Lapland Clean up week – Our journey and picking up trash

5 days of biking

14 bags of rubbish

~ 450 kilometres

2 flat tires

A great trip!

Biking-start-Rovaniemi Lapland clean up -summer - Luisa and LorenzoTrash Free Outdoor Lapland- Our idea

Trash does not belong into nature, and I never thought Lapland would have this problem, but it has. Even in Lapland it is unbelievable how much trash nature must stand. And it does not just look ugly, it affects the animals who live in nature, our water and environment and the touristic potential.

Lorenzo recognized the massive pollution especially next to the lappish streets on earlier bike trips and so the idea came up to stand up and do something against it. That is why we – Lorenzo and Luisa – decided together with Visit Lapland to get ready for a bike trip to pick up rubbish on the way from our home Rovaniemi to our favourite place in Lapland- Kilpisjärvi.

So… What do we take?

Our plan to camp on the way increased our luggage a lot: Sleeping bags, mattresses, gas cooker, mosquito net (really useful in the end), food and dishes. But not just that. We needed to be prepared for everything as Lapland does not have a shop every few kilometres. So, we also took tools to fix our bikes, spare tires (thank God, we took them), rubbish bags, water, and cloth for every possible weather. Well, in the end Lorenzo got around 60 kilos on his bike trailer and me, Luisa, around 40 kilos on my bike. Plus, the rubbish we would collect.

Lapland clean up team summer Luisa and LorenzoClean Up Lapland Route

Rovaniemi – Lohiniva – Ylläsjärvi – Muonio – Kerasuvanto – Kilpisjärvi

Day one

We started from Rovaniemi heading towards Levi. The first night we spent after 106 exhausting kilometres (42 km on a hilly side street) in a beautiful Laavu on the river in Lohiniva. On the way we found a lot of rubbish especially on the street from Rovaniemi to Meltaus, but even at the side street we found cans and other rubbish. Luckily, there was a supermarket in the village so we could return also the recyclable trash, buy some fresh food and fill up our 5-litre water tank for the next day.

Trash in the nature - Lapland celan up week Finland summerChange of plans

The following day we woke up with beautiful and hot weather. Our goal was to reach Levi, but while biking we faced a strong wind against us and the fact that we would need to bike on the main street for the whole day. That is why we decided to change our route and instead of Levi to pass from Ylläsjärvi. It turned out to be a good decision and we biked and picked up rubbish until late evening on a beautiful street with less cars. This second day was definitely much more exhausting then the first one even though we did “only” 68 kilometres.

Crossing Ylläs fell – Äkaslompolo – Muonio

The third day we started with a refreshing bath – for us also our shower – in the beautiful Ylläsjärvi Lake. After breakfast we got rid of our rubbish and headed first towards Äkaslompolo. To get there we had to bike over the Ylläs fell, which meant a lot of attitude meters up. We were sweating a lot with all our luggage, rubbish and an estimated temperature of 28 degrees. Arriving in Äkaslompolo we took a long break to charge our phones and powerbanks – and also our muscle power. To our destination of day three, we biked in total 78 kilometres to a Laavu located on a river 7 kilometres south of Muonio.

Lapland clean up week trash cleaning Kilpisjärvi24/7 in Lapland nature

Of course, we had to face a few problems while spending 24/7 time in nature:

  • We were constantly running out of power for our mobile devices.
  • How to keep our food cool? Milk products, vegetables, cold cats – we mainly avoided to take these products on the way.
  • We both got sunburned while spending all day outside.
  • No real shower for a few days

Flat tires

The luck was not with us on the fourth day. Guess what? We got two flat tires in one day, but we were lucky that Lorenzo got all the tools and spare wheel tubes with him to fix the bike within a few minutes. Probably the reason was that our bikes got to heavy…We had to bike 102 kilometres to get to the next – for us – possible Laavu a bit north of Karesuvanto. This was a quite hard stage for us. The problem is that there are just a few Laavus on the way between Muonio and Kilpisjärvi to choose of. So, it was either bike longer or we would have had to sleep in the tent. We reached the Laavuu after around 12 hours of biking and pretty tired. Most of the days we were biking at night to avoid traffic and to see the beautiful midnight sun.

Flat-tire Clean up trip Lapland Finland summer

What did we find?

The rubbish we found the most was Cigarettes and Snooze packages, plastic food packages, cans, McDondalds and Hesburger packages and lot more sometimes even funny and weird stuff like a fake snack or new work tools. It was really sad to see that we could not even pick up 1/10th of the rubbish we saw.

The last day biking

On the last day we had a big challenge coming up with 98 kilometres, a lot of attitude meters and already four days behind us. We usually emptied our rubbish bags at the cities or villages that we pass on our way. But between Muonio and Kilpisjärvi there are no rubbish bins or any toilets on the street except in Karesuvanto. This made us carry more weight and we could pick up less unfortunately. But we could fill up our water from a fresh water source on the way. The water is amazing from there. We reached Kilpisjärvi around three in the morning.

Midnight-sun-Kilpisjarvi- SUMMER LAPLAND BY Luisa Schaffner

Finally arrived: Kilpisjärvi

Day six: definitely a rest day. In the evening we did a live on Instagram and Kilpisjärvi retkeilykeskus (Hotel and Restaurant) saw the Live. We could not believe it, but 15 min later they were visiting us at our Laavu bringing us fresh Tapas and wine to get our power back. Incredible! The best ending of the trip we could think of. Thank you so much, Kilpisjärvi retkeilykeskus. Check the place here!

kilpisjarvi-retkeilykeskus lapland clean up week Finland summerAll in all…

All in all, we had an amazing time at the trip. We were enjoying the peaceful and relaxing atmosphere of Lapland while doing something good for our beautiful lappish environment. More details in the Facebook event page.

Lapland summer beauty of Finland Kilpisjärvi Muonio

For the future, please let us take more care about our beautiful Lapland by leaving the trash in the car. And whenever you see rubbish, just pick it up. It does not hurt, it feels good.

↔ By Luisa Schaffner / luisa.schaffner@ourlapland.fi

Our lapland website blog live events Finnish Lapland

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