View off the top of Aakenustunturi

The hills here are all about 3-400m, gentle and rounded, with the odd glacial feature (flood channels etc). But the one I am standing on is a great long banana-shaped mountain that stands a little part from the others. It is too long to walk the length of (in winter), but we have snow-shoed over it today. The view here is looking west back over the Aapa mires to the main Ylläs mountain and ski area and the sister hills of Kesänki, Lainio and Pyhä tunturi.

Extra: Scrunch, scrunch, scrunch ...!  -  the sound of snowshoes on slightly crusty soft windslab. A delightfully destructive scrunch, much-like a big mouthful of dry crisps on every step. We leave a glorious trail of destruction behind us, leaving a perfect dotted line of our route as seen from a distance. It will all be gone in a day or two, re-surfaced by a daily misting of snow and the subtle but ever-present chill breeze.

P.s. Don't you just love Google maps. It reassures me when I look at the map of where I am and it is just green, then zoom out and it is green, green and more green. The local topographic maps look great, but the translation between a 1:50000 and the actual features on the ground takes some effort. Whilst the major features are all on the map, there are hosts of unseen small-scale features, bumps, tumps and runnels that can give you are hard time working across heavily wooded features when you are off-trail. All good fun though.