Hiking in the Seitseminen National Park

My friend and I spent the first weekend of October hiking in the Seitseminen national park.

This month marks the second year of this blog: I wrote my first status update in October 2019. You can quickly glance over all articles from the /blog page.

Seitseminen is located near Ikaalinen and Ylöjärvi in Pirkanmaa region Finland, approximately 3-hour drive from Helsinki.

This was our first hike in Seitseminen together. My friend had visited the park some years before.

Similarly to our previous hikes, we split the trip into three days:

I bought a new hiking pillow (Sea to the Summit) and a new pair of trail running shoes (Altra Lone Peak 5) for this hake. I had used a bag of clothes as my pillow for the last 6 years and I thought that it warranted an upgrade. My shoes were also at their breaking point.

Arrival

We arrived at Kovero on Friday evening. It was pitch black but surprisingly warm, some 10 degrees Celsius. We head out to the nearest camping site and put up our tent there. Some tents were already at the site. After three hours of driving, we decided to go to sleep early.

First day

Our travel plan was to follow the Seitakierros counter-clockwise, so we headed north towards the Seitseminen Nature Center. The trail closely follows the Seitsemisentie with cars passing by — so much being alone in the nature.

We eat lunch at the Nature Center with hiking luxuries like running water, indoor toilets and a selfie point. The Nature Center houses a small café with baked goods such as doughnuts. After the break, we headed south towards Iso Kivijärvi.

Iso Kivijärvi was our original destination to spend night, but it was barely 3 o’clock when we arrived. We decided to continue on towards Honkaniemi, some 3 km from Iso Kivijärvi. En route we passed Pitkäjärvi which has a rental hut.

We set up camp at Honkaniemi after walking 12 km in total.

Second day and departure

There was light rain during the night, and it continued through the morning.

We had hiked longer on the first day than we had initially thought. Instead of going directly back to the car in Kovero, we decided to make a detour and walk the Aarnipolku route.

Since we had plenty of time, we stopped to collect cranberries from the swampy areas near Honkaniemi. Finally, we headed back to Kovero. We walked 5,4 km in total. A shorter distance for the second day was better since we had plenty of driving a head of us.

Closing thoughts

I was surprised how big of an impact a proper sleeping pillow had on my sleep. I should have upgraded earlier! Having a proper pillow almost made sleeping on uneven ground with non-inflatable sleeping pad bearable. Almost.

My new shoes felt like 🎵 I was walking on sunshine 🎵. Extremely light and roomy toe box. Whether they’re warm enough at 0 degrees Celcius is still a question mark. My plan is to use them on the next week-long hike.