Ukkohalla visit and judge seminar
The houses where everyone will stay during the Midnight Sun Wake Festival are georgous. They fit up to 13 people, have a fully featured modern kitchen, a nice entertainment system, a sauna, a balcony and some of them even have a dock at the lake. They are located across from the starting dock right at the lake and some of them a little behind in the woods.
The Lake itself is located within a small mountain valley surrounded by huge woods with lots of trees. The cable is right in the center where the sauna/spa, the restaurant and the reception is located. Right behind the cable you will see a ski/snowboard lift that takes you up to a small funpark. The cable is a 4 tower system by Rixen with a nice pull according to Moritz Petri and features a couple of nice obstacles built by snowpark-builder Reiliseppo. Details on the obstacles for the Europeans will be published shortly.
The Lake itself is located within a small mountain valley surrounded by huge woods with lots of trees. The cable is right in the center where the sauna/spa, the restaurant and the reception is located. Right behind the cable you will see a ski/snowboard lift that takes you up to a small funpark. The cable is a 4 tower system by Rixen with a nice pull according to Moritz Petri and features a couple of nice obstacles built by snowpark-builder Reiliseppo. Details on the obstacles for the Europeans will be published shortly.
The cable crew and wake community are very nice people all with snowboarding/skating background and passion for sport. It all seemed very well organized and everything was taken care of. The two ladies responsible for the organization are Kati and Emma - they will be your contact in Ukkohalla and manage the accomodation, transports and much more. Speaking of transportation - the airports in Finland (Helsinki and Oulu) seem to be pretty relaxed and easy to check-in & change flights and stuff. Transport from Oulu took us 2.5 - 3 hours by car and went straight through the woods down to Ukkohalla. The Judge Seminar went pretty well and people over there have a certain understanding of the sport and boardsports in general - We now have 7 new Judges in Finland, some of them with snowboard-judge background and some of them with boat wakeboarding background.
We are definitely looking forward to seeing the sport progress in Finland and have a great weekend at the Midnight Sun Wake Festival.
Enjoy the pics we took and get excited about Ukkohalla.
And yes, the Finnish have saunas everywhere.
And yes, the Finnish have saunas everywhere.
-= The official website of the IWWF Cable Wakeboard World Council =-