When you grow up idealizing Finland as one of the ultimate places to cross country ski or be a cross country skier—where winter is supposed to be so magical, Santa Claus calls it home—a November and December of near constant rain and drizzle will stick that idealism you know where—right up in Finland itself--where the sun don’t shine. For those months anyway. An apt metaphor for the November and December we had, which is what made those months so insulting to me as a Finnish-American skier at long last living here.
In Duluth, winter snow activities usually start with a bang. We’ll get that big Nor’easter that locks Lake Superior moisture against the Duluth hillside for a few straight days. Alarm bells will be going off. People will stock up on toilet paper and water, or rush to get their snow tires on their car, only to find three-weeks-worth of other procrastinators got there earlier in the day. They’ll check if their snowblower will start and wring their hands about siphoning out the old, stale gas they forgot to run out of the engine last April when they blew out that last dump of wet, useless snow, as winter gave northern Minnesota one last kick in the nuts. Winter usually starts with a snowstorm, and after that, we just rely on that first dump as the foundation of winter activities, bitching about the shoveling all the while.
I've documented our experience here this early winter as the dismal thing it was. I skied part of November and all of December, not because of Mother Nature, really, but in spite of her. It had everything to do with a winter sports culture prepared for Mother Nature in the time of global warming. While it was skiing, it wasn’t what I’d pictured in my head as a kid what a winter of skiing in Finland might be like. Not at all.
Then around Christmas, the snow-then-rain cycle started to change up a bit. The regular cloud and precipitation ever so slowly trended towards colder temps while the omnipresent, massive cloud cover above slowly tilted the scales from giving us gray to giving us white. The snow melted by rain slowly held its ground a little more each day. We hit a point at Christmas where it just subtley flipped, but you almost wouldn’t have noticed if you weren’t keeping a keen eye on it. I was.
We’ve been getting probably an average of a centimeter of snow per day for the last ten days. Maybe even just a little more than that, and we're not losing any of it. We have been consistently under a fresh coat of some white fluff nearly every morning, but nothing that sets the sirens off, “Skiers! It’s time to ski ALL the trails.” We're close, but still kind of not there as the natural snow pack in the woods is making only the most buffed out trails skiable so far--the ones with the road-grade construction I've discussed.
Since around New Year’s Day, the temps haven’t really gotten even close to the freezing point. We’ve been as low as 12 Fahrenheit but not higher than about 26. And the snow has slowly, ever so slowly, added up. Now we live in a lovely winter place, and I am loving it.
Laajavuori, or “Laajis” by it‘s current handle—like a guy who has gone by Thomas all his life, suddenly, later in life, with a new haircut, fresh tatt, and an earring, wanting everyone to call him Tommy—started with the “Laajis Thunder,” and slowly evolved to more and more skiing. They’ve grown the man made loop to about 2km now, probably some insurance for hosting Finnish U23 Championships in March. But the best-maintained trails with natural snow only, now have a wide, thin pack with classic tracks on either side of the huge skate tarmac. Laajavuori has 45km of trail, 15km lit, and we’ve been exploring this week. I say we, because Mimmu and I had a date ski Saturday and realized how good it was. We got Iita some Fischer skate skis and Rossi boots from where I bought my classic gear, and the next evening she skated and I classic skied the lit 5km loop around the mountain, under the auspices of the blue-lit Matti Nykänen ski jump. It was nothing short of amazing. My stomach did flips realizing this was walking/skiing distance from our door once the rugged trails simply get about 10 more centimeters of snow.
Iita and me on our night ski at Laajis
Getting my bearings at Laajis. I bought a pair of cheap bushwacking skis at a flea market for just such work.
I’d been hearing about this place I HAVE to go ski at. Our friend Anita told me about it, but as foreign words often do in ones head without concentration, the name simply disintegrated in my English-speaking brain mass. Mimmu’s friends asked her as well if we’d skied there yet so she got the name of the place and figured it out for me. I was pleasantly surprised it was only an 11-minute drive from our place—closer than Lester In Duluth.
I didn’t know what to expect because I was already so taken with everything else I’d already skied right by our house. As I got out on Ladun Maja trails today, the appreciation and reputation represented itself well.
