Repovesi National Park

 

Repovesi is one of the most beautiful and visited national parks in Finland. High hills and sightseening towers offers beautiful views to the lakes and over 50 km trails calling hikers . Last year Repovesi had 104.300 visitors.

1910 Kymi-Yhtiöt took the Repovesi area under the forestry use. The is still lots of  history left from timber floating with floating channels. 2003 UPM-Kymmene gave most of the area to the future national park and also suggested area for griffin preserve.

15 sqkm Repovesi got national park status in 2003. It has many lean-to’s, huts (also rented), camping areas and fire places. Most of the trails been used so much that tree roots makes trails a bit difficult to walk. Also terrain has steep trails, but when you get top of the hill, you will see awesome views.

Welcoming gate has lot's of information about the park

Welcoming gate has lot’s of information about the park

My friend Niko asked me to go there with him for 2 days and since i don’t have nothing to do, we made a plan. I drove to Lahti on Friday morning and first i went to see my old friend. Around 3.30pm i parked my car to company’s yard where Niko works. My car isn’t in good shape and it would be stupid to drive there with 2 cars since we would drive the same road to get there….

We had dinner first on our way and finally arrived to the Lapinsalmi (Lapland strait) parking. Seems there was already quite a few people, lot’s of cars parked. There is also a small kiosk, where you can buy snacks. Also some warm food is available.

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Lapinsalmi bridge

Lapinsalmi bridge

Took only few minutes to walk 600m to the Repovesi’s well known Lapinsalmi suspension bridge which have been build in 1987. It is 50 meters long and hangs at 10 meter hight.

It has great views to the lake and felt really sturdy too. Sign said to keep 10m distance to each other in the bridge.

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DSCF8186We took some photos and were just about continue….my friend remembered that he forgot to lock his car’s doors… so i waited him 15 mins. And were they lock? Yes they were haha! Oh well, 15 mins is nothing. I took some photos while waiting. Saw some canoeing and wave hello to them.

Seems there was lot’s of foreigners here too, some spoke french, some Russians….we met later one guy who came from Australia.

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Repovesi trails were mainly easy to walk. We saw wide worn out trails, so that tells how popular this place is. First we were heading to the Katajavuori (Juniper mountain). Unfortunately, to get in top of the hill, we have to climb really steep and long stairs. Not easy for 130 kg (275 lb) guy with 15 kg backpack….

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DSCF8202My goodness, they were steeper than i expected. Well, up there waits great views so here we go then….! On our way up i stopped in the middle and those big rocky hills looked so beautiful in the sunlight. Long trees looked like they were trying to reach in the clouds!

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DSCF8206It was a beautiful view from the top! And stairs weren’t so bad after all, maybe i have got some stamina from my daily walk haha!
We were thinking that maybe we should stay here this night, since there was many perfect places for our hammocks…but one other friend was waiting us at the Katajajärvi campfire, so we took some photos and found the trail nearby to get going on.

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DSCF8219Rest of the trail for today was quite easy to walk and took around 20 mins to walk Katajajärvi’s campfire place. Our friend Arto was waiting us there since 6 pm. Now it was 8.30pm.

After chatting, we started to look places for our hammocks. It was quite rocky place, so let’s see what we will find.

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We didn’t want to hang ourselves (i just love to say that…) far away from the fireplace, so this was the place for us…as you can see, it wasn’t so easy to set these up hahah! Took over an hour to get all done. We both have Warbonnet XLC with Super Fly’s.

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DSCF8231Rest of the evening we took some photos, had a chat and made some good food. We were pretty beat up, it’s been long day. Specially for Niko, since he was working today. Moon was shining quite bright and some stars in the sky made me happy.  We went to sleep around midnight.

Waking up 7am, so we could have quick breakfast and walk to the Määkijä camp, before it will start to rain heavily.

