Jarmo's Blog on 27 Crags

I'm not the man of resoling shoes. I've had over 30 pairs of shoes and never resoled a single pair of them.

I always use socks in my shoes, so they don't stink after they wear out. And since I'm climbing lots and lots indoors (thanks to Boulderkeskus) I thought why not. I could easily resole pair of my Solutions just for the kicks and see what happens.

Because Boulderkeskus has now an arrangement with a local shoemaker (M. Karttunen) I delivered my Solutions to him. The deal is that one can leave shoes to Boulderkeskus and the staff will handle the resoling process with the shoemaker and climber can fetch the resoled shoes from Boulderkeskus's counter.

In addition to wear and tear the strap from the shoes was also broken. I asked him to fix the strap and resole the shoes with Vibram XSGrip 2.

After a few days I got my shoes back and I was totally amazed. The shoes had the curvature in the rubber that there was before resoling. I was totally expecting to have a flat rubber but no! The shoemaker said he made a custