The alarm was set for 8:30am and it was a real struggle to get up in the dark. We threw some clothes on and walked along the path from the cabin to the house for coffee and cakes.

Feeling a bit more awake after the caffeine and sugar, David set about chopping some firewood for everywhere there was a fireplace.

After some porridge, we packed the car and headed to Äkäslompolo, a small village on the western side of the Ylläs fell and ski resort. It only takes about an hour to get from Venejärvi to Äkäslompolo and it was a nice drive with a beautiful clear sky albeit freezing cold outside.

Katja and Joonas had driven separately because they will probably leave before us. We met at Maria's dad's cabin in Äkäslompolo and loaded one car with all the snowboards and headed for the slopes. Normally we would park up on the Äkäslompolo side of the fell, but today we drove round to Ylläsjärvi to meet Guven's who were staying in a hotel there.

We met them in the Taiga Bar but our timing was a bit lousy, they were just about to eat. David, Maria and Katja decided to have one hour on slopes while they ate and we would join them for drinks later.

In the hour we managed just under 15km over 5 runs, starting in the daylight and finishing in the dark. It was freezing cold, well below freezing really, it was -16c at the bottom of the slopes although bizarrely quite a bit warmer at the top. The snow was in excellent condition, especially the world cup run which we did 3 times in a row. It's quite weird having a sunset in the middle of your snowboarding session, but that's what we had. Pretty cool.

After the hour, we put our boards in the car and went back to Taiga Bar to meet the others. David got stuck into the beers (they even had the Czech beer, Kozel, on tap) while Maria went for a warming Minttu kaakao (a hot chocolate with a generous measure of mint liquor in it).

The bar started to get really busy and it turned out it was because Finnish guitarist/singer Mikko Alatalo was playing. He used to be very popular in Finland and everyone seemed to know of him and were singing along, some were even up dancing.

After his set, the bar emptied pretty quick and having finished our drinks, we headed back to the cabin in Äkäslompolo. Maria's dad had dinner ready for us by the time we arrived. He had made a huge dish of potato/tuna bake and there was also some leftover ham and Christmas trimmings so we were definitely not going hungry.

After dinner, Joonas heated up a chocolate flavoured glögi for everyone. It was incredibly sweet and not really that enjoyable unless you were a chocoholic.

The sauna was heated up and by the time it was our turn, it was really hot. We didn't stay in too long before retreating to the cold outside and a nice cold beer.

David got caught up writing the blog and forgot about the beers he'd put outside earlier. By the time he went back to them which was maybe only an hour later, they were frozen. Not completely frozen, more like a slush and only a mouthful or two could be poured from the can at a time.