Kummakivi in Ruokolahti’s Haukonsalo is a unique glacial erratic, because this gentle giant stands firmly but strangely on top of a smooth rock so that the contact surface area to the lower smooth rock is only 0.5 m²!

During the Ice Age, water that was frozen in the rock crevices detached and carved glacial erratics from the rock elevations, which the moving ice masses then carried along with them. There are many glacial erratics, but what makes this one special is the way and place where this 7m long, 5m high and estimated 500 thousand kilos heavy stone has been left balancing 11-12 thousand years ago when the ice melted away. And no, the stone does not move. It has not moved a millimeter at least in a millennium.

One fun additional observation is also that there is a 30-year-old pine growing on top of it. Let’s see how the pine (or the stone) fares in the decades to come!

The stone is protected under the Nature Conservation Act in 1962, but you can go and admire it. The address of the stone is: Kummakiventie 58, 56310 Ruokolahti. Please go via Hauklapintie! Valkintie is a private road. Kummakiventie has seemingly two parking lots, from both of which a trail leads to the stone. Go to the right-hand parking lot (Y-intersection) which rises steeply up to the right. From there the path to the stone is the shortest. You can also get there through the other one (left-hand parking lot from the Y-fork). From there the route is a bit longer and maybe wetter. There are moss bridges there, which you can also go and admire. In other words, the route is a so-called circular route from one parking lot to another, which you can walk all the way, and finally arrive back at your own car by walking along the road.

A super fun sight! One of the most peculiar ones I have seen.