Three scandinavian countries, in each country at least one National Park, landscape and reindeers and everything at the height of the winter 2026! It was a combination of Road Trip and location oriented photography. It all started and ended in Kiruna, Sweden. From Sweden we crossed the border to Finland near Äkäslompolo, drove up north to Utsjoki, entered Norway for Stabbursdalen NP, turned around and headed south towards Finland again. Due to bad weather, we crossed again the border to Norway, drove further south and turned east towards Abisko NP and Kiruna again in Sweden.

It was an fascinating trip and most of the time in real cold weather far beyond -20 C, even during daytime. 

We started quite early in February as during the last winters late February did already see a spell of warm and rainy!!! weather up north, which spoiled all the hoarfrost on the trees and turned the snow into a wet and sticky mass. Exactly the opposite you are looking for in lapland as a landscape photographer! And this year it was finally cold, very cold at least for the first two weeks. The downside was that we had reocurring problems with our cars. Yes plural, as the first car was "dead" after 24 hours (not far away from the finnish border, luckily still on swedish territory) and we had to get a replacement from the car hire company. It was a tough start at -34 C.

But the challenges started even earlier. Two days before we left, there were rumors that the pilots of Lufthansa would go on strike right on the day we planned to fly via Stockholm to Kiruna. We finished packing as quick as possible, to be ready on short notice as we decided  to fly earlier, if the strike should come. And it came!

We tried to change the flights, failed the first time as we had been quicker than the LH systems, but we succeded on our second try! We flew to Stockholm, stayed a night there and boarded our flight to Kiruna as originally planned.

Back to our plan and the locations we wanted to visit. 

• Pallas-Yllästunturi NP near the ski resort Äkäslompolo at its southern end
• Lemmenjoki NP
• Paistunturi wilderness area and if possible a winter reindeer round up, our base was Utsjoki
• Stabbursdalen NP at Porsanger Fjord in Norway, a very undocumented location
• Pallas-Yllästunturi NP near the ski resort Enontekiö at its northern end
• the mountain area near the ski resort Kilpisjärvi close to the finnish-norwegian border and finally
• Abisko NP in Sweden, close to Kiruna

It was quite a trip!

Äkäslompolo and the south of Pallas-Yllästunturi NP was a pleasant surprise. Relaxed atmosphere, the cross country ski tracks are excellent and well signposted, the snowshoe hikes are great (and not so signposted) and we had extraordinary weather in a winter wonderland. We just had a great time and we would have liked to stay longer. Highly recommended. 

We arrived very late in the night as swapping our car took about 6 hours: call the road assitance, being towed back to Kiruna, getting a new albeit smaller car and drive again towards the finnish border and Äkäslompolo. The next morning we had a slow start, bought food, tried to understand the ski resort and unpacked all the equipment. Snow shoes, cross country skis, camera equipment and all the clothing necessary for hiking/skiing/snowshoeing at -25 C to -30 C. But already the first afternoon and sunset was as good is it gets. Finnish taiga and its mountains in winter wonderland.

The next day was glorious. Blue and crystal clear skies, very cold and trees and bushes covered in hoarfrost. I decided to snowshoe a different peak, which was a bit more crowded than the one yesterday afternoon. I did not make the summit, I spent by far to much time taking pictures of the trees and (frozen) wetlands....

Even the trunks of the firs and pines had been completely covered with frost, it was just incredible to hike through the forest. We even regretted, that we had to hit the road the next day. But you never have enough time and it does not matter how many days you are spending, it is never enough!

For the late afternoon/evening shoot I decided to hike a smaller peak very close to the town center. It is marketed as THE sunset spot. Of course I knew that I will not be alone at such a place, but I was already quite tired, to tired to tackle a higher and remote mountain. It was a good place, but I missed the feeling to be in a (nearly) untouched wilderness, something I felt the evening before. I spent quite a time up there and came back when it was already dark. We had two really great days in Äkeslompolo! The next National Park was waiting already!

Lemmenjoki National Park was our next destination. Lemmenjoki is a bit the opposite of Äkeslompolo. No skiruns, no tracks, no tourist information, no hotels only a few self catering cottages and an inn. During summer it is different, very different, as the NP is easy accessable by boats and a dense network of hiking tracks. But in winter this area is a demanding destination for skiers and outdoor enthusiasts. You have only one hike you can do during one day, maybe two if you are an experienced back country skier. All other areas of the National Parks will require several days in tents or in the few simple huts/lean to shelters. Doing this at - 20C to -35C needs very good (and expensive) equipment, much more time and the right mind set....

Last year we had some more days in Lemmenjoki and we wanted to repeat the (one and only) long hike, which can be done during a day. Back then we had terrible weather, light rain and fog. Only the last night was very special, full  moon and northern lights and suddenly very cold. Lemmenjoki is not terrible far away from Äkeslompolo, but it has seen nearly no snow during the last 4 weeks. Therefore the snow and frost was not as extraordinary as in Äkeslompolo. Would we come again? Yes, for this one track.... We just love it. It was a very cold hike and thats one of the reason why it was so special. For my photography it was not so rewarding, to little snow and to little frost. And I was spoiled from the first days!

By the way scooters are prohibited in the park, only reindeer breeders can use it to tend their herds. Our days in Lemmenjoki are also an example, that landscape photography during winter in Finland is not an easy task. It is more or less black and white and blue or grey. The only other color you get is during sunrise/sunset. Another difference to other season is the snow itself. During summer you may have rain but as soon as the rain is gone and the sun is shining everything is fine again. In winter it is all about snow. And if the perfect snow is destroyed by a storm or a spell of warm weather it is maybe destroyed for the rest of the season.....

Utsjoki was our next destination, again a place we knew from last year and we love a lot. The focus changed in Utsjoki, it was not only about landscape and winter wonderland, but also about reindeer and reindeer husbandry. 

Utsjoki in the far north of Finland is no ski destination not even cross country skiing. It is moreabout sustainable and small scale tourism, which Utsjoki is trying to develop. And it is popular with Aurora chasers. 

Somehow we are not lucky with sunny weather in Utsjoki and the Teno valley where it is located. Like last year we had lots of fog in the valley. River Teno is the border river between Norway and Finland and it is one of the largest untamed rivers in europe. During winter it is frozen and a huge white strip in the landscape. When we approached Utsjoki weather was as good as it can be and we had an awesome stop at an arctic birch forest, truly amazing hoar frost! But most other days had been just foggy around river Teno, with sometimes clear skies up in the mountains.

Utsjoki is a village where reindeer breeding is still the way of life and during February the reindeer breeders of the district have their winter round up. The reindeer of the district is driven into a series of corrals and assigned to their owners. After the separation each owner will drive his/her herd to the winter pastures in the mountains. Thats the local way to avoid overgrazing and as herds are getting additional fodder, it also makes sure that the owners will feed their own herd. Not like in the alps where the return of the livestock from the summer pastures down to the valleys has a fixed date everyone knows upfront, the breeders in Utsjoki are and have to be a bit more flexible. Depending on the cold, the quality of the snow and some organisational factors the exact date may be pushed around a bit. And the whole procedure does not take one day (as in the alps) but it takes more than a week for the whole procedure.

As we knew a reindeer breeder from last year we could discuss upfront, what might be possible, but the final plan was made on short notice. It all depended on what step in the round up process whould happen during our days in Utsjoki. During the other days we hiked or used a guided snowmobile trip up to the mountains of Paistunturi Wilderness. As I already mentioned it was foggy down in the valley, but two times we had been lucky and the fog retreated for a short time from the higher altittudes!

The reindeer round up was a very special experience and quite tough to photograph. We only had one day there, as the roundup was pushed back everyday and we had been running out of time. But we had been happy that it worked at all, many thanks to Petra!

The round up follows an established procedure, which can last many days. First the reindeer of a section of the grazing grounds is driven by snowmobile in to a huge corral, this step can already last some days. Do not get it wrong, the reindeer of paistunturi are not tame, they do not come if you call them, you have to drive them one by one, group by group. You can entice them by tasty food, but thats all. All has to be done on snowmobiles at temperatures beyond -20C. After all the reindeer of one section has settled in the big corral, the next step of the round up will start.

To give you an idea of the numbers involved, in one section of the grazing grounds several thousand reindeer are living and there are two or three sections in the whole area. When the reindeer has settled down a bit in the big corral, after all most of them are knowing the whole procedure already from gone by years, smaller groups will be seperated and driven in to a small round place, where the breeders and their helpers are already waiting. This process can not be done in one day, again it will be two or more days until all reindeer of one section is sorted.

How do the breeders know which reindeer belongs to which breeder? Each of the breeders can identify their reindeer by ear marks and sometimes color markings from the last round up in autumn.

If the reindeer has antlers, at that time of the year only females still have them, it is grabbed by the antlers and shoved through a sliding door into the breeders own corral. The central place where the reindeer is identified and sorted, is surrounded by the corrals of the breeders, there is no public place at all. 

Each of the reindeer has its own charakter, some are just following the owner, when it is grabbed by the antlers, some animals refuse to budge an inch and have to be dragged and sometimes, mostly males without antlers, have to be wrestled to the ground. Hard work at -25C! But the atmosphere is very relaxed, no shouting, nobody is running around......

