Tell me about Ruka

What kind of info are you looking specifically? I'm there multiple weeks per season & can probably answer. Conditions are ~the best in Finland, it's only crowded on holiday season and has the best park I've seen. It feels like an IRL Instagram or a video game when you get to see the general level of the riding there (compared to Finnish resorts at least) for the first time.

Camerontaylor158I've been invited by the girlfriends family to their yearly ski trip and this year they are heading to Ruka. I then realized that I actually know very little about the resort other than it pumps out a lot of sick skiers and has a really good park. Any advice or things you think one should know before going would be much appreciated!

I'll just copypaste something I posted on a thread regarding spending a season in Ruka 5 years ago (https://www.newschoolers.com/forum/thread/852392/Doing-a-season-in-Ruka). It may give answers to some of your questions. I haven't actively skied there for quite some years, therefore some info might be inaccurate/irrelevant.

(E: quoting did not work, here's the raw text:)

Hello, I'm going to toss in a long time local's opinion since I basically grew up there (had a season pass from 2005 until 2013).
As you might already know, Ruka has the best park out of all the resorts in Finland. The kind of a "cult reputation" has only
strengthened the park's development and marketing of the resort (for park skiing of course). The park attracts good skiers from all over Finland, Russia and Scandinavia (and apparently from all over the world nowadays). Also, the skiing "highschool" is located there (for racing and freestyle), so quite many good skiers live there. Back in the day, I didn't even realize how good the park actually was until I went to other resorts. If you literally only want to ski park, then you might want to consider, but read the rest.
While the park is great, other types of skiing are kind of lacking for the most part (from a general freestyle skiers point of view). Powder days are pretty rare, and off-piste skiing is quite lacking if we compare to the usual "whistlers/alps/whatever". The conditions are pretty cold and icy for most of the season. Still, skiing pow is very fun at best. But remember, it's a pretty small resort really, so all the best powder skiing spots are going to be scoured in a couple of hours after opening.
Ruka is mostly a FAMILY ski resort, judging by their marketing. The groomed slopes are taken care of very well. There are many slopes that vary in difficulty, but most of them are pretty short (the longest slope is 1300 meters in length, though). There are loads of family activities to do in the village, including husky riding, cross-country skiing, snowmobiling, ice-fishing, bowling etc etc. The main town of Kuusamo is like any other small town with the basic services. If you want to have constant action, the area is not for you: Trust me I lived there for 20 years lol, the main city is basically dead. You can draw a 200 km radius circle around Ruka and it would not have any "bigger cities" inside of it. But it might be enough for you, who knows. During certain times of the year (opening day, new years eve, Ruka Spring Break) the resort has wild action and parties though, so check those out.
The Finns speak English pretty well, as you would expect from a well educated country in general. Language barrier shouldn't be a problem for the most part.
I have never worked at a ski resort (I assume that's what where you're implying you'd work in), but you can try applying to some open vacancies around the shops, rentals, restaurants or whatever. Can't really help you with the work question.
I am not sure of the accommodation situation there, but you can prolly get a fairly cheap rental apartment from the main town, or the resort area somewhere.

If you are looking to be a "ski bum" who works nights and skis days, I'm not sure if it's worth it. The opportunities are not too special compared to the bigger mountains. Still, Ruka is a great resort and very popular. Ruka also has one of the longest ski seasons out of all EUROPEAN resorts (if you don't count the ones that do summer skiing, actually Ruka used to have that too, but not anymore). So suite for yourself, do your research, and even if you decide not to pick Ruka, I'd hope you visit there one day for a week or something. It's a great place :)

**This post was edited on Nov 26th 2021 at 9:17:12am

If you drink enough ruka water you’ll dub

their park looks like porn and their lift tickets cost as much as a hyland day pass

This.☝️

The only thing I want to disagree is the icyness. Compared to southern Finland where the season is half shorter and 1000x icier, Ruka is practically heaven for the most part of the season. Visited Ruka for the first time in November 2018, but have been there for ~15 weeks after that and will continue to do so until further notice.

tominiemenmaaThis.☝️

The only thing I want to disagree is the icyness. Compared to southern Finland where the season is half shorter and 1000x icier, Ruka is practically heaven for the most part of the season. Visited Ruka for the first time in November 2018, but have been there for ~15 weeks after that and will continue to do so until further notice.

