I love autumn. The crisp air, the days that inevitably begin to shorten, the changing colours of nature, but also the coziness of staying indoors with a cup of tea while reading a book, wearing a pair of woolen socks. And of course, riding my bike—finally without the need to cover myself in sticky sunscreen, having to drink a litre of water every hour, or being surrounded by mosquitoes while setting up a tent or trying to have breakfast while camping.
I like to wrap up the bikepacking season before the long winter with a short, low-cost trip not too far from home, between September and October. Two years ago, I traveled to Estonia, last year I created this route for gravgrav.cc, and this year I decided to travel to Lapland, specifically to the eastern part that I hadn't visited yet.
Why Lapland?
Working in a preschool means that I’m constantly surrounded by noise during the week. It’s a lively, joyful noise, but by the time the weekend comes—or better yet, a holiday—I long for the opposite. Silence. Peace. The kind of quiet you only find in nature. Lapland, with its vast wilderness and untouched landscapes, felt like the perfect escape for that. Autumn in Lapland, during ruska (the autumn foliage) season, promised not only peace but also a mesmerising natural spectacle.
I imagined cycling through endless forests, the trees transformed into brilliant shades of yellow, orange, and red. I pictured long stretches of riding without seeing another soul, just the crunch of gravel beneath my tires and the occasional rustle of the wind through the trees. There was also the allure of witnessing the Northern Lights. I had seen pictures of the aurora borealis painting the night sky with their magical colours, and I dreamed of catching a glimpse of them on this trip. Though the Northern Lights remained hidden during my journey, the peace and quiet of Lapland offered a different kind of reward.
The Journey Begins
While browsing on the bikeland.fi website, I found a route called Savotta Gravel Loop created by the legend of Finnish bikepacking, Taneli Roininen. Taneli is a wonderful person; I emailed him a few weeks before my trip, and he replied within a few hours, giving me tons of useful advice. The route starts and ends in the town of Kemijärvi and mainly goes through dirt roads amidst the forests, where there are lean-to shelters (in Finnish: laavu) where you can sleep or even take a sauna! My plan was to complete the loop, approximately 450 km, and then cycle for another two days to Rovaniemi. From there, I would return to Helsinki after 6–7 days on the bike.
On a Friday at the end of September, after a long week at work, I took the night train from Helsinki to Kemijärvi, reaching the small town after 14 hours of travel. This gives you an idea of how far Lapland is from southern Finland and how slow the train is on this route.
After drinking a coffee at the SEO service station and buying four donuts on sale at Lidl, two of which I devoured in about thirty seconds, I set off north, first through well-maintained bike paths and then dirt roads in the woods created by the forestry industry. For several hours, the only signs of human presence were sporadic houses and the road itself. The forest is quite dense, except in areas cleared by the industry or when reaching small lakes, beyond which you can glimpse the tunturi (fells), the closest thing to a mountain in Finland. In the next 70 km of gravel, I encountered only five people, all very friendly and eager to start a conversation, curious to discover what a bikepacker was doing on those roads.
The first were two friendly forest rangers. They inquired about the route I was following and wanted to ensure that I wasn't a beginner traveler and that I had the right equipment.
Then I met a lovely elderly woman who was picking blueberries, lingonberry, and mushrooms, who told me she had filled five buckets with berries the previous week.
Finally, while I was eating some cashews by the roadside, I was approached by two women, probably mother and daughter, in a car. Initially, they were worried that I had some problem with my bike, but then they invited me to forget about the snacks I was eating and follow them to the nearby Tapionniemen kyläkartano, a countryside villa that serves as a restaurant/hostel in the summer season, where I could have some real food. I gladly accepted since I had been biking for two hours in light but steady rain. After about ten minutes, I was sitting dry in a room occupied by around thirty people who had just participated in a hunting competition. They seated me at a table already occupied by four women.
It was quite fun to see their reaction when an elderly lady came out of the kitchen to bring me dinner, shouting, “Who’s ordered the vegan burger?".
After refuelling for only 5€, a rarity in Finland, I set off toward Pyhä-Luosto National Park, reaching it after about 20 km of beautiful paved roads surrounded by forests, the only sign of autumn being the yellow birch leaves. The summer had been unusually dry and warm, so autumn hadn't fully exploded in its colours yet.
