The Pallas Yllästunturi national park is one of Finland’s 40 national parks, located in the far northwest of the country in Lapland region near the border with Norway.
The main feature of the park is the long chain of fells considered one of the Finland’s 27 national landscapes, which makes it the most popular national park with more than 500,000 people visiting the park every year.
In total, there are 90 named mountains in the park. The highest and the most prominent is Taivaskero (809 m / 2,654 ft).
Outdoor writer from the Dolomites, Italy, and Karelia, Finland
— Pallas Yllästunturi national park was founded in 1936 under the name Pallas—Ounastunturi, making it one of the two first national parks in Finland. Now it is the third-largest park in the country with an area of 1,020 square kilometers (393 sq. mi).
The present name of the park consists of two parts: Pallas and Yllästunturi, because its territory was greatly expanded in 2005 by the addition of the neighboring Ylläs—Aakenus Nature Reserve.
- Pallas is short for Pallastunturi. This is a group of seven fells (mountains), which includes the highest peak Taivaskero. The park also contains Lake Pallasjärvi.
- Yllästunturi, or Ylläs, for short, is another hill in the park at a height of 719 m (2,358 ft). The region’s namesake ski resort is also located on the mountain’s slopes. The Ylläs Ski Resort is the second-largest ski resort in Lapland, after Levi. And again, there is Lake Ylläjärvi nearby, which is well worth checking out.
The symbol and logo of the park, characterizing its nature, is the snow bunting. The snow bunting is a small songbird that lives throughout the northernmost parts of the Northern Hemisphere, from Alaska to Scotland and Nova Scotia, to everywhere in between.
Read more in my outdoor guide to Pallas Yllästunturi national park on the website of the PeakVisor app — leading AR (augmented reality) app for mountain peaks identification with tens of other great features for outdoor enthusiasts.
Cover photo: Lauri Vuokila / Unsplash
