Cabins in Äkäslompolo, Ylläs

Äkäslompolo is built around the lake it is named after, with the fell behind it. There are lift bases on this side and a second village, Ylläsjärvi, on the far side, and the two belong to one ski area. Because the village is spread out, where you stay changes the week: near the lake and the shops, or further into the trees where you hear nothing at all. Underneath the tourism it is a real village: a school, houses lived in the year round, cabins among them rather than lined up in a block of their own. The park boundary is minutes on foot from most doors.

Ylläs is a cross-country place before it is anything else. The trail network is large and lit in parts, it links the two villages and climbs onto the tops, and a fit skier can spend a week on it without repeating a route. The downhill side has runs of every grade, including long easy ones that go on for minutes rather than seconds, and short queues by alpine standards. Off the tracks there is snowshoeing, ice fishing, reindeer and husky farms. Midwinter here is dark enough, and often clear enough, that the northern lights are a matter of looking rather than booking.

The chain of fells running north from Ylläs is some of the best walking in Finland, and the marked routes over the tops of Pallas-Yllästunturi National Park carry on for days. Shorter, well-made day routes leave straight from the village for anyone not planning to sleep in a tent. The rest of the summer goes on mountain biking, fishing and the lake, warm enough to swim in by midsummer. Ruska arrives early and hard this far north, and the first snow often falls while the ground is still red. That week is the best of the year to be up on the fell, and almost nobody is.

Kittilä is the closest airport and the easy answer in winter, with direct flights from Helsinki and seasonal ones from further away. Kolari is the nearest railway station, at the top of the line from Helsinki, and the sleeper carries cars. Transfer coaches meet the flights in season. Outside it, or if you want the other side of the fell and the villages beyond, drive.

Ylläs has more in it than a week holds, and a cabin is how you keep up with it. Skis and boots dry overnight instead of going back on damp. If half of you want the trail at eight and the other half want to read until noon, nobody has to negotiate. We manage the cabins here exactly as we do the ones at Pyhä and Luosto: cleaned and inspected between stays, a local team behind the booking, and booked direct on this page, so the price you see is the whole price with no commission stacked on it.

Check-in is self-service: the address, the door code and the practical notes come in a cabin guide linked from your booking. That matters on the day the flight lands in the afternoon and it has been dark a while by the time you find the turning. Äkäslompolo has shops of its own, so you can arrive without a supermarket run behind you - not true everywhere in Lapland. The cabins are set up for a week rather than a night: a real kitchen, drying space for ski gear, and a sauna in most of them. Bed linen, towels and the final clean can be added to the booking.