By Timo Rautava at Pyhätunturi

Some five years ago, paediatrician Matti Verkasalo began to ponder the idea of blending hiking in the wilds with snowboarding. The carefully-groomed pistes of ski-resorts had begun to lose their sheen and even seemed oppressive, and Verkasalo wanted to take the sport back to where it originated: in the deep powder. Would it be possible to head off into the mountains with snowshoes on your feet and a snowboard strapped to your back?

Verkasalo also came to the conclusion that it was not necessary to go all the way to Central Europe to find and uncork virgin slopes. “Our own fells up north are delightfully soft-shaped and curved. They are ideal for safe off-piste snowboarding.” The first experiments in the hybrid of cross-country snowboarding and wilderness treks took place at Kiilopää (near Saariselkä in Northern Lapland) in 2001. This was followed in successive years by trips to Pallastunturi (805m., in Muonio) and to Ailigas (620 m., up by the Norwegian border near Karigasniemi). The plans firmed up into the idea of always setting up a base camp from where it would be possible to climb the surrounding fells and explore their slopes. Each of these slopes can be around 200 metres in terms of vertical descent. Climbing up something like this in snow-shoes and with a snowboard on your back is equivalent to jogging for around ten kilometres, says Verkasalo. “And then you multiply it by four or five times each day.”