Ski tour in the Pallas-Yllästunturi National Park – day one
This article is part of the series “2026-03: Ski tours”.
08:50 – everything is packed for starting our ski tour through the Pallas-Yllästunturi National Park. My wife Annika wears a backpack, I’m dragging a pulka. Today’s destination is the hut Sioskuru.
We ski down to the lake and turn left onto one of the cross-country ski trails. The weather is grey, it has started snowing.
Skiing on the trail is easy. We soon enter the national park and after two hours we reach the hut Pyhäkero.
The Pallas-Yllästunturi National Park has a whole network of open wilderness huts, where you can stay for free. There is a wood-burning stove or fireplace, a gas cooker and a platform to sleep on. No mattresses, no luxury, but everything you need on a tour without the need for a tent and a cooker.
Some of the huts have locked rooms that you can pre-book for a small fee.
Outside of the hut Pyhäkero there is a signpost with all the destinations you can reach on foot in summer and on ski in winter. And since we are in Finland the names are quite long, such as Onnasvaaranreitti, Sammalvaaranreitti, or Postituvaniärvet. We have only 8 km to ski to Sioskuru today, where we pre-booked two beds. Sounds easy, doesn’t it?
A piste groomer is passing the hut. Will it groom our trail? No, it just turns back. At the same time the wind is increasing, and so is the snowfall. Unfortunately the weather forecast was correct.
First we traverse a gorge that leads slowly uphill.
Then we reach more open terrain. The wind is pretty strong, it is snowing and you cannot make out anything except the trees, that look like being placed randomly in the plateau. Luckily, the path is well marked with wooden crosses.
The snow gets deeper, the terrain steeper and each metre we ascend is extremely exhausting. Again and again we have to rest to catch our breath. It takes us two hours until we finally spot the hut Sioskuru. Two hours, in which didn’t take a single picture in these two hours.
It takes some effort to unlock the frozen lock, then we are inside. Now it is time for us to defrost our faces, change clothes and enjoy the shelter of the hut. While the wind and snowfall are slowly declining, we are settling in, making fire and cooking food. We skied 17 km, but I am very exhausted, my legs hurt and I am very glad to have arrived.
The next day we will continue to Hannukuru, which is, fortunately, a shorter distance.