Last week I went on an amazing skiing trip to the beautiful ski resort Ruka in the Finnish part of Lapland. Vlad and Anna, a couple of friends of mine, invited me over to stay at a chalet in Ruka that Anna’s mom owns1. I’m happy they let me tag along on these trips 🙂 We had an great time together! The atmosphere is magical and there’s just so much to do there..
The slopes in Ruka are quite varied with all types of difficulties, although most are on the easier side. Compared to resorts in the Alps the slopes are also quite short since Rukatunturi (Ruka mountain) just isn’t all that high above the land around it. Let’s just say I’d buy a season pass if I lived in Salzburg, but I wouldn’t do that here. Still Ruka makes up for that by having very short wait times for the lifts! You can also ski whenever you want because the lifts are open till 7 or 9 PM depending on the day. Furthermore, Ruka has a very long season, on par with Zermatt and the Mölltaler Gletscher, due to being so far north.
I particularly liked the Pessari slopes (10 & 11) down to this little bar called Monumesta. You’re allowed to bring lunch there so we packed sandwiches with local cloudberry jam. Warming up there with a glass of glühwein or hot chocolate while having lunch is heavenly (and don’t worry about accidentally ordering that in German, they understand that, happens a lot apparently).
Slope map
Ruka has many great places for some après-ski which we visited before skiing the final slope right to the front door. If you’re ever in the area you should definitely try suklaa minttu which is hot chocolate with a shot of 50% minttu, a traditional Finnish peppermint liquor. Delicious! I highly recommend “Piste” the main bar on the Ruka village side of the mountain. You can also see ice sculptures and a giant snowman from here and watch the firework show!
Special slopes
Ruka has a ton of features not found in an ordinary Alpine resort. There are reindeer on the slopes for example in a section that you can only get to by ski. We had a lot of fun feeding the reindeer who were just jumping up and down for more carrots!
Of course Ruka also has some challenges for experienced skiers. I particularly liked the fact that nearly all pistes seamlessly transition into tree skiing slopes. Weaving through the trees, making sharp turns and small jumps feels exhilarating especially because these areas have developed moguls up to a meter high. Due to the short days this far up north (only about two hours of real daylight when we were there) most of the slopes are illuminated by floodlights which is a spectacle to see. For kids there are also several runs with all kinds of themed illumination (elf houses, bear forest, and more) that are just magical to cruise through.
Ruka also has a great half-pipe, a giant FIS ski jump (not open to the general public), a couple of smaller jumps and all the rails you could possibly want. I didn’t try the rails myself because every time I’ve tried that I’ve eaten snow and it was too busy to block the piste by falling every time but the jumps were fantastic! There also is a zipline down from the main peak to a second lower one where you skim just over the treetops. Once a week Ruka also rents out snow scooters between 7 and 11 PM and you can enjoy the pistes in a totally different way by taking the gondola up and scootering back down. Be early though. There will be a line!
Unwinding in a sweltering sauna
After a day of skiing the Finns insist you use the sauna to get your muscles to loosen up. After which you’re supposed to jump into an ice lake or at least go outside in the cold for a while and then come back for a shower. If you haven’t tried this before, try it out, you cannot imagine how utterly relaxing this is. We had a sauna in the chalet and a balcony to cool down on (there was also one on the slopes which even included a jacuzzi but that looked like this so we noped that). As traditional in Finland the sauna had a bowl with water to pour over the stones to increase the humidity but personally I found that quite unbearable. I experimented a bit and found that a dry heat of about 70-80°C was ideal for me. The Finns also use vihta, a bushel of birch leaves, to hit yourself with in the sauna to increase circulation, which was available in all stores there. We didn’t use that because it seemed rather unpleasant, the leaves being all dry and stingy. Later on we learned you’re not really supposed to use the dried leaves but use fresh leaves instead (unavailable at the end of February) so we were glad we didn’t subject ourselves to that just to “be Finnish”!
