Ice climbing at Korouoma, Posio

On a way to Northern Finland

This weekend was booked for 7th school weekend and the theme for the 4 days was ice climbing at Korouoma, Posio, which is the best place in Finland to climb on ice. There are multiple icefalls at Korouoma, the biggest one is 60 meters high "Ruskeavirta". 

Climbers at Ruskeavirta icefall

We headed to "Mammutti" (Mammuth) icefall next to Ruskeavirta. There were lots of ice due to the extreme good winter and freezing temperatures so far. Mammutti icefall was roughly 20 meters high.

On top of the icefall

Sun was setting after 6PM and on Friday we were using the time before darkness for ice climbing. Couple of times I hit my knees to the ice, when kicking the crampons towards the ice. After the climbing my knees were quite sore...

Ready for climbing and belaying

After the sunset we headed back to our base camp and started to dig snow for our tents. 

Tents at our base camp

When the tents were pitched we had a possibility to start cooking and preparing a supper, blazed salmon. It was already 10PM when we had a chance to eat after the long and hard day...

Blazed salmon

The Saturday was cloudy and it was snowing and blowing a bit during the day. Today we were practicing how to rope a team, how to belay, how to self-arrest, how to climb a snow slopes, how to move on a crevasse area, how to use ice axe and so forth...

Roping a team

Sliding down and practicing to do self-arrest to stop sliding

On Saturday evening when we were back at base camp, we started to build quinzees for the next night. The purpose was to sleep at tent only the first night and then make a quinzee for the next night. We shoveled lots of snow again to build a comfortable snow shelter to sleep.

Digging a quinzee

Inside the quinzee

On Sunday we practiced how to make a Lappland's campfire, named "Oivitiilu". It is a campfire made out of fresh birch, the only tree which is available at the Northern part of Finland. It will take roughly 1 hour to make an "Oivitiilu" campfire, but it is the essential skill to make a fire from wet and fresh wood.

A burning "Oivitiilu" campfire

Weekend of traditional tradition

On a ready made track

The skiing weekend of this year with my friends in the outback of the Kuru woods is now over. Skiing nearly 80 km distance in a four days in a thick snow was again an experience of this winter. All together this was our 9th annual skiing weekend, so you could say this is our tradition every spring. However I have missed a couple of earlier events and for me this was perhaps 7th...

On a track made by us

Great views, varying weather from the sleet and plus celsius to sunshine and -10 degrees, hard climbs, speedy downhills, laavu nights, warm and huge campfires, great company, tiredness after long days of skiing, geocaching and pizza at Artturi Pub at Kuru. This was all about it.

Laavu night with campfire

SSSS weekend

Sun with visible sunspots

Skiing, snow, stars and space were some of the themes at the weekend at Rovaniemi. During the 4 days we were studying and learning lots of interesting skills and things: like navigation, winter hiking, different knots, stars and space and personal protective equipments.

Our camp

One of the most crucial skills, when travelling in the wilderness is capability to know exactly the location. With the help of compass and map you need to be able to navigate your planned route and be aware of your current position all the time. In addition you might have a GPS to help to locate yourself in extreme conditions like in a thick fog or heavy snowfall.

Friday morning was the coldest moment of this winter so far (temperature dropped below -41 at Salla, which was the record of this winter. Even at Rovaniemi temperature was somewhere at -35 degrees). Despite of the coldness we put our skis, took our backpacks with tents and cookers and headed into the forest. During the day we practiced navigation and locating ourselves with maps, compass and GPS. We pitched our tents in the middle of beautiful snowy scenery and started cooking.

Cooking moment

At Saturday we were studying personal protective equipments like PFDs, gloves, helmets, boots, jackets, and so forth. Stars and space was one of the things on Saturday as well. I managed to take a photo of the sun through the telescope and currently there are sunspots on the surface of the sun due to the high activity of the sun. The sunspots were easily identifiable on the photo.

Four days session ended on Sunday by practicing different knots, like bowline, alpine butterfly, killick hitch, highwayman's hitch, reef knot, sheetbend, zeppelin bend and figure eight loop just to mention few.

Konnichiwa Antti-san and sayonara Nippon !

Mt. Fuji and Kawaguchiko - lake

It has been great 10 days journey to the country of sunrise - Japan. I have seen the biggest tourist spots like : Mt. Fuji, Hiroshima A-bomb dome and peace memorial park, Tokyo and it's trendiest suburbs like Ginza, Tokyo tower, Imperial Palace gardens, Sumo - wrestling tournament, etc...

