 Poster: A snowHead
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I will try not to ramble too much with this one!
So, we booked to go to Ylläs in Finnish Lapland a few months ago. We both love Scandinavia and the promise of some excellent cross country ski trails, decent enough downhill skiing (for our ability anyway) and good snow was what led us to choosing this location. Previous ski experience consists of Åre Sweden for 4 days, a week in Breckenridge, Alaska (cross country only) and of course Scotland!
We booked via Inghams, flights from Manchester with Jet2 which meant a grim drive down South in very heavy rain. I got a good deal on airport parking and hotel for £55. Comedy story about the hotel (skip this paragraph if not interested). So, went up to our room and I had muddled up our room number. Tried the card 3 times and it kept rejecting it. Suddenly the door flew open and this very odd looking bloke was at the door. We muttered many apologies and he just stood and stared at us. Anyway, after literally NO sleep (the soundproofing in the hotel was awful, we could hear people having a bath in the next room at 0130....seriously?!!) we decided to just head to the airport. Well, on the way along the corridor we could hear people having some very very noisy sex  . Guess which room it was coming from? Yes - the one we had tried the card in earlier  .
Anyway, after worrying slightly over Inghams/Jet2 conflicting info on hand luggage we got everything checked in fine and a fairly non-eventful flight (other than aborting first attempt at landing which was annoying as I was desperate for the loo after taking advantage of the special offer on Prosecco) we arrived more or less on time. The transfer was a short one (30 mins) to our hotel the Ylläs Saaga. The hotel was decent enough. Location was in Ylläsjärvi which is tiny...a very small shop beside the hotel (cheaper beer  ), a couple of restaurants, a couple of decent gear shops but most importantly it was ski in / ski out. We stayed there half board and the food was ok, not great but certainly filling. The Äkäslompolo side is much bigger but I don't think anywhere was ski in / ski out. The nearest supermarket to our hotel was a 45 minute walk. It's a nice walk though and all floodlit.
So, the skiing. Well there were two things which made this holiday a bit of a disaster. Firstly from day 1 my husband came down with a horrible throat infection which lasted all week (I now have it myself). This ruled out any cross country skiing and only application of rule 5 allowed downhill skiing to be undertaken. Secondly, the very low cloud and fog which persisted every day except one. On day 1 we got out the gondola and I am not joking when I say you couldn't see further than 5 metres ahead. We found some piste markers and had a very disorientating ski down. Of course the visibility got better further down so that was something. We got a couple of pictures on the one day you could actually see the sky, I will post these below.
Anyway, the snow on piste was fantastic every day. Not a hint of ice anywhere and the slopes were very quiet. The Ylläsjärvi side is all drag lifts apart from the Gondola (which is great). Over on the Äkäslompolo side there is also a chairlift. There isn't really any off-piste other than coming through the trees lower down and we did see a few people having fun in there (we ventured in and out a couple of times). There were a few jumps and rails though I will add they were building a couple of huge jumps which I expect will be almost finished by now. The lower slopes are all blue or green, nice and wide and there's a magic carpet at the bottom. From the Gondola it's mainly reds and a couple of blacks. Nothing is that steep though. I'm pretty rubbish and I got down everything with no concern, even in the fog (which we got sort of used to by the end of the week). Whilst we didn't cross country ski (gutting) the majority of people in the hotel were clearly there to do that. The trails looked absolutely amazing and there was over 300km of them, free to use bar a €10 contribution for a trail map. Lots of them were also floodlit. We had a 1 1/2hr lesson which was €100 for the 2 of us on our own and both got a lot out of this. There were plenty people snowboarding and lots of people who were clearly early beginners. I would say this place would be fantastic to learn at as the snow is great, the runs are wide and quiet and actually we never once saw any crazy out of control people. Very child friendly as well from what we saw. Oh, at the top of the gondola if you turn right there's a beautiful log cabin building which has a bar and serves food. I loved it in there.
In terms of apres ski - well, there really isn't very much of this. We weren't bothered about that though and were happy to sit with a glass of vino and a book. There were heaps of excursions on offer. We didn't do any of them but what we did do was hire a car from Ylläs express to visit a friend of a friend near Kolari who owns some relatives of our huskies (also stocked up on Vino in the Alko there, it's the closest proper one!). Car hire was really expensive but they were a lot cheaper than Europcar and delivered to the hotel. If you wanted to DIY to here it would be easy enough. There was a regular bus service from Kittilä airport to all the ski resorts and plenty flights to and from Helsinki. The supermarket which was a 45 min walk away only sells beer, no wine. There was also a nice gift shop on the other side of the road here. It was well enough stocked for anyone self catering but there was a much bigger supermarket in Äkäslompolo and there was a bus service to and from here (it's about 15km away). Make sure you take a good first aid kit including painkillers. A box of ibuprofen and strepsils were €7.50 EACH!. You have to ask for them in the supermarket as they aren't on display.
Would I go back? Well, if I won the lottery I'd move somewhere up there in a heartbeat. It's a beautiful place, so peaceful. That said if you only wanted to downhill ski I'd book last minute and check the forecast first. The low cloud and mist really affected the enjoyment and I know plenty people didn't ski the upper slopes. At least with the gondola people could jump back on and plenty were doing this. If you like cross country skiing then it's a must do. It looked amazing for this.
Sorry for rambling on. Here's a couple of pictures from the nice day!
Last edited by Poster: A snowHead on Thu 13-02-14 21:26; edited 1 time in total
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Thanks for this. Off there for 3rd time on Sunday 16 Feb to do xc. However you really should have tried one of the many Finnish karaoke bars. It's a real revelation. One evening we were in one and a big group of hells angels came in but forunately seemed to be behaving themselves. Some traditional Finnish music was playing and I happened to go to the loo. When I came back I found one of them dancing the waltz with my wife ! So appearances can be deceptive. They love their tea dances apparently. We also got serenaded by a huge bear of a Finnish chap who insisted on singing Delilah (in Finnish) to us when he found out we were British. It's a pity you were ill as winter resorts aren't fun unless you're partaking in the activities. We've done snow-shoeing up one of the nearby hills above Akaslompolo where the views were extraordinary and also dog-sledding into the wilderness.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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I don't think we would have been welcome in any bars given the amount of coughing we were doing! That does sound good though. I'd recommend dog-sledding but we have our own Siberian Huskies that we run in harness so not the same novelty factor for us (although running on snow doesn't happen as often as we would like). Really fancied the snow-shoeing I have to say, saw a few folk doing that. Enjoy your XC skiing!!! That's my biggest regret is that we never got to do any but clearly not an option when ill. The trails looked awesome. We met a guy on the flight who was over for a week XC in December and that was him heading back already. I have to say the snow in Lapland was better than anything else we have been on before. That was what made skiing in the near zero visibility possible. At least you knew you wouldn't suddenly hit something unexpected .
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