Urho Kekkonen National Park-Nuortti Track - Hiking in the deepest Lapland

We chose Urho Kekkonen National Park (Finnish: Urho Kekkosen kansallispuisto) for a multi-day hike through the Finnish landscape. This park is one of the largest in Finland and offers various shorter and longer stages. Thanks to a travel guide about the "most beautiful hikes in the world", we wanted to do a three-day track around the Nuortti River to the Russian border. One of the main entrances and information centers of the park is not far from Inari (Lapland road conditions!), but when we arrived, the information center had already closed early and could no longer provide us with information about the hike around the Nuortti River. Luckily, there is the internet... unfortunately, the entrance to this track was on the other side of the national park - only 90 km as the crow flies... which translated to 280 km in the Lapland road network that we drove in the evening. The route was quite funny, with many reindeer, not always paved, straight through the forest through towns that don't deserve that title at all, it gave us a good insight into the Lapland solitude.

The national park entrance was hidden behind Tulpio (take a look at it on the map, which can also be found here in the blog), in the middle of the forest, only accessible via unpaved roads. The track was really beautiful. For me (Anne), it was a completely new experience to get by for 3 days only with the things I had in my backpack: tent, sleeping bag, sleeping pad, clothes, food, cooking utensils, soap, etc. We could take water from the river and fortunately didn't have to carry it with us. The hike went through the forest, always along the riverbank, sometimes a bit hilly, sometimes completely flat - a total of 42 km. The biggest highlight was crossing the river on a suspension bridge in the Russian border zone, where signs were everywhere, pointing out very directly that further progress is absolutely forbidden. The second highlight of the hike was crossing the river shortly before the end, where we had to wade through the river, holding onto a wire rope so that we wouldn't be swept away by the current - and all of this of course in Lapland temperatures. During the hike, the mosquitoes and horseflies were incredibly annoying, as we were completely bitten in no time and were already afraid of dying from anemia (haha). No, but seriously, my legs looked like I had chickenpox again. Now in hindsight, something like that doesn't seem so bad at all, and the three days, completely secluded from civilization (without mobile network or contact with other people), in harmony with nature, remain in our minds as a wonderful memory.

Back from the hike, we spent a night at the next campsite, where we were awakened by the sound of reindeer hooves, which had free rein on the campsite. Oh, how one learns to appreciate flowing warm water!