Snowmobiling in Oulu region

I went snowmobiling on last Sunday. I made a trip from Oulu (Hiukkavaara) to Ylikiiminki and back, althogether about 85 km. 85 km is not much as such but taking into account the bad condition of the trail it was plenty. My muscles are aching a bit after bouncing up and down the moguls on the trail.

This is the standard situation with the snowmobiling trails close to Oulu and I guess all the bigger cities not close to high maintenance trails of skiing resorts. The reason for the bad condition of the trails is simple, way too much traffic compared to the maintenance of the trails. There's no way in the current situation for the maintenance level to be improved...there's just not enough money. I would be ready to pay something like 50-100 €/winter if that would get trails in good enough condition. In my mind good enough trail is something you can drive (quite comfortably) on 45-60 km/h with a touring sled with 2 people on.

Is there any way to collect bigger money from snowmobilers for the maintenance of the trails? If the payment is purely out of freewill, it's not gonna work. Collecting the money as a tax from snowmobile owners is also problematic as it's difficult (read: impossible) to earmark any tax money to certain usage. I have a proposal in mind for this dilemma, but I'll write about that later.

Snowboarding again next saturday

My wife is going to hold eye doctor's reception in an optics store in Kuusamo on Saturday. We decided that I'll go to Ruka with kids while she's working.
I'm really looking forward to snowboarding in Ruka the whole day on Saturday. I did buy the snowboard from my colleague btw. I promised my daughter we'll buy her snowboarding equipment as well before Saturday so she doesn't have to rent any more.
The picture above is from Ruka's web page and it's the weather forecast from today until Saturday. So it seems like the weather is not going to be too nice on Saturday but it's not bad either. I wish the forecast is wrong and the weather on Saturday is what is now forecast for Friday :)

Missing summer ...and fly fishing

I just read my old blog entries from the summer. The one about a dream got me missing summer and fishing...badly.

I hope it's going to be a good salmon summer this year at Teno and it's tributaries. A fellow from Game and Fisheries Research Institute was cautiously expecting that there'd be much more 10 kg salmons next summer compared to last summer...I hope this is true.

Busy Saturday

So I was @ Iso-Syöte on Saturday with my family. My daughter learned to snowboard a lot better than before. Now she can actually make several turns in a row without turning the board sideways first. And my son has become too fast on skis for my wife...she can't keep up with him :)

I finally got to test ride the old and used Burton Custom, my new Burton boots and Giro helmet (see couple of earlier blog entries). The boots were fantastic and the helmet was ok. For the first hour or so I had some problems with the left boot as my little toe was getting numb, but then I guess the boot adjusted to my foot. The Giro helmet was otherwise great but my goggles didn't fit with it perfectly. The old Burton Custom board doesn't really look too pretty and it has some scratches on it, but boy how great it was to ride compared to the rental boards I've only ridden so far. I might actually buy it.

At the Saturday evening we were back to Oulu and we went out with my wife. First we had dinner in Marrakech restaurant which was great. Not only the food was tasteful and the Menu dishes huge, they also had belly dance performances :)
After the dinner we went to see Angelit concert. They were good as always but by far the best thing about the concert was that there were a lot of people from Utsjoki that now live in Oulu.

Snowboarding boots and a helmet

I went shopping today for some snowboarding stuff. I bought myself Burton Moto boots and a Giro G9 helmet. The lacing system used in certain Burton models including Moto seems fantastic. The G9 helmet fits at least my head very well and its' got good adjustment possibilities. I would have preferred matte black color though but they didn't have it so I got me a grey (ash) one.

I'm really looking forward to get to test especially the shoes. It'll be also interesting to see how the Burton Custom snowboard I have from a colleague for testing works for me. I'm afraid it's a bit too short for me, the board is 160 cm while I'm 179 cm and 80 kg. I'm also expecting to ride quite a lot in powder while I'm in Utsjoki during my winter vacations. I'm also a bit concerned about the potential toe dragging problem. This board isn't really wide and my shoe size is 9.5/42.5. So the board certainly isn't ideal for me, it should be 162-164 cm, but if the price is very good and toe dragging isn't a problem I might keep it.

Well, I'll be that much wiser after this weekend. I hope the weather is good tomorrow in Iso-Syöte.