Safari in Ruokolahti. Sadly, I did not see a lion. But I managed to ski snow on second half of May, that's something. Well, ice. But still, quite nice views over the lake, not too bad! I also checked a cave, the Lassilan Linnavuoren luola (Lassila's Castle Mountain Cave). This was a total surprise, an excellent cave by Finnish standards. A through cave from one hole up on a cliff face to another hole on the same face. Wonderful!
There are steep (very) steps leading to the entrance to the cave. There are no exit stairs from the other end (exit pictured above), so come back the same way, and don't fall.
There were also side caves that in any other place would have been nice caves, but here were just listed as "fire pits" or not noted at all. Well done, Ruokolahti.
The skiing was done at Ruokolahti Freeski, a great community ski hill. I've skied there before, though there's no article about it... it was on my day trip to the east.
But back to the cave. It has been reported in the book Finnish Caves (Suomen Luolat), Wikipedia, as well as on the Ruokolahti page, Lomavinkint page, and Retkipaikka.
The coordinates of the cave are N 61.21908 E 29.02517. I measured it as being 14.5 meters from one entrance to another. I also scanned it and made a 3D model and a map. Here's a link to the model, map, and a rotate-on-your-browser version of the model. Here's a snapshot of vertical cuts in the map, showing how tight and high the cave is:
Other pictures from the main cave:
The other notable caves are under boulders in front of the cliff. There's actually a few, plus a few holes in the cliff itself. But the maybe I'll just list the two biggest ones:
The fire pit is cave at N 61.218986 E 29.024933. This must be at least 10 meters (a total estimate, I could be wrong). Here is what it looks like:
The big boulder is cave at N 61.218739 E 29.025239. I think it is at least 5 meters, maybe even 10. Again, a complete estimate. Here is what it looks like:
Pictures from the skiing:
This article has also been published at Planetcaver.net here. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, urban exploration stories from theurbanexplorer.net, and other underground stories from planetcaver.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot. Photos and text (c) 2026 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.
This article was originally published in the Planetskier Blogspot article series.
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