Uuteen nousuun

Last year it was more or less only bouldering. This summer the focus has been on roping mainly. Lets see until end of the autumn how far this trend goes. Gonna rock hard! Still got a pretty long list of projects. Repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating and linking the repeats in a chain. Moving fast forward.
 

pure 6b

Today some basic roping in Ravattula. 2x6b and one solo.

First trad with two pieces of pro, then soloed. Very easy, very short. Notice: I don't recommend soloing to anyone.

In my opinion the route is too easy for soloing when you still think something.. e.g. "be careful, be careful, be careful..", or, "there is the muffing, just grab it and dont think about falling..high step and then you just rock over, you got it.."
 

What was it that Mr. Reardon used to say..
"You are in this eight foot egg shell. It's a fragile egg shell. Eight feet round and surrounds your body. Thats the only thing you notice. You dont hear anything, dont get excited, you dont get depressed, if a bird flies of the crag, it doesn't face you. You have to stay a hundred procent focused. You either get it or you dont. And if you dont solo, you'll never get it. Once you have soloed, you had a piece of it. Once you soloed alot, you really got a piece of it. When you solo everyday, now you'll understand."

From the movie Return 2 Sender. Actually a pretty cool film. We all miss you Michael, where ever you are. You really had it dude, respect.

Keep on pushing hard

As you see. This year started with pretty bad news. I broke my pulley, A1, in left hand.. And now.. I'm climbing the hardest ever in my life. I have been given the chance to train nonstop for three weeks and the results are incredibly motivating. I try to take the last year and all the training I missed now back. I'm really hungry, really eager, really motivated and getting fit. At this moment even the off-days start to make sense to avoid injuries and over shape. I think that I never had such thick skin in fingers. I keep on pushing, eventually it will work out.

Yesterday I climbed at Ravattula and Mäntymäki. Altogether sending two 6b. Did the Törmäystestinukke without preclipping or crashpad. Thanks to Matti and Simo for spotting. First time I tried this route like three years ago, now sent easily, great!

Kustavi, Riskeläisvuori

Trad. It must be several years since I placed nuts and cams. I didn't make it to the Kustavi-meeting last weekend, but on Sunday decided still to go to Kustavi with Lauri J. We wanted something really easy, just hanging out. First for a coffee and a donut at the Vuosnainen then to Riskeläisvuori. It was really alot of fun onsighting trad 4. The grade is totally solid, but still OS is always OS. Really good training, full day.

Oh, yes.. and on the way back, it was around 01:30, we saw a guy crumbled down on the road. First I thought that this guy had too many drinks, or worse, hit by a car.. nope.. A young man "Mr. N." had walked all the way from Turku to there.. like 45km and was heading to Uusikaupunki. Like WHAT??? Dude seriously?!?! Of course we dropped him to his place. Quite a champ. He must have been walking at least 7-10 hours in the summer heat.

I think that a really good combination is hard sport on pushing days and easy trad on rest days. Can climb all the time, non stop, every day. Besides, who wouldnt want to belaying on the top of that crag (in the pic) and just watch scenery. Good, full day, good memories, good climbing, fun.

Vaasa

I combined a work trip with bouldering, worked out well. I met my old neighbour by accident, Sami. Thanks to Anssi, I got couple of phonenumbers and Jukka (+Sami) came along to the rocks.

I was impressed by the stock of boulders. Here Sami cranking up Fermioni 6c. A truly good boulder, was close sending it, but too early. Had zero training behind. Like always in bouldering, I could do all the moves, but linking them was too heavy, but it didn't bother me. Already the feeling of climbing something new cool stuff made me thrilled, happy and motivated. I knew that this summer I would go further.

Juhannus..

Olhava, Bronson Brothers, Tentsauna, Kantti, Jussi Juhannus.

Tentsauna, thanks to JuGka, good job man. Liquid friction..

Ne Kuuluisat Bronsonin Veljekset..

