop for waxing and thus glided much better.

In addition to skiing, we did Äkähome (Skistar) apartment maintenance, too. Although the apartment has plenty of closets, we wanted more desk space as well as collection bins for recycling. We solved the matter by placing a new chest of drawers under the TV and put the old chest of drawers in a lobby for keys and other things. Under it, we put couple of collection bins where can easily collect cardboard, plastics and bottles for recycling. We have noticed that in just in a week, there will be a surprising amount of material for recycling. Now there are good collection bins.

Äkähome's sauna is heavy used by both us and our customers. Fortunately, the sauna has remained clean and only new stones were needed. We changed stones so, the sauna would heat up well and give a good steam after the ski day.

We brought more cooking and kitchen accessories for cooking and baking to the kitchen before the spring season. Because the corona might restrict eating in a restaurant, we wanted to make sure home cooking should be easy and everything needed is available in the kitchen.

In addition to maintenance, the apartment was cleaned well. We hope that our customers will remember our Äkähome as a clean and well-functioning apartment in a central location in beautiful Äkäslompolo village.