Kelostapuli summit

Today we parked at the Yllas National Park nature centre and snowshoed up the Varkaankuru gorge onto the shoulder of Kelostapuli. The sun broke through ever so briefly as we topped out. The summit is normally windy and bitter, but today was almost windless. A gentle breeze and -6ºC was enough to keep us moving. The deep soft snow meant that we could almost take the direct route back down, but careful to avoid the large cornices on the northern slopes.

This view shows our route up out of the woods, extra photos showing the progressive weighing down of the tress by the snow as you get higher. The last show the view out to the northeast over the Aapa mires - saturated in the summer and a haven for words and insects, they are cold and frozen now and provide miles of tracks to ski.