a day on the lake (at Repovesi park)

Repovesi is one of the famous national parks in southern Finland. The scenery is more visually interesting (for me at least) with plenty of lakes and rocky forested areas to explore.



So, yesterday, with unexpected sunshine and perfect conditions (its been shitty almost all month) we headed out from home to go for a walk at Repovesi.

There were some outstanding ice formations along the cliffs that line the shore. With the gradual melting revealing some truly stunning formations within the ice.

Actually, processing this image (taken with a Nikon digital using NEF) leads me to complain about the limited range of digital cameras. Even in this scene the white in the ice just wipes off the scale. The print will look good, but look digital. Sure, you can occasionally take two images at different exposures (and make a HDR image) but times like this with the camera poked against a wall for support (and 1/8th of a second exposure) are not one of them.

Even though its a "low contrast" scene, the highlights in this scene are just blown to white. I've not printed it yet, hopefully they don't stand out too badly. I don't mind using digital, but don't want my prints to look in such a way as to be 'stamped' by the medias limitations.

Anyway, the ice formations along the cliffs were beautiful making struggling along in the alternatively slippery hard VS sinking to your groin between rocks buried under the melting snow worth while.

After struggling along the shore for a little, we decided that the ice looked strong enough to walk around on the edge at least, so we headed out to 'circumnavigate' at least "Tervajärvi".

Repovesi is popular in the region for having quite a many cliffs and nice scenery, and as you can see below the rocks often go out



There are occasional small islands in the middle of the lake too, which seem more like stranded little rocks when there is ice all around.

Not having a boat here, its nice to see the shore from angles you don't normally get (without swimming ;-)

We pulled out the Trangia and cooked lunch on a small rocky outcrop (where a fireplace was located) and just sat and enjoyed the views.

Walking up between the rocks is not hard, although the wooden staircase / ladders provided at points for climbing are quite slippery when covered in packed and now melting snow.



Even though its not really spring here yet, the climate changes are making spring early, making for a different February. The melting snow and the water racing below makes some lovely patterns in the ice.