Maps

• Paper maps to buy and review daily 

• Finish Excursion topo map (alternative address) is available online and on paper at the Visitor Center in Saariselkä
  

• to overview the trail for the next day and as a backup.
  

• Everything including, huts, saunas or bridges can be turned on in layers
  

• Offline maps mapy works fine
  

• download it to all phones (maximize redundancy)
  

• Brief overview maps of NP

Take enough power banks. Batteries die quickly in freezing cold temperatures below -10 or -20 °C. There is nowhere to charge them on the way.

Log cabins (booking)

There are reservable and open huts in the area.

Get a universal key in the visitor center (check open hours). It can be returned to their box at any time.

By staying in the open huts, you might be at risk that they might already be full when you arrive.

• Booking of huts

• Huts listed on mapy.cz

visibility of the huts in the given zoom

Equipment

Only reservable huts have mattresses, so you don't need to take your own mat.

There is a stove and cooking utensils in every hut and wood in a shed nearby. The axe should also be in the hut or shed, but at one hut it was missing, probably lost in snow. We reported it to rangers. Fortunately the axe is necessary to make kindling to start a fire and we managed to do it just by a knife.

Some cabins also have a gas cooker or a grill grate. We tested it on Kiertämjajrvi. Much better than just on the frying pan.

Sauna

Some huts have a sauna nearby. Pay online before or after the trip by writing to rangers how many of you used it.

Water and food

We have a couple of recommendations on food to the way you are already accustomed to handle your alimentation:

Be ready to make drinking water out of snow on the stove. That takes time. At some cabins, it might be possible to collect the water from a river (if it runs quick enough not to freeze) or through a hole in a lake (when you can get through the ice or there is a hole). It's always worth it. 

There is no time for fishing. You'll spend most of the time skiing. But we bought a couple of fish in Saariselkä, and it was a good dinner. Thanks to freezing temperatures, we could just put it in pulks.

We also took one more thermos each to prepare a hot soup in the morning to have a quick lunch break and warm up a bit.

Weather

• Locals use FMI, yr.no or IS Supersää for weather forecasts.

• For aurora-forecast, we got recommended Alaska.edu

Expect short days in the winter.

Equipment Rentals

• Backcountry ski with skins and decent warm boots were around €170/weekSkins are must, it would be very difficult without them, because although there are not too many hills along the way, there are a lot of local bumps.
  There is an option of forest ski (for around €236/week), they are a bit wider, and you put them on your own boots, but we didn't try it. It'd probably be better for a lot of fresh powder snow, but slover in good conditions. But we didn't try them.
  

• Pulks (sledges to carry your stuff) were around €140/week. Taking a backpack instead is nonsense. You'd be dangerously unstable with higher risk of breaking a leg in hard terrain.

• You also need a bivouac sac (or a tent) so you can overnight at any time when you get into troubles, unable to reach a hut.

Search Google maps fore rentals.

Phone and signal

There is no charging on the way. Have enough power banks and backups. We did not use phones that much, so our ± 30 Ah per person was fine. 

Solar panels are too weak. Days are short, and it's often overcast. You'd have to take quite huge panels, at least of the size of the whole pulks, and a cable long enough to keep the powerbank being charged by the warmth of your body to get anything at all.

Theoretically, in Luirojärvi, there could be rangers at some times who might help in problems, but we did not meet anybody there.

There's a mobile signal just occasionally at some places. We did not count on it much, only for emergency purposes, but you might be able to reach a mobile signal within a day, so we did not take a satellite phone.

• Mobile signal coverage (Telia)

Difficulty is highly dependent on conditions

Powder snow, storms and -20° C

The difficulty is made by freezing temperatures, snow storms or a lot of fresh powder snow.

The terrain is not hard, but in bad conditions, you might be as slow as 1 km/h, especially in fresh powder snow or temperatures below -20 °C. The temperature is really nasty, because around -20 °C, you can't afford to breathe hard not to get pneumonia. Be really serious about it, it happens regularly.

Following an old beaten path is much easier and faster when possible. Even when they are hidden in a fresh snow.

We were lucky to mostly have easy conditions, The speed is highly dependent on the conditions you have. Watch weather forecast and prepare accordingly.

Uneven terrain

There are not many big hills or high passes, but local bumps slow down pretty much the same at some parts because you pull heavy pulks up and you must brake them downhill. Especially "funny" is when pulks will "catapult" you at the bottom of a downhill before you start climbing again.

Plan daily

Study topo maps the day before to choose a path wisely and check if there's a track in the snow for tomorrow to estimate the difficulty.

Camera equipment

If you are a photographer, beware mirrorless cameras start having problems around -15° C. The display and focusing start to slow down so much, that it become unusable around -20° C. Older DSLRs are more reliable.

Carry plenty of spare batteries, and always keep at least one spare in a warm place by your body. Batteries drain superfast at low temperatures, and a half-discharged battery is already unusable at temperatures like - 15 °C.

Let lenses warm up slowly when you get to a warm hut. The condensed moisture inside the lens might damage it irreversibly. Just give it a time to warm up slowly, far from a stove, maybe even under a sleeping bag.

Russian border

There was no danger coming from Russian borders during our visit; that was after the Russian invasion to Ukraine. We were just checked by a police on snowmobiles. Fins also started to build a fence on the border.

Check the actual conditions. Recently Russia started to drive migrants to the border systematically, so the situation could change.

Map of Area