Each reindeer has to be identified, grabbed, color marked and shoved into the breeders compartment. This process is repeated until the big corral is empty, it starts in early morning and lasts into the night using floodlighting, often it will last several days. Then it will start all over again with the next section of the paistunturi area.

What will happen after all reindeer of a section is sorted and brought to the breeders corral? Each of the breeders has his/her own winter grazing ground for his/her herd on the fjells of paistunturi and kevo. Herd after herd is driven by the breeder to the winter grazing ground of his/her herd, this maybe again a multi day trek by snowmobile. There the herd is regularly fed by the owner not only to make sure that they survive the hardship of the arctic winter on the fjells.

The other reason, maybe even more important for the breeder, is to keep the herd in the grazing grounds. Reindeer is still wild and not domesticated. It is imprinted in the genes to stick to the ancient migration patterns. But this is neither possible nor something a breeder would like to happen. There are roads (and lots of roadkills), there are borders, countries with different ownership and tax rules and open spaces have been distroyed. In Canada and Alaska the reindeer herds can follow their instinct to migrate, but not in Scandinavia.

Some more impressions....

Many thanks to Petra, Ari-Heikki and their helpers, that we could join them for a day! It was a memorable day! The final images of this part of my blog will show the winter grazing grounds in paistunturi. I have taken them last year. Only the last picture is from this year, just to show you the atmosphere of paistunturi during a sunset. By the way more to the south the herds are kept in a true enclosure for the whole winter, they do not raom the forests or hills at all. To little space down there! Only during summer they can roam free.

Further north to Stabbursdalen NP in northern Norway, that was the plan we had. Stabbursdalen is a white space in the internet, at least for winter.
First we followed the river Teno upstream, before heading north to the fjords of the arctic sea. As usual for departure days after days of fog, the weather was even sunny in the valley when we left Utsjoki.....

After a pleasant, but also a bit dicy (about 10cm fresh snow cover on the road for about 50km) drive along the banks of river Teno we headed up north towards Lakselv in Norway, the biggest town/village in the Porsanger area where the NP is located. Stabbursdalen is close to Porsanger Fjord and is known for its ancient pine forest, the most northerly pine forest in Europe and probably even worldwide. The forest is in the shadow the the mighty arctic fjells of the NP.

I expected a frozen fjord and I got a frozen fjord. I also expected and hoped to leave behind the colder than -20C area of our tour. It was not so much about us, it was about the car. Again, we had trouble with the car, again with gear box or transmission. After cold nights it just did not want to switch gears after the first ignition and the automatic gear box went into emergency mode. First gear was possible but that was it. After driving a few meters and letting the engine run idle, it started to work again. But we never knew whether the gear box really would come to life again, We lost trust in the car. I mean we rented it in Kiruna from an international company and they should maintain the cars to run without any issues! Two failing cars is a very, very poor performance for a rental company! And by the way the heating in the leg room did not work properly as well, the snow on the boots did not even melt after 1 hour driving! Anyway the temperature rose as expected and from now on the car worked fine!

Stabbursdalen NP in winter does not exist in the internet. There is nearly no information about it. In fact tourism does not exist in Lakselv and Stabbursdalen for winter trips. There is an NP info center, but they have no idea about what is posssible during winter in the NP. All they could tell us, is something like "it might be possible, but we do not know, there is a hut, but we do not know and so on. From blog notes for summer trips I knew about the hiking paths, about the hut and the fireplace, there was a map for summer, but no report nor dedicated map for winter. We tried it anyway! And it was easy, there was a snowmobil track by local Sami to take care of their herds, the hut was open and it had firewood for the outdoor fireplace and it was a beautiful day trek into the forest. I do not understand, why an information center does not know these basic facts!
The following pictures are not only from the NP also from the frozen Porsanger Fjord.

Another must have for a winter trip was still missing - northern lights! Sofar we had only faint traces of aurora in the sky, but it changed in Porsanger.... It was a welcome bonus for our trip into Norway. The Aurora was interesting but quite unstable, it appeared and went away very quickly. It was difficult to decide where to go, whether to wait or not, for half an hour it was even spectacular. I had long nights and little sleep.....
All pictures are taken with the aurora over Porsanger Fjord, for the last two I was on the ice in the tidal area and used the pressure ridges as foreground.

Porsanger was our northermost location. From now on, we would go "back", even if we did not know the exact route. We just had booked the next two accomodations until Kilpsijärvi. We did not have any bookings for the last days back to and around Kiruna/Abisko, we did not even know which road we could or want take back to Sweden.