I rode in the dim light of dusk along a fun MTB trail that led me to a laavu, where I spent the night. The night was cold. Really cold. To survive the night, I slept in all my clothes, layering everything I had to stay warm. I wasn’t just uncomfortably cold—if the temperature had dropped much more, it could’ve been dangerous. My sleeping bag is rated for a temperature of 4 degrees, and when the night temperature dipped close to zero, it became obvious that I had underestimated a bit Lapland’s autumn chill.
I woke up a couple of times during the night, stepping outside the laavu in hopes of seeing the Northern Lights. I wasn't lucky in that regard, but the night gifted me with a cloudless sky adorned with millions of stars—a rarity to see living in the city. The moon was so bright that I could move around without needing to turn on my headlamp.
The next morning, I got up at the first light of dawn, lit a fire to warm up, and boiled the little water I had left for a hearty porridge for breakfast. Then I packed all my things on the bike to head to the nearby village of Pyhä, where I drank a coffee and filled my thermal water bottles at the local K-Market. Perhaps because of the cold or because I was overloaded with carbohydrates, I foolishly took the MTB trail to the village at full speed without any proper warm-up, awakening old pains in my right knee and lower back that ruined the rest of the adventure. After about an hour of cycling against the wind on serene, little-trafficked roads, I reached the village of Pelkosenniemi, where I did some stretching in front of the statues of two local heroes: glam-rock guitarist Andy McCoy and racehorse Saran Salama.
A little further on, I decided to continue my journey on asphalt, abandoning the bumpy off-road section of the Savotta gravel route to avoid worsening my back pain. Meanwhile, the temperature had dipped a few degrees, and the weather app indicated that it would drop well below zero during the night. So, upon reaching Savukoski, I decided to sleep in a guesthouse instead of freezing in the forest in my 3-seasons sleeping bag.
The night was like the previous one: cold, clear, and filled with stars. The aurora did not make an appearance.
In the morning, I set off early in a cinematic atmosphere. The thermometer showed a temperature of -8, there was a total absence of wind, the sun was shining drowsily, and the meadows were covered in icy frost. I had the feeling that time had stopped. I stopped to pick some blueberries along the way, but they were practically frozen. Generally, I prefer to bike off-road than on asphalt, but at the same time, I love reaching that flow where the wheels glide quickly on the pavement, cycling without thinking about anything, and the bike feels like it’s going on autopilot. In this part of Lapland, at this time of the year, traffic is virtually nonexistent; I would encounter a car every 15-20 minutes, and on a day when there was no wind blowing, I found myself, when I stopped for a brief break, surrounded by an unreal silence. I wasn’t frightened by it, but I welcomed it with a certain reverence.
After several hours of traveling through almost completely uninhabited areas, I reached Salla, where I had pan-fried vegetables and potatoes as dinner in a restaurant on the main road before entering the woods and reaching the laavu where I spent the night. The next day, I woke up shivering beneath a heavy downpour, tough still sheltered by the roof of the laavu. My right knee was giving me trouble, and the weather forecast indicated steady rain for the next three days. So, I decided to head home earlier than planned. The idea of biking in the middle of nowhere for three days, in the rain all day, to reach a lean-to shelter where I might not find firewood or the chance to warm up wasn’t exactly thrilling.
I bought a ticket to return to Helsinki by train that same night and quickly made my way to Kemijärvi, where I spent a couple of hours in the beautiful library to dry off and shelter from the rain while waiting for the train's departure.
The moments when I spoke and listened to voices were genuine and pleasant, splendid in their simplicity, just like life at these latitudes, shaped more than in other places by the will of Mother Nature.
Embrace the unexpected
Travel rarely goes according to plan. And perhaps that’s the beauty of it. You learn to react, to respond, and to find a solution in the face of difficulties.
Visiting Lapland outside the tourist season is a gift to give yourself at least once in a lifetime. You find yourself completely alone for long hours, accompanied only by the silence and the forests that slowly lose their color in anticipation of winter. The moments when I spoke and listened to voices were genuine and pleasant, splendid in their simplicity, just like life at these latitudes, shaped more than in other places by the will of Mother Nature.
Next time, though, I’ll be packing differently—especially when it comes to gear. It wasn’t that I underestimated the cold, but I don’t own a winter sleeping bag, so I had to make do with my 3-seasons one. To get through the frosty nights, I layered up inside the bag, and while it worked, it wasn’t exactly cozy.
Still, the challenge added a new layer to the adventure, reminding me how unpredictable and rewarding these experiences can be. It's a lesson in adapting to the conditions and in respecting nature’s raw power.
