Day 5 OMG! -27 degrees??? An icy day of skiing in Levi

Day 5

26.3.2024

Good morning, the sun is shining, the sky is blue and my app says at 7:40 am:

-27 degrees !!!!!

Above it says "feels like -32 degrees"

😱😱😱😱🥶🥶🥶🥶🥶

Whaaaaaat??????

It's spring in Lapland!!! Why is it sometimes colder now than in January????

I'm afraid I'll have to make a quick trip to the ski shop at Zero Point later and buy some snow goggles. When it's sunny, I prefer to ski with sunglasses, but yesterday after the first run my face froze. Good for tightening the skin, nothing moved, but it wasn't at all comfortable. So I reached for the snow goggles, my son's snow goggles though, because I don't have any of my own and then I stupidly put my daughter's old children's snow goggles in instead of my husband's spare pair. Now we're in a pickle. In these temperatures, you can't go without snow goggles - unless you want to have permanent facial freezing 🥶😅

When I look at my phone, I'm briefly frustrated. Apparently, the northern lights were everywhere yesterday. In my Facebook groups, I see pictures from Helsinki and somewhere in Lapland, but not in Levi, because unfortunately there was a thick carpet of clouds hanging over the sky. Grumml. Even in Germany you could see the northern lights. Grumml...

Never mind. To the cold!

After breakfast, the three of us head to the Point Zero parking lot. There is nothing going on here yet.

While my son is getting some ski equipment, I get a heart attack when I see the price tags in the shop next door. I'm looking for snow goggles. At first I'm happy about the 30% off tags, but if the goggles cost €249 (😱), there's still well over €100 left after the 30 percent discount. For ski goggles???? No way. My pain threshold is €50. Doesn't seem to work here. I walk through the shop and see a huge stack of ski goggles in front of the cash register, nicely stacked. The price tags have been crossed out several times: €139/€99/€79/€49. Yes, €49 sounds great. The goggles look good, from Salomon, serve their purpose and are now mine 🥳

Her son got the same skis as her husband, but 5cm longer 🤣 Oh, I wonder if his daddy's ego can handle that? Not so easy when the 15-year-old "little one" is suddenly bigger than her husband 😅

We take the 6-seater chairlift next to the gondola station up the mountain and want to take the "Glacier Express" chairlift next door, as this goes higher up the mountain and is therefore a feeder to the ski area. Unfortunately, the chairlift is standing still because there is a problem with the technology. Sometimes it moves 3 m forwards, sometimes backwards, but it remains closed for the time being. So we have no choice but to trudge or push our way up the slope through the forest to reach the next lift.

Ok, advantage: I'm not freezing anymore - despite -27 degrees 🥶😅

Once at the top, we ski down the slope to the Gondola and then on to Westpoint and the Kids Park (fun park with giant ramps and all kinds of toys for ski and snowboard enthusiasts) at South Point.

The weather is a dream; plenty of sun, blue skies - OK - and about 20 degrees too cold, but with the many layers of clothing and the scarf over your nose, it's OK. You just can't drive too fast. The wind in these temperatures is really unpleasant 🥶

We hold out until 12 o'clock, then our fingers, toes and nose are frozen stiff...🥶, even though it's only -10 degrees around midday 😅.

We return to South Point in the beautiful restaurant with winter garden and panoramic terrace, treat ourselves to veggie burgers/reindeer burgers and then a hot cappuccino/cocoa. The boys set off after dinner, I chill out for a few more runs outside on the deck chair in the sun - at -10 degrees, but it doesn't feel that cold anymore (the little sunburn on my nose shows that the sun is already strong 🤣).

After having actually used all the lifts today, but by no means all the slopes, we leave at around 3:30 p.m. Theoretically you can ski until 6 p.m., but we are now frozen and exhausted.

Plus, Apres Ski is calling 🥳

We drive our son and our skis to the house, then we walk the almost 1 km long path back to the outdoor apres ski "V'inkkari", where we can see the fog from the fog machine from afar and hear the music including the Finnish "drinking choir" 🤣

It's packed today, the Finns are standing and dancing on the tables, and there's also a stage next door (concert today?). The DJ is jumping around on the railing of his mini stage and handing out Kinder Surprise eggs as we arrive. I don't catch any though...maybe tomorrow.

With half a liter of "Lonkero", the Finnish apres ski national drink, we secure ourselves a place on a bench - standing, of course - and watch the hustle and bustle. We can now sing along to a few verses of the Finnish apres ski hits. THE party hit here is called "Esson Baariin", it's a real blast! The Finns can't do much with the German "Helikopter 117" and we come out as the only Germans in the apres ski circus today 🫣🤣

The topless man cannot be missed and jumps around next to the DJ in sub-zero temperatures, followed by a polonaise to samba rhythms, which then ends in a huge Sirthaki party.

When the DJ "pampers" the audience's ears with hard Rammstein sounds, we run away...

Besides footpaths, there are no bicycle paths here, but snowmobile paths. Even signposted with traffic signs 😉

In the house we light a fire in the oven, then go to the sauna and watch some TV. We're too tired to play games and our son prefers to devote himself to his social media.

It's supposed to snow tomorrow...I'm excited!

Key data:

Accommodation: Levilehto Apartments

Levi ski resort:

26 lifts / 38.5 km of slopes / Funpark

Weather: sunny at -27 to -9 degrees during the day