18-Sep-2001 -- In Finnish Lapland the autumn was at its peak: beautiful colours
all around. The day was warm, blue skies, sunny, the perfect
time for hunting confluences.
The present confluence is situated
about 70 km north of my office in Sodankyla, central Lapland. Most of
the approach can be done on Finnish state highway number 4, which passes
the confluence at a distance of about 3 km. Some very bad path leads closer
to the confluence, but it is not recommend to use it by motorised vihicle.
In the area there are fields of cut trees, either cut completely (clear-cut)
or cut by more modern methods leaving seed trees behind. The confluence lies
in a forest which either was cut very long time ago or which was maybe subject
to forest fire. It is a nice and rather natural looking forest.
Unfortunately it became a bit dark,
because the driving back from the confluence visited before (68N26E) took longer
than expected and the approach to the present confluence was tricky.
Anyway, the pictures
show the views to the North, West, South, and East, plus a picture of the GPS.
A general overview is missing, but it would not show anything different than
the pictures taken looking in the four directions. The forest is rather uniform all around.
At some place near the confluence a heavy machine must have moved without cutting anything;
there were some deep tracks rather far apart from one another. They were covered by the
little vegetation there is at these places, so the machine must have been there years back.