Kuvassa Olhavan varmistuspoliisi Mr J. Bronson. Tämä mies koputtaa olkapäähäsi, jos laitat et varmista asiallisesti.

aawwww....

Flaten & Ågesta

Final day = 8 hours of climbing.
First 6 hours in Flaten and 2 hours in Ågesta. It got very close not to find anyone for Flaten. Luckily this downer didn't happen. Thanks to Attila.

Our roping started with onsight attempts for 6c and 6b, then hangdoggin 6c and toproping one short 7a. When we started to leave, around six o'clock two guys came climbing and we had a chat. In the pic Anders L. on Columbo 7c+, Flaten.

Ågesta, bouldering at the "countryside". Koboulder, cow boulder. Pretty messed up stuff.. The cows had shit all around the block. I had already good heat on after Flaten, so two lines and then trying the mantel problem. That was good, or should I say.. not so shitty..

Kolartorp

Edit 12.7.2011
In the morning I decided to bike to Gplan and buy miself a treat for breakfast. After the shopping in 711 my will to explore the city won and rode first to Södermalm, then Gamlastan, all the way downtown to Naturkompaniet (outdoorshop). Bought Kjugetopo as a souvenier, because I wanted to have something nice to read with my morning tea.
It was my first biking experience in Stockholm and enjoyed it. I like the city. Could even imagine to live there and not only because the region holds as much rock climbing as Finland altogether, but it has a nice city-feeling. (In this case with climbing I mean rope climbing..)

Later Kolartorp. Alot of walls and slab.
Didn't really fancy that place, can be that we didn't hit the best spots during that evening.
Here we have a couple pics from the day. Fruits in a bowl and Mikko cranking up psyched some fiver.

Heinäkuinen Stoka

Köysilähetysreissu. Beetat on louhittu aiemmin ja nyt niitä sitte käytetään. Kitka on kohtalainen, ilmankosteus eri korkeella, mutta kelit paranee ilmeisesti loppuviikkoa kohden.
Kuusceet menee aika kivasti ja iisisti. Tyyppasin jotain 7a/b tänään Skevikissä, joka vaikutti tosi hyvältä.
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Edit12.7.2011
Adding some pics. First one is from Kanalklippan, Stockholm. Blasted rock, not everybodys favourite. I managed to OS one sixer straight after arriving with a ferry in the evening. Was cool.

And greets to Fred, cu around in Turku.

 

Second pic is from Skevik. Mikko redpointing 6c(+?). This was my second time in Skevik and I start to respect that place, good climbing. Can recommend.

-a-

Switzerland, wedding and alps

First, congratulations to David and Verena! Your wedding was really wonderful!

In June we did 10 day trip to Swiss. Was perfect. During the time we discovered Switzerland from Stein am Rhein to Interlaken and little further. My second time to the Alps.

Maybe you know, in all travel books they tell mind blowing stories about how Berner Oberland is. Well, Interlaken.. it has it all. And all the stories are true. Here some pics from the trip.

 

View from our Alp Huetli, small very cozy hut in 1250 m altitude. Behind our cottage was grazing area for cattle and they usually woke us up around 09:00 o'clock, in the pic I'm having a conversation with a Muuu.

The road along Brienzersee. Going to Interlaken to get some beta.. Then we went to Neuhaus and I managed to onsight that corner, 6a+. I felt the the Swizz diet (beer, cheese, wurst and bread) during the onsight, but somehow pulled it together.

 

Evening, after climbing. It was monday. A bit of Eiger is visible over the city of Interlaken.. miss the place.

Second day trekking to Lauberhorn 2472 m. Spectacular views!

Brienzersee.. man.. check it out! Our cottage was according to this pic on the left side, high up.

Last day we checked a small crag in Schaffhausen, Schweizerbild. Only 20-30km from Stein am Rhein. Scale from 4-8a.. This place felt pretty stiffly graded. 6b+ felt like 7a-ish.. but perhaps it was again the swiss diet, never know. Tried the Diplom, was a no go, could hang in the first hold at least:D