30 million people metropol Tokyo by night

It has been an overwhelming trip through Honshu island from Tokyo to Hiroshima and back. I have to admit that Japan is the most weird society I have been visiting. I have encountered singing toilets and toilet seats, which are heated with electricity, trains which are never delayed, people bowing to customers in trains, shops, etc.. The most friendliest people so far, cleanleness without trashbins, amazing and delicious food from okonomiyaki to negiyaki and sushi, high-tec culture of everybody concentrating on his/her own colourful mobile phone all the time and huge Sumo wrestlers as national heroes of Japanese.

Sumo tournament in Tokyo

As during the winter time it's too cold to try to summit Mt. Fuji, I have now a good reason to come back to Japan during summer time and try to climb it. As Japanese are saying : The one, who doesn't climb Mt. Fuji at least once in a lifetime is stupid. The one, who climbs Mt. Fuji more than once is even more stupid.

Kiyomizu-dera at Kyoto

0, 2, 13, 22, 33, 92

These are the numbers of my year 2010.

I haven't been working at all during the year and therefore the number of working days is pure 0. This has been a exceptional year on my life so far...

During the autumn I managed to break a record on a 2 long distance race, half marathon and Pirkan hölkkä (33 km). It seems I have been doing something correctly, despite of getting older and slower I was able to achieve these remarkably results.

Running half-marathon

On the summer I visited on 13 new lighthouse on the Baltic Sea by kayaking. Currently I have visited already on 22 lighthouse by kayaking. On the coming years I hope to be able to continue to paddle on the Baltic Sea and have a chance to visit still unconquered lighthouses, there are still 17 of them...

Kayaking on Kallan lighthouse

I was travelling and visiting 33 new countries from Bolivia to Ukraine. Ukraine was my 92nd country to be visited. Let's see if there will be new countries to be visited next year :)

Travelling in Ukraine

I learnt new skills during the year. I learnt how to make kayak roll, how to make fire without matches or lighters and how to sharpen knives and axes with sharpening stones. I did a bit sailing too and I hope next year I'm able to continue to deepen the knowledge of these newly acquired skills.

Practicing kayak roll

Loud, crazy, colourful, dirty - Tirana is simply fascinating

Somwhere in Bosnia & Herzegovina

Trip has continued through Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro to Albania and Tirana. The touch of socialism has been following all the way down, but when it has been mixed with post-socialism with trendy cafes, shops, bars, beautiful young people, the experience has been somewhat, how would I say it : confusing and surprising.

And  brand new Hummer at the street of Tirana

Tirana, as an example. There's ultimate poorness and greyness in the buildings, older people, roads, vehicles, etc... At the same time side by side you can see trendiest wifi-cafes, trendy youngsters with trendy clothes and Hummers and Mercedes cars.

On the other side of trendy cafes : Beach cafe at Tirana

 Mother Teresa was born in neighbour country, Macedonia and it's capital Skopje, but this is Mother Teresa's area as well. I wish joyful and merry Christmas to everyone, especially the poorest of the poorest in this area, but at the same time all of you, who have much much more than these people.

The arms of Mother Teresa

Night at jail

My jail at Ljubljana

Well, the trip has continued well. Last night I was spending at jail in Ljubljana, but it was a lovely place. The hostel Celica has been reconstructed as a modern hostel and art gallery from former prison. I recommend it for everybody, if you just need accomodation there...

Christmas lights at Ljubljana

During the snowy and cold days in Slovenia and Croatia I have been enjoying local belo/crno kuhano vino, which is glögi as Finnish. On the streets of beautiful cities like Ljubljana and Zagreb people are gathering close to heaters on the terraces and sipping warm kuhano vino when snowflakes are slowly coming to the ground. How lovely athmosphere it has been.

Waiting train to Zagreb at Ljubljana station...

When it started to snow, when I was still in Italy, you can guess what it meant. Right! The whole train traffic was in chaos just like in Finland :) Pendolinos!!!!! Immediately when I entered Slovenia and Croatia, these Eastern Europe countries trains has been on the schedule like swiss clocks, although there has been heavy snowfall during yesterday!!! Tonight I'll be sleeping at Zagreb and heading tomorrow into Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Market at Zagreb