The next "real" location was again in Finland, the ski resort Kilpisjärvi right on the finnish/norwegian border. The distance was to far to drive it in one day and we planned for two nights at the northern tip of the Pallas-Yllästunturi NP which we already visited when we had been based in Äkäslompolo. It was about half way to Kilpisjärvi. The weather in Enontekiö was poor and it would have deserved much better weather. I had a really good snowshoe day out in the woods of the NP, but due to grey weather no pictures.... Luckily the weather changed, when we arrived in Kilpisjärvi, a better known ski and snowmobile resort. In a way we expected something like Ruka (a well known and highly regarded ski resort at the polar circle) regarding services, ski and snowshoe tracks.

The landscape was exciting, the kind of rounded arctic fjells of Finland gave way to the more alpine mountains of this part of Norway. It was a real and welcome change, especially as the weather turned out to be much better than the medium term forecast predicted!

However the camparison to Ruka as a ski resort was a bit far-fetched. No accurate maps of the ski or snowshoe tracks, the information center was closed, our hotel staff had no clue, and the trail heads for skiing where not signposted at all. We arrived at the end of February and the formal opening of the ski season was 01.03. No track was prepared before that day, fair enough. But still no map, no information, no signs, just word of mouth..... If you know about the tracks, you will have fun, it is a great area for skiing. You just should know about the "limitations" regarding services and you should know that snowmobiling is a great deal in Kilpisjärvi. You have to live with the noise....

I will never forget the showshoe hike up to Mt. Saana, awesome weather, very few hikers and a breathtaking view, highly recommended, but it is a longer and more demanding tour! This is Mt. Saana towering over Kilpsijärvi village....

What else can I say about Kilpisjärvi? If you know what to expect, it is a really unique place! Next time I would try to organize a snowmobile tour. I tried already this year, but the first agency I contacted declined to do a private tour, rather strange I thought. And I did not try again. 

And now the weather changed dramatically! South westerly air was predicted and this air mass was warm and wet, around or above freezing. The weather was meant to change starting with a stormy day with lots of snow! Our next destination was Absiko NP in Sweden a bit north of Kiruna. Our "old" plan was to drive through the finnish taiga spend a night in the middle of nowhere to arrive the next day in Abisko.
However this drive in such stormy and snowy condition was a bit risky. In this part of Finland you have about 70km from village to village and I guess a snowplow will need  hours to clear the road from snow. As we did not have a 4x4 but only a VW Golf this was a not very inviting option, we did not want to get stuck or/and wait for hours until a snowdrift is cleared. Kilpisjärvi is very, very remote! The other option was to cross over to Norway using a small mountain pass and go down to the arctic sea again.
We went for the Norway option. Crossing the mountain pass was not "nice". Strong winds, blowing snow, somethimes was the visibility only 5-10m, snow drifts where already forming on the road, but we made it! As soon as we drove down to the fjords the snow was gone! I guess it was the right decision. We found a nice place to stay and could even visit a wildlife center for an afternoon walk and a bit of photography!

Towards evening, after the visit of the wildlife center,  the road conditions got really really bad again before we finally arrived at sunset at our cabin.
After a mountain pass is before a mountain pass, if you want to cross the Norwegian Alps to Sweden. We stayed close to Narvik and wanted to use the E10 to Kiruna/Abisko. As this road connects Sweden to Narvik I epxected a wide and well maintained road. The weather was only a tad bit better than the day before, still snow and wind and it was much to warm! The drive was not exactly difficult, but a bit more precipitation and more wind and it would have been difficult for a standard car. The road was maintained but the blowing snow buildt snow drifts very quichly and that made it difficult.....

From now on, the winter we enjoyed so much, was history. Abisko is high up in the mountains and close to the Abisko NP two downhill resorts are offering alpine ski slopes. I was so sorry for the skiers, wet snow, light rain, really really bad. Maybe that is the new normal for the beginning of March. It was also the end of my winter photography for this trip. It all was much worse than what I managed to do before Abisko. The area is great, there are singposted tracks in winter and the mountains are great. But if the snow is wet and the trees are just black it is just no the same! Taking some pictures in Abisko canyon was fun, but I do not have a single picture from the hikes we did!

We stayed in a hotel in one of the ski resorts with awesome views over frozen lake Torneträsk. It is always good to have a perfect view from your room window.... If the sun manages to break through the clouds for just a few minutes, you just have to grab the camera and open the window.....

Abisko was the last stop we had before heading back to Kiruna and Munich. It is just a bit more than one hour to drive to the airport. We returned the car at the airport, basically we dropped the key into a key box. Nobody ever asked us, whether the car was ok, not an email, no questionaire, again soemthing which should not happen. They seem not to care about their cars and their customers!

Anyway it was a really really great trip. It was lots of driving, but thats part of the experience! Highly recommended, but bring warm clothing and extremely warm boots!

In about a month I will be on the road again. Shetland is waiting for my workshop!

Munich, May 2026

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