The Finnish Invasion

ozzywrongAfter watching KEESHLIFE MOVIE and watching all these crazy random kids from Ruka over the past couple of winters.. I am convinced that the most underrated park and street skiers now live in Finnland.. how did these randoms ( I say that cause I've only really ever heard of Antti and a couple of others) get so fucking good at skiing ? It's simply mind blowing..

Go to Ruka and you will see why. Unless you wanna wander about in the woods or drink a ton of booze there is fuck all else to do. The kids also come out of school at like 2 in the afternoon and spend the rest of the day ripping. The ski areas main focus is freestyle as you can tell as EVERYONE local rides park......there is even some old dude (60's) that gets good air out of the monster pipe on site. There is good backcountry zones and it's so fucking cold the moisture is sucked out of the snow making it very Japan like. Basically if you have a kid and you wanna breed it into slayer drop it in Ruka and come back in 12 years....

Believe me from what I saw this is just the first wave

Forgot to mention, you can ski until 7pm during the week and 9pm at weekend. If the cold doesn't phase you....

sisu

RodiganGo to Ruka and you will see why. Unless you wanna wander about in the woods or drink a ton of booze there is fuck all else to do. The kids also come out of school at like 2 in the afternoon and spend the rest of the day ripping. The ski areas main focus is freestyle as you can tell as EVERYONE local rides park......there is even some old dude (60's) that gets good air out of the monster pipe on site. There is good backcountry zones and it's so fucking cold the moisture is sucked out of the snow making it very Japan like. Basically if you have a kid and you wanna breed it into slayer drop it in Ruka and come back in 12 years....

Believe me from what I saw this is just the first wave

RodiganForgot to mention, you can ski until 7pm during the week and 9pm at weekend. If the cold doesn't phase you....

Lol you ever been at ruka?

VKomsiLol you ever been at ruka?

Lol .......Rantasipi one week in January. Saying it as we saw it as a tourist

VKomsiLol you ever been at ruka?

Do you wanna expand on what part of my description was inaccurate Lolcat ? 12 of us went on the trip and we all came away with the same conclusion about the place.....

RodiganDo you wanna expand on what part of my description was inaccurate Lolcat ? 12 of us went on the trip and we all came away with the same conclusion about the place.....

Sorry my bad i tought you said it opens at 7am but yea i was wrong about that 1, but yea really i have never seen a 60 years old guys hit park there

I agree with you, I've never seen such crazy street skiing from people that I've never heard of (besides Joona and Antti). But as the guy above said, Finland is pretty much a frozen wasteland and skiing is the only thing to do.

It's not just Ruka. There super tiny hills all over Finland that have parks open all afternoon and way in to the night. Some of the ones I hit up in the south had some of the worst conditions and most terrifying setups I've ever seen: sheet ice, sketch set up rails + pretty big jumps with super narrow takeoffs/landings and 30ft vertical drops either side. (Not including Serena, that was pretty dope). So basically you get good real quick or you go home in an ambulance. That and like Rodigan said, there's fuck all else to do some places.

So you lap the small, icy hill of doom for 4-5 hours a day and lo and behold it breeds a fucked up level of skier. And then, because there is next to no backcountry or even a higher level of parks the next step is hit the streets. And the factor there is you more or less don't get kicked out of any spots. Street is such a different game that being able to hit spots consistently is a massive advantage for your skills. And the aforementioned parks were as or more scary than the street stuff in my experience which means you just get on with it.

It's already happened in snowboarding but yeah, Suomi is coming and there's nothing we can do.

Its those damned saunas im telling you!