So many dog movies
Unfortunately Anna got a bit sick just before we left so the first few days I mostly skied with her mom (and sometimes Vlad) while she had to stay behind with a fever, passing the time watching movies. After a day of skiing, some après-ski and a relaxing sauna we joined her and watched a bunch of winter movies about sleigh dogs together. I honestly would never have guessed that there were so many movies about sleigh dogs but they were all super wholesome (Iron Will, Eight Below, White Fang & Call of the Wild)! We also had a fire place where we were roasting sausages and marshmallows or just curled up on the couch in the heat of the fire. It turns out the movies were not random either because when everyone was feeling great again we visited Lamintupa..
Movie trailers
A day to Lamintupa
About fifteen minutes by bus to the east of Ruka, right on the border with Russia, is a small husky station called Lamintupa. There’s a small cafe there where you can enjoy some pastries and then meet the huskies they have there. These puppers really are the most adorable and hyperactive dogs I’ve ever seen. And they’re massive too! One knocked me right over as I was sitting on my haunches.
We paid a very reasonably priced ticket (35 euro’s per person) to take these huskies out for a sleigh ride. They go really fast! If you want to enjoy the view bring some glasses against the wind. The whole experience was such a dopamine hit!
There is a lot more to do at Lamintupa than just the huskies. They also have reindeer rides, snow biking, snow mobiling, cross-country skiing and traditional local dinners in a Lavvu (a Sami tent). Too much to do all at once so we focused on lunch and the huskies though we also went down to the lake they have.
The home of Santa Claus
The way Northern Finland is dressed up you’d think it is Christmas year round there and you’d not be far off. Rovaniemi the only city worthy of the name in the region and is famous for being the home of Santa Claus. This place is a magical theme park that I’d want to take my kids to so much (if I ever have any that is). You can meet Santa Claus, take a reindeer sleigh ride, make ginger bread houses, jump over the Arctic circle, and become an honorary elf and more!
Ruka also takes this Santa Claus ambience to heart as the winners of the ski jumping championships get to take their pictures with Santa and his wife:
Landscape
The landscape around Ruka may not seem all that impressive to anyone who is used to the high and sharp mountain peaks of the Alps. It basically just lakes and trees for hundreds of miles in all directions. Rukatunturi (Ruka mountain) stands alone as a flattened hill or mountain in an otherwise flat landscape. Geologically speaking, this fell is a remnant of a once far higher mountain that has been scoured by miles thick glaciers during the ice ages. Which explains why the current ski slopes are not nearly as long as those in the Alps (though the total piste length is quite extensive). All of this was not quite what I pictured when my friends suggested to go skiing on a fell but I forgive Peter Jackson for not portraying the fictional High Fells of Rhudaur in a way that is geologically accurate.
Ruka makes up for the lack of high mountain scenery by being perfectly snow covered everywhere, even in the lowlands. Where Austria often looks super green sometimes even with fake snow snaking through green grass fields, Ruka is cold enough that it’s all just immaculately white.
Of course Ruka is also very far north so there’s a good chance you’ll see the Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) there. I unfortunately just missed it last week as there was continuous cloud cover the entire time. However this picture was taken by our host just the day before I arrived:
So much more
There is so much more to do in Ruka than I’ve already discribed I could easily stay there for another month and still not have done it all. You could also go ice fishing2, bear hunting2, snowshoeing, ice carting and ice climbing there. There’s also this thing called reindeer yoga, though I don’t really have a good idea of what that entails. Ruka is also the southern most extent of the Sami culture and you can do workshops to learn about the culture there. It is also possible to go on safari as it were with a guide who takes you through the countryside to the Kujala reindeer farm2 where you can help feed hundreds of reindeer. Finally just a peaceful walk along/over the lakes (you can’t really tell the difference) is something I recommend just to soak in the beauty of the surrounding nature.
1 I keep being impressed by this sort of wealth because neither I nor my parents are this rich (though we’ve always lived quite comfortably). With this kind of money you just don’t have to be terrified of losing your job and not being able to pay rent or mortgage.
2 Not something I’d personally do of course
Continental Hotspot 