Ylläs

A fell with two villages

Ylläs, Yllästunturi in Finnish, is a 719 m fell in the municipality of Kolari in Finnish Lapland, and the highest fell in Finland with ski lifts on it. Two villages serve it: Äkäslompolo on the north side and Ylläsjärvi on the south, linked by an 11 km road that runs around the flank of the fell. Both live largely from tourism, and the area’s marketing slogan, “Ylläs on ykkönen!” (“Ylläs is number one!”), gives a flavour of the local confidence. Wikipedia ranks it as the second largest ski resort in Lapland, after Levi.

The skiing

Our data gives 53 km of slopes and 26 lifts, from a base at 200 m to a top at 718 m, essentially the summit of the fell. A vertical of about 520 m is small by Alpine measures, but this is Lapland and the comparison is misleading: here latitude does the work that altitude does in the Alps, and Ylläs is flagged snow-sure in our data despite the low figures. Wikipedia counts 61 ski slopes, which alongside 26 lifts suggests many individual runs fanning out around the fell rather than a few long descents. There is no difficulty breakdown in our records, but a fell of this shape, with runs on more than one side and two villages at its foot, is the kind of place where a mixed-ability group can spread out and still meet for lunch.

The uphill infrastructure includes a 2 km gondola, the tallest in Finland, and one of its cabins has been fitted out as a sauna, which Wikipedia describes as the only sauna in a gondola cabin anywhere in the world. The gondola also runs in summer.

Beyond the pistes

Downhill is only half the story. The Ylläs area has 330 km of cross-country tracks, 38 km of them lit, a network several times the length of the downhill pistes. The fell hosted the 1995 Winter Deaflympics, and in summer the villages switch to hiking, biking, fishing and canoeing. Neighbouring fells include Kukastunturi, Lainiotunturi, Kuertunturi, Kesänki, Pyhätunturi and Aakenustunturi, and the summit of Ylläs itself carries a 126.2 m guyed mast for FM and TV broadcasting. Our data flags scenic views, and a bare fell rising above the Lapland forest, with other fells on the horizon, is a very different kind of view from an Alpine one.

Getting there

Kittilä airport is the nearest, roughly 30 km away as the crow flies (Wikipedia gives 39 km). The nearest railway station is Kolari, 37 km away, with direct trains to Helsinki, which makes Ylläs one of the few ski resorts reachable by an overnight train from a capital city. The season runs December to April, and the resort’s official website carries current conditions.