The Valkmusa is a swamp and a national park in the eastern part of Kymenlaakso, Finland. The swamp has a small path on duckboard that is about 2 kilometers long. I have been there before during summer but never during winter. In december of last year I was driving to another city for christmas. Since I still had some film in my camera from the last time I took pictures at the Kymi River, I decided to drive past Valkmusa and try to take the last shots with that film roll.

The path near the parking area was still visible under the snow, so I decided that I could try walking through the entire path. As I continued forwards, the snow started covering the duckboards and the path became invisible. However, other people had also walked through the path, so I could see their footprints in the snow and just follow them. This worked well until I got to a part near the end.

I had been here during summer, so I knew that the duckboards I was walking on had alot of water around it. Since I saw the footprints of previous visitors, I though that I was walking on a safe path. It turned out that the snow above the water was more molten due to warmer weather and the previous visitors had not walken on the duckboards. When I was following the footprints, the snow gave away and I fell into the swamp water. It was not very deep at that point, so only my boots and part of my pants got completely wet. It was still annoying to walk back and drive the rest of my trip after that.

The pictures are taken with Kodak Tri-X 400 film. They did turn out a lot more darker than I would have wanted and I also ran out of film about halfway through the path.