You're probably correct. I'd assume that the winters are a bit warmer nowadays, even compared to pre-early 2010's. I cannot recall many proper pow days from my youth, but I can certainly remember many frosty and windy days we spent in the park. It is honestly astonishing to see so much off-piste skiing content from Ruka nowadays (on ig etc.), where the conditions look heavenly. But I was mostly a weekend warrior, who knows if the proper skiing happened on weekdays :)

It’s fucking sick. I went for a few days last year over New Years and absolutely loved it. It’s only got about 657ft vertical drop but it feels way bigger. It’s big enough to spread out and explore different zones but not so big that you’re lost and trying to get back to the main zone. It’s got a cute little village and good vibes. The park is insane. Super surreal too how it’s so dark there in winter and you’re skiing under lights all days.

Awful photo but this is what it looked like at 7:30 at breakfast at the hotel. Didn’t get any lighter during the day. Sun came out one day and it was basically just an instrument for creating insane colors on the horizon. Def go if you can.

Circling back and editing to say that I actually really enjoyed Ruka’s tree skiing and I got one powder day there with about 10cm. There’s some fun zones if you look hard enough. There was some sheet ice in high traffic areas where people had stripped the snow but it was easy to avoid and that also happens in Colorado too so that’s everywhere early season.

**This post was edited on Nov 26th 2021 at 12:45:25pm

It’s great if you’re a park skier, just ok if you’re not. The scenery is amazing though, which compensates for the short slopes.

If you’re wondering what skis to take, you only really need park skis (if you ski park).

Also, if you’ve never been to the arctic and you’re coming in mid winter, I recommend you explore the winter nature in other ways as well. There are many winter hiking trails for example. Well, technically Ruka isn’t within the arctic circle but it’s right on the edge.

Coming from someone who’s lived here at Ruka for their whole life.

Jemstheir park looks like porn and their lift tickets cost as much as a hyland day pass

A day pass at hyland costs 450€ (~$500)? obv not

teabagA day pass at hyland costs 450€ (~$500)? obv not

He is talking about a day pass. Ruka is about half as expensive most US resorts.

If a season pass is only €500 that's still alot cheaper than the $2400 I pay for my wife and I to ski.

Man that place looks like heaven I really wanna go there

It's cold

The season passes in Finland tend to cost around 400-500 euros in every resort, big or small, including the biggest northern resorts Ruka, Pyhä, Levi & Ylläs.

Some of the resorts in the south have ridiculous early bird prices tho. Sappee, my home hill, which I've had a season pass for three last seasons and I've paid for them less than 400 euros combined. You need to commit to buying it in early spring of the previous season to get it that cheap.

They've sold over 10k season passes for multiple seasons in a row to a hill with 5 slopes & 4 T-bar lifts, 390' of vertical 😁🤷 Sappee started the trend in 2017 which has led to similar campaigns in most of the resorts in the south. Can't complain as a hardcore park rat with three season passes (Ruka, Sappee, & Sveitsi if you want to look them up).

DilldoesPaloAltoteabagA day pass at hyland costs 450€ (~$500)? obv not

He is talking about a day pass. Ruka is about half as expensive most US resorts.

If a season pass is only €500 that's still alot cheaper than the $2400 I pay for my wife and I to ski.

That's Finland! From mid december to early march it's quite normal to have temperatures around -15 and way colder, down to -30 occasionally in Ruka & Lapland. That's from 5 to -22 in Fahrenheit...

DanielHankaIt's cold

DilldoesPaloAltoteabagA day pass at hyland costs 450€ (~$500)? obv not

He is talking about a day pass. Ruka is about half as expensive most US resorts.

If a season pass is only €500 that's still alot cheaper than the $2400 I pay for my wife and I to ski.

Lol mb

Did u watch roots because there is a ruka segment and it quite literally looks like heaven on earth

Cheers guys. So to summarise, wrap up warm, don't worry about bringing deeper snow skis, the park is the best bit of the mountain and the scenery is incredible. Very excited, cheers!

✔️

Camerontaylor158Cheers guys. So to summarise, wrap up warm, don't worry about bringing deeper snow skis, the park is the best bit of the mountain and the scenery is incredible. Very excited, cheers!