If you think of a ski trail like Korkki Nordic in Duluth, it is essentially a 1950s trails that works with modern gear. Skiing at Korkki is essentially time travel on as modern gear as you’re willing to buy, and it works! The same decisions Charlie Banks made back then, translate to today’s faster and easier-to-use equipment. Korkki is an anomaly for sure in America, and might even be in Scandinavia as skiing modernized here and things changed over time in the sport. I can report that I’ve not yet found as spiritually unique a ski trail yet as Korkki—anywhere—not to say they don’t exist. I just think that the way any culture modernizes it’s sport, old gems like Korkki stand the chance to be completely lost. People have skied in more places than I have, but I’ve skied in quite a few too. I was wondering what the buzz about Ladun Maja might be. I figured out immediately that it wasn’t like Korkki.
On the flip side, equipment, structure, and wax, have turned racing courses into leviathans for the not-superbly-fit general population who might like to go skiing, and not have to walk or crawl up every hill. This is problematic in many ways, not the least of which, competition trails for cross country, can’t be slipped or stem-Christie’d by the masses like the Hahnenkamm or Birds of Prey can by alpine emnthusiasts on a ski trip to Kitzbühel or Beaver Creek. World class Nordic trails today are not really skiable for anyone not racing at the world class level, and worse, they’re no fun for ANYONE to ski for simple enjoyment.
It’s so hard to find trails that can serve both a level of enjoyment and be used as an event site. In Duluth, the economics of doing just that challenged the city and the Duluth XC ski club, rendering what I think is a reasonable solution. As I’ve pointed out plenty, Finland has no such challenges, as they have trail upon trail to try something and use it or chuck it for something else. Ski trails here are woven into culture and supported so all kinds of trail exist across abilities. This is where Ladun Maja exhibits that and totally gets it right.
I don’t know when these trails were designed and built, but they look pretty modern. Wide. Lots of space for a Pistenbully. After double poling about a km and a half south from the parking lot into the woods with a couple of nice gradual diagonal stride and kick double-pole sections, I began to wonder what the hubbub was about. Then I got to an uphill that veered left behind the trees. It wasn’t a gulp-inducing uphill. It looked welcoming. Friendly. But it looked like it kept going, and it did. As I diagonal strided up and around the corner, it never got so steep I had to choose between a herringbone walk or a run to keep grip working in the track. I simply got to diagonal stride at an intensity that was comfortable; enjoyable. It was a long climb that was always just “skiing.” Gradual turns. You could just get into a rhythmic zen of transfering your weight, setting the pocket, and coming off it, as dynamically or as mellow as you wanted to. It was pure diagonal stride joy, for a dude well past his prime and carrying a few more pounds than needed, but who knows how to and enjoys a good classic ski.
Ladun Maja
As I continued around Ladun Maja, I found more and more of the same. I realized why this place was loved—mere mortals could ski ALL of it without needing to stop skiing, give up to the hill, walk, and recover. It flowed. It wasn’t boring but you weren’t being challenged, ever, with the trail design. No cheeky, weird turns, but still—turns. No massive, ski-stopping climbs, but climbs a reasonably-fit, 50-year-old ex-ski racer with a tricky Parkinson’s right leg, can kick a well-waxed ski up without coughing up a lung, or just stopping altogether. A place a good ski racer could diagonal stride a lot at level 1, 2, or even 3. I actually thought, “this is a coaches ski trail!” The trail simply worked. What an amazing concept! On one climb, I actually thought of my classic skiing aficionado, long-time friend, Bruce Bauer In Duluth. He would like this trail. If you know Bruce, you know what a show-stopping statement that is.
Back home, I had the sauna ready to jump into. I laid on my back and let the heat and hard bench crack my spine into to place. Laajavuori is one of Finland’s top 10 winter destination “resorts.” The Scandic Hotel a half a km from us is a 1970’s poured-concrete gem, with spa, nice restaurants, even a bowling alley. My mother in law said it was the schnizzle (my words, not hers) in the 1970s, playing host to the drivers and crews of the annual World Rally Championships stop—an honor now held by the huge Sokos hotel by the harbor in the massive modern conference center, Paviljonki. Set against the hillside amidst a stand of massive evergreens, the 1970s Laajavuori Scandic makes up in Finnishness what it lacks to Paviljonki’s modernity and size.
Scandic Laajavuori
The notion of the Scandic spa hit me as I was laying on my back in our sauna, post-Ladun Maja classic ski. We are essentially living a Scandinavian spa/resort lifestyle here even as we work from our home, which Mimmu and I are doing like the rest of you. The snow has turned our area into a beautiful, majestic winterscape, and it means everything. We could’ve certainly landed in a worse setup to deal with Covid, but by hook or by crook, we might have actually IMPROVED our lot in life with this whole thing! Of course, I jest, as the seriousness of the situation is no joke. But some silver linings are certainly real. Winter at our new ”spa” home is certainly one of them.
The Salmela Spa