Norway

I'm finally leaving to Norway tomorrow. I have to wake up in 6 hours (5am, early start) so I'm not going to make this very long. First stop is Trondheim (Harbak, Vingsand) and later we will continue further up north to Gjerdalen ja fianlly the Lofoten islands

I don't like checking the weather forecast for Norway, because it always looks bad, but I'm sure the weather will turn out to be fine (yeah right!)

Puumala

My last weeks boulder hunt went well. The weather could not have been better and I spent every day running around the woods looking for new boulders and making first ascents.

Puumala area     

  

I found a lot of boulders, big ones, but not that many lines for some reason. The rock quality wasn't the best in some places. I put a few nice problems, but overall this area wasn't quite as good as I thought it might be. Oh well, that's the way it goes sometimes.

Puumala       

Here's a little clip I filmed while I was there. I didn't have much time to put into editing it, but the footage isn't that great anyway so whatever. It shows two new problems I put up: Milestone and Laiskuus Palkitaan.





On Monday I'm leaving to Norway. I haven't spent much time there climbing, but I've seen enough to know that the potential for new bouldering is huge there. The last few days it's been really hot in Finland, so hopefully we'll find better conditions in northern Norway. If not, you can always do night sessions. Soon you wont even need headlamps because the sun doesn't set that far up north in the summer!

New boulders

Not many people would drive 8 hours back and forth on a Friday to go run around the woods for nine hours while it's raining.

That's how I spent my Friday. After hours on the computer scrolling trough maps and aerial images, I was headed towards a remote area about 4 hours drive North east of Helsinki. Maps are an essential tool for finding boulders in Finland, because there are thick forest everywhere so the visibility is often really bad and the boulders are usually scattered around. You never really get a good view from the road, so you really need to go look at each boulder individually. So, after several exhausting hours of non-stop boulder hunting, I did find some really cool projects and not just individual boulders, but potentially actual areas.

 Some of the small roads were in bad shape               

The weather forecast for the this week looks a bit dubious, but whatever. I'm psyched to go out there and make some first ascents and brush some cool projects. If it's going to rain the whole time, at least I'll have a change to go look for some new boulders around.

I'm driving out there in the morning and I was just packing some of my stuff and once again realized how much gear I actually bring on a bouldering trip. Often people say that bouldering is nice because you don't need a lot of gear. I would say quite the opposite. When I was sport climbing in Spain, I often realized how nice it was that you didn't have to carry a lot of gear.

I'll be out for a few days if the weather allows and hopefully come back with some photos and video.

Happy Up Here

Yesterday I put up a really nice new boulder in Sipoo. I tried this scary highball a little bit last spring and after falling from the last move a couple times I never went back. This year I finished it off on my first try after warming up on the bottom part. Happy Up Here has a technical start which leads to a bit steeper climbing with a committing move at the top. There are two ways to do the very top section, either a big dyno or two long lockoffs. I did it both ways and they feel about the same difficulty, depending on what your good at.

A video still of  Happy Up Here     

We got it on film, but I'm not sure yet when it's going to be out. I just started a new film project and I don't know whether I will release several smaller clips or make a longer flick like Could Be Worse.

I've spent a lot of time training for and working on the Sisu project, but I can't really say that there has been any progress lately. I'm planning to stay in Finland for about a month trying it, as long as the conditions are still good. After that the plan is to go to northern Norway and explore the endless potential for hard bouldering there. Alright, I'm off to try Sisu again!

Sisu Project

The prime bouldering season is now really kicking in here in Finland and I've been taking full advantage of the good temps. I've spent four sessions on what I named Sisu project. All I can say at this point is that it is the hardest boulder problem I have ever tried in my entire life. It's still difficult to say if it actually goes or not.

So far, after four sessions on it, I've managed to do one single move, not counting the five last exit moves that I did on a rope (which are also hard). In total, this problem would be around 16 moves long and about 7 meters tall. Also, that one move that I've been able to do is the first move and most likely the easiest one. I've had my spotters push me into different places on the wall and at best I've been able to hold a positions of them for a split second, not even feeling remotely close to being able to move any part of my body.

To put things in a perspective, I've seen, climbed and tried several boulders graded 8C or 8C+ around the globe and this line seems to be on a completely different level of difficulty. I've done the all moves to several 8C boulders in a session or two. I climbed Jade in 2 days of effort, The Island took me 4 days. After spending 4 days on this project, I've been able to do 1 move, the easiest one.

Sisu project                        

I can't tell you how psyched I am, that I found a boulder this perfect and difficult near my home. It's still unsure if it actually goes, but no matter what, this has already been a dream come true for me. Even if I wouldn't ever be able to climb this line, at least I'll have an amazing project to work on for the next twenty years. It's a huge source of motivation for me and I've already started training like crazy to get fit enough to do a little better on it. I even built a training "simulator" of a couple of the bottom moves at my gym. I just canceled my trip to Switzerland, because the weather is just getting prime here and I don't want to miss a day of the perfect weather to try it.

I'm not expecting to climb this line any time soon, although that would be amazing and I am training harder than ever, now that I'm super motivated on this project. Most likely, climbing this line will take years and years of hard work and maybe it will still remain unclimbed. Time will tell, but I know I will enjoy every moment of trying it, no matter what the outcome is. Hopefully I can convince some other climbers to come and try it. We're also filming it and the footage will be released eventually in a climbing film, but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it to come out. For those who can't wait to see some video, I'll probably upload a short clip of me trying it/failing miserably, at some point.

Oh, and then there's the sitstart project, which adds a four move ∼ 8B+ into the the obvious stand start...