Coffee wakes up soon

Coffee wakes up soon

In the morning Arto complain that he feelt cold during the night. He seems haven’t use hammocks for long time and since summer have been quite warm, only the sleeping bag seems to be enough for him. But it went low as +10°C during the night so we found out that he isn’t so experienced hammock user and didn’t have any protection under him.

So that meant that he didn’t want to risk to get sick and decided to leave today. So our trails separated soon. Sad thing, but understandable.

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DSCF8267We had only 2 km to the Määkijä camp. On our way we saw great rocky hills and beautiful forests. We heard that there might be Viper snakes on the rocky trail, so we needed to be careful. But didn’t saw nothing. Better that way.

Määkijä camping was a beautiful place. It has toilets, fireplace, woodshed, small pier and also rented hut.

We wanted to make a camp with our hammocks. Both hammocks towards each outher and tarps tied together. There was a perfect place, but…..also really heavy wind which got stronger later. So after we trying to get tarps set up, we gave up because of wind.

We came back same trail to the Kapiavesi (narrow water) which had some cover for the wind. We decided to check the Lapinsalmi camp too, where we had lunch.

Unfortunately here was too windy too and because it was near the suspension bridge, place was really crowded. So back to he Kapiavesi, where we gave up the idea to make a camp with our hammocks.

It started to rain a bit, but we had only 500 meters to walk. So we set our hammocks fast to the porch mode and had some rest. Wind wasn’t heavy here so we could relax.

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It was only 1 pm, when we got all set up. And rain continued until 9 pm, when the wind also died. So we just listen music, had a chat, tried to kill one damn annoying bee (manage to do it next morning) and made some dinner. I had Chili Con Carne ( i took the spicy instead of mild…huh) and Niko had some Blå Band pasta.

The worker bees are homeless this time of year, so they tried to get any food. They are really aggressive now and trying to fly in the face too. Stings easily…

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After 9 pm we finally got chance to build a fire. Had some cheese sausages with us. Later i heard sudden noise from the woodshed and there was one guy collecting firewood. They had a tent about 100 meters away. Guy was really drunk and it was dark already… he dropped some wood immediately because he could walk straight….

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Night wasn’t bad at all, it was quite warm actually! I woke up around 7 am because some Wagtails (fin Västäräkki) made lot’s of noise and they flew around the hammocks. Also the red-throat divers (fin Kaakkuri) were noisy in the morning. Flying around the lake with recognizable Kaa-Kaa-Kaa sound. Sometimes it sounded like laughing.

Later when we were having breakfast, Woodpecker (fin Palokärki) paid a visit nearby. Black bird with small red hat!

Happy hikers

Happy hikers

Took some time to pack our stuff, because i took lot’s of photos from my Warbonnet. Going to write a review to the Finnish outdoor site Retkipaikka.fi.

As you can see, also Niko’s Super Fly seems to be happy to our trip!:)

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Since it won’t be raining until 1 pm, we wanted to try the Fox Ferry! Cable ferry so we need to pull ourselves to the other side of the lake. 2 km hike to there and only 600 meters to Nikos’s car then. I ate lot’s of blueberries in this weekend, but now it is time for the cranberries! Blueberries weren’t so sweet anymore, but quite good. Sings that autumn is arriving are visible too.

Here the forest ministry have made some forest fires for fire ecology (not sure what is the correct word, but to burn forest to build new life)

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Arriving to ferry

Arriving to ferry

Forgot to take photos from the ferry….but check the video 🙂

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Surely it was a nice weekend trip at the Repovesi! There is still lot’s to see, so someday we will go there again! Maybe even in the winter:)

We rewarded ourselves with good pizzas….

All photos under the blog or check them from my site : http://pixabilly.1g.fi/kuvat/Hiking/Repovesi/

And video can be found from Youtube : https://youtu.be/tIZ_6HDAUdk

 

Thank you for reading, hope you enjoyed!:)

 

 

 

 

 

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