28 Sep 2025
This hike involved bus rides to the national park an hour from Helsinki, and the time was well spent visiting with our guide. The hike was a bit strenuous and involved walking over granite rocks, walking through the restful forest and finally down (fortunately for me) about 300 stairs to our last stop at a 7 meter lake that flows into the Baltic Sea. We were fortunate to see a whooper swan, the national bird of Finland.
The hike was worth experiencing, and our guide was knowledgeable about both the flora and fauna of the park, and gave us other interesting information such as the vast number of lakes in the park, and in Finland, thanks to glacier activity during the ice age, only 10,000 or so years ago. He also told us about the bird population in the park and those flying over us on their way to warmer climes.
A word of caution, restroom facilities are about halfway through the hike.