Ends up Finnish has two skiing related verbs: "hiihtää" and "lasketella". "Hiihtää" i.e. skiing actually refers only to cross-country skiing while "laskettella", a completely different word, refers to downhill skiing. But when I talk about "skiing" I'm of course talking about real skiing.....the type that you go downhill and can jump easily. Not the flat land activity in which you sweat your butt off for no reason and in which jumping seems treacherous (see the ER visit-broken arm post!).
I was curious to see what skiing would be like in Finland. We weren't too optimistic we'd find out because there had been NO snow in the Helsinki area for the past two winters. Ends up good weather followed us and this winter there was plenty of snow all over Finland. And I discovered that downhill skiing is still actually somewhat affordable in Finland - both in terms of gear and lift tickets. In the US we've had to limit our skiing but thanks to the price and easy access, I got a lot of skiing in this year. More per year skiing than for decades, even after having to forego some of it thanks to my busted arm.
Pia did a good job setting us all up with reasonably priced used skis and boots (both cross-country and "real" downhill skis) and helmets from online private-seller marketplaces. For some reason, second hand shopping seems more popular and succesful here. Everything we've bought has worked and been of decent quality (not just skis but basically everything for the house.) In any case, we got lucky on all the gear for the family and even found the rarer large (European size 47) ski boots for me.
However, my skis did not work out at first. Pia had found a pair of very 80’s looking Blizzard skis, for 10 euros! I had a pair of purple Blizzards back in the day and loved them so I was game for getting these plus they came with equally retro matching white, neon green and orange poles... We picked them up thinking that even though they were 175cm straight skis (vs today's short parabolics) they would work fine for skiing with the kids. Live and learn: not all bindings and boots are meant for each other. These were set up for a woman’s boot and couldn't be adjusted far enough to fit my big hoofs! Luckily we live close to a huge Goodwill type store and found HEAD Jon Olsson trick skis there that cought my eye. These were "expensive" in comparison at 90 euros but they had been tuned and had an interesting, very non-PC 90s design... (I even named the “twins” on it Candy Cane and Ginger Bread)! The skiing in southern Finland is pretty tame compared to Tahoe or Colorado skiing but WAY better price point for a family of five. Peuramaa, a small hill with a few t-bar lifts close to our house, offered evening lift ticket deals for 2 people to ski from 4pm to 8pm for 30 euros! And the rentals at the same place were 23/29 euros for evening/full day. The most "expensive" skiing we had was in northern Finland where you get big resorts with lots of runs and chair lifts/gondolas although even these resorts tend not to be super high in elevation (thanks to the ice age). At Ruka, Pia and the 3 kids got full day tickets, good from 9:30am to 7pm (still light out during spring skiing!), for 145 euros. You'd basically pay almost this much at a large Tahoe Resorts in California for one adult... for a shorter ski day.
The first time we went skiing (at Peuramaa), we didn't have all the used gear so we rented it. I was amazed at how the rental place operated too. You walk in the rental shop, grab boots to try on, leave your own shoes on a rack and then walk up to the counter and they'd find skis and adjust the bindings for you/the boots. Then you'd pay for the rental and go off to the slopes... There was no legal agreement and no credit card deposit or liability form of any kind. Returning the rentals was equally casual: you just dropped off the gear at the rental place, got your shoes on and walked off. We didn't even see any workers there and even our 8 year old commented "You could walk off with any gear you want!". But the funny thing is, Finnish people apparently don't... Huge amount of trust! Later we had our own used skis but our oldest son didn't yet have boots. We rented boots for him but they didn't fit his ski binding. We had no screwdrivers etc with us so we asked the rental place if they could adjust the binding. Amazingly they did it without flinching. In the US this wouldn't happen due to liability reasons: the rental shop staff are not allowed to adjust your gear: They only rent you full sets so that they can ensure everything works together and they can't be blamed (i.e. sued) for any possible equipment manfunction.
Another nice and cost impacting difference was in the food set-up. The ski resorts all seem to offer bonfires and even condiments and you are allowed to bring your own food e.g. "makkara" (sausage) to grill. The resort also sold packages of sausage along with more expensive hot food items We even saw one family heat up pizzas over the bonfires.
As I mentioned, we managed to get quite a lot of skiing in. We did a lot of it at Peuramaa, the small place 25 minutes from our Espoo house. It was pretty cool to take off after school with the kids and fit a few hours of skiing in before dinner time!
We also stayed at a ski in-out cabin at Messilä over the February ski break. Messilä is near Lahti which is about an hour north of Helsinki by car. It is a proper resort with numerous runs but still no chair lifts... It was our first time in a ski in/out cabin which was fun. We also skiied for one day at Himos, in middle of Finland a bit south of Jyväskylä, which was slightly smaller place than Messilä yet had some chair lifts. The highlight of our skiing year was supposed to be the Easter ski trip up north to Kuusamo where Pia’s mom lives. Kuusamo is a small town little south of the arctic circle near the eastern border (to Russia). The ski resort there is called Ruka. The kids and Pia had a good time at Ruka - and even enjoyed meeting reindeer and huskies on one of the hills. It seems our middle son has inherited some of my wild ski habits, jumping and tree skiing. I missed him succesfully pulling off "helicopters" and his siblings' improving skiing in general: I was stuck back at our hotel nursing my broken arm i.e. my ticket out of ever having to cross-country "ski" again!
A great blog/post Joel. I remember the good old days when a family could ski for a reasonable cost in the US. Now, it'a almost $200 a day at the premier areas like Vail. These blogs are great memoirs of the Finland year. Keep them coming.