In 2014, inspired by an article in the Swiss Alpine Club magazine, we travelled to a place called Kiilopää in Finnish Lapland to do cross-country skiing. It was cross-country skiing heaven: dozens of different slopes including so-called nature tracks (prepared only for classic style), a vast choice of rental gear, and a small skiing resort that was comfortable and low-key at the same time. At the time, we already knew that it was possible to explore the neighbouring Urho Kekkonen National Park on backcountry skis in a self-supported manner, but we didn’t have the full equipment to do it. Since then, this had always remained on our to-do list, until we finally managed to organize this trip in March 2025.

In this blog post, we share our experiences of this 5 nights / 6 days self-supported trip. We organized everything ourselves and did not have a tour guide. We relied on our vast experience of ski touring in the Alps, we know how to cross-country ski, how to navigate using different means (GPS on phone and watch, map, compass), and are comfortable with different snow and weather conditions. For unexperienced people, there are guided trips to the National Park.