I was looking for a weather forecast at the Monday evening around 22.00. There was a possibility for a thunderstorms and some heavy rain (yellow alert, possibility for over 20 mm in a hour rain) for next morning. That sparked an idea of packing my backpack tarp and hammock and head out to the Vaarunvuoret that had a nice vantage point over the lake Päijänne towards west from where the storm was approaching.

I packed some rain gear with me as I was expecting to get wet and some light sleeping bag and an under quilt for the hammock. For the tarp I had this old cotton tarp that I’ve been patching some holes with a thread and a needle and done some candle wax treatment to waterproof it even more. I wanted to see how well it will hold some heavy rain.

It has been couple years since I used this tarp last time, so it needed some love and care that I provided for it this summer. On that last trip it served as a rain cover when making food on the fire place and later as a wind protection during the night when sleeping in a hammock.

I drove to the Korospohja at the foot of the mountains as it should have a nice sandy shore and a pier for boats, canoes and kayaks, a place that I wanted to scout out for my future adventures.

From Korospohja there are some steep stairs and steep hill path to climb up to the maintenance road that leads to the fireplace and lake at the Vaarunvuoret nature path. The steep path looked like a decent slippery hazard when wet, so I was expecting some troubles when coming back to the car.

There’s a quite good path from the lake side parking to the Vaarunvuoret tho one can see that it’s not that popular way as the vegetation has grown partly to hide the stairs and signs. – I think that most people use the parking place at the top of the mountains at the roadside. Much easier walk from there as one is already up there and not at the foot of the hills. And this path is a bit steep and will be muddy and slippery when wet.

The stairs themself were in a really good shape.

About one kilometer walk uphill from the Korospohja to the lake at the top of the hills.

The sky was about clear and a full moon was keeping me some company at the trail.

Kinda really didn’t need my headlight to follow the path as the moon was directly behind me and the path was quite straight from the bottom to the top. Was a nice feeling to walk alone in the darkness at the moonlight.

Found the fireplace and the lake in the darkness.

Still had some walking to the vantage point at the cliffs.

Finally around 1.30 in the night I arrived at the vantage point and set-up my tarp and hammock.

The sky was still somewhat clear, and some wind blowing in the trees around me. I think I could feel the low pressure pushing in, but still no thunder, as I was expecting it to arrive at the morning and wake me up.

Around 3.30 I woke up at the sound of thunder. I peaked from my hammock only to realize that the thunder was passing by way north from my location. I could hear the thunder clearly over the lake and see some clouds flashing white when the lightnings struck at the distance, but they were far away, maybe some 20 km or so.

I popped out my cellphone with the weather info and alas I found out that I was way too south. The main storm passed by at north of my location.

Somewhat disappointed I watched and listened the distant storm for maybe some fifteen minutes and then decided that I had missed the show and went back to sleep.

I woke up couple times at the low rumbling of the distant thunder but slept well till the morning in my hammock.

At the morning I checked the weather radars and saw that the thunderstorm was still happening north of Jyväskylä.

…and I was at southeast from Korpilahti, at the other side of the lake Päijänne.

The view was nice and the morning quite warm still. Temperature might have gone below +15°C, but not that much during the night. When walking to the site at night I was ok wearing a t-shirt and hiking pants. At the morning I only added a hoodie to that when walking back.

After I had yet again accepted my defeat I packed my stuff and walked back to the fireplace, made some light breakfast and headed back to my car.

At the fireplace I took a small break and warmed up some bread cheese and ate it with some honey that I had with me.

In summary this was still a good experience. I went out in a very short notice. Got the idea and inspiration when looking at the weather forecast in the evening and like in a less than an hour I was already in my car driving towards the Vaarunvuoret.

I also was able to scout out the lakeside spot and the pier, as it looks like a nice entry point to the lake Päijänne with a kayak for my later adventures.

…till next time.

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