Grooming the ski-trails starts at 4 a.m.
The ski tourists should have a fresh track opened up by midday
By Tapio Mainio in Pallastunturi
The spring snow forms into precise, slippery grooves as Juha Särkijärvi drives the trail-groomer steadily towards Hotel Pallas.
The ski tourist can only admire the untouched track surface, laid out like railway lines across the Lappish wilderness.
This morning, like many others, Särkijärvi switched on the ignition at 4 a.m. when his customers were all still deep asleep.
"The trails all have to be in shape for skiers by 12:00. The tourists are getting increasingly picky and demanding, but then again in the past the trails were never as well looked after as they are today. It was only on the main routes that someone would go over them with a snowmobile and a groomer", he says.
Now a modern tracked groomer with a sound-insulated cabin for the driver can prepare the trails for classic style and skating style skiing with only the one pass, at an average speed of 12km/hour. In the area covered by Muonio municipality alone, there are around 250 kilometres of groomed tracks. In the Pallas-Yllätunturi National Park as a whole, the figure is 350 kilometres.
The main route is the Hetta-Pallas trail. This runs from Enontekiö in the north, up by Lake Ounasjärvi, down to Hotel Pallas, although there are branches that head further south to Olostunturi Fell and to the border community of Muonio. It is also possible to continue from Olostunturi south to the large Ylläs ski-resort.
Särkijärvi is on the payroll of Muonion Paanat, a local association in Muonio that gets funding from tourism entrepreneurs, cottage-owners, and the municipality. There are two drivers and two grooming machines.
The groomers are out on the trails every day and will be as long as the snow conditions permit.
"I last had a day off ten days back. Today my working-day will be around 15 hours, and I'll lay around 150 kilometres of trails. After the morning session on the main route, we do the branches off it, for instance north-west from here to Kerässieppi", says Juha Särkijärvi.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 13.4.2006
More on this subject:
 More and more people hiking in the Lapland wilds
BACKGROUND: The unresolved urine problem
Links:
Finnish Paana trail groomers
TAPIO MAINIO / Helsingin Sanomat
tapio.mainio@hs.fi
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