It's been a dry but cold November and December here in Northern Flatland, or middle depending on your point of view. Down south the Alps have gotten some good early season snow as well as Northern Norway, and the Finnish capital area around Helsinki is close to record depths with 50 cm snow in early December. But Oulu and Northern Finland have been dry. It's been cold enough that the local ski resorts are open and warm enough for skiers to visit them but snow is mostly man made.
But we finally got some in Oulu!
That clip was filmed on 7th December on the local dump hill in Oulu. Maybe 7cm of fresh stuff. Shot with GoPro HD with handle bar and helmet mounts. Edited in 4 hours with Kdenlive. Thanks for the local snowboarder kids for letting me hit those nice rails, and letting the rails hit me. Couldn't help but smile while skiing that little hill, and while editing the video and listening to the hilarious Nanowar song RAP-sody!
On the skiing side of life, I've hit the local resorts Ruka and Iso-Syöte a bunch of times, partly with the smaller skiers in the family. Nice to see a four-year-old get the hang of a ski lifts and coming down a kids slope alone. Not nice as a parent to let the kid disappear for 10 minutes out of sight, but there she was just going through the kiddie gate to the lift and skiing right down. Phiuh.
Then there's the small competition by Head Finland where they are offering some kind of sponsored freeride skiers position in their team. Having nothing better to do and being up for a little challenge, I'm all in! So go and like Head Finland and my application.
So, the ski season 2010/2011 has begun. We've also booked flights and setup one third of our tour of the Alps schedule during weeks 8, 9 and 10 of 2011: first week we'll spend in Disentis, Ch. Last two weeks we will be chasing snow. I really hope we get as lucky as those Salomon dudes, part one and part two.
Have a good one,
-Mikko