Pyhä-Luosto

Pyhä-Luosto is at once one of the oldest and one of the newest national parks in Finland. Pyhätunturi National Park was established in 1938, along with Pallas-Yllästunturi, and in 2005 it was enlarged by taking in the Luosto area to form the present park, of 142 km², in Lapland.

Its landscape is the most southerly chain of fjells in Finland: twelve prominent summits forming part of a system of quartzite ridges some 35 kilometres long, the eroded remains of one of the oldest mountain ranges on Earth, close to two billion years old. The highest tops are Noitatunturi, the Witch's fell, at some 540 metres, and Ukko-Luosto, at 514. Between them opens Isokuru, the deepest gorge in the country, with more than 200 metres of drop and quartzite walls where fossilised ripple marks from an ancient sea floor can be seen; the defiles that separate the fjells were shaped by the meltwater of the glaciations.

The mosaic is completed by extensive aapa mires surrounding the chain and by old boreal forests of pine and spruce on the slopes, some trees more than four hundred years old, among the oldest in Finland. The area preserves Sámi sacred places tied to the Pyhä fells, whose very name means sacred. It is today one of the most visited national parks in the country, with close to 200,000 visitors a year, favoured by the proximity of two ski resorts.