The reason Jen and I travelled to Finland last year was mainly to see the snow phenomenon called Tykky. The first place we saw it, at Konttainen, it was cloudy and difficult to describe in images, but we got a second chance at Kuntivaara, only a few kilometres away from the Russian border. And this time we were lucky with the sun shining on the snow sculptures and on us.
We travelled by car to a ”base station” at a lake, Yli-Heikinjärvi, where we were dressed in snowmobile clothes for the long run on snowmobile up the hills towards the hilltop, where the tykky would be most pronounced.
I have described tykky at my previous post from Konttainen, but I repeat the explanation here again:
“Tykky is the Finnish name for a formation of snow and ice that form layers on the trees. It is caused by crystallisation of moisture in layer after layer of superimposed ice. The temperature has to be lower than -20° C for the crystallisation to start, but then the process continues all through the winter months.
These layers can be up to 30 to 50 cm thick and the trees become so heavy that they bend forming all kinds of beautiful sculptures. We walked through an army of ice angels and sea monsters and all kinds of imagined animal scuptures created by the tykky.
The tykky is especially noticeable on hills, where the prevailing wind will blow over the hills and when the air rises, it cools down and the ice condenses on the trees.”
And it was on such a hill that we were, surrounded by these snow sculptures. And below us to the west were the forests and lakes of Finland and to the east Russia, both equally cold and equally beautiful.
But first a few photos from the “base station”, which also had a lovely restaurant:
We were quite amazed by all the snow formations at the top and I have split it into two different posts. Some photos are here and some more will be published in my next post in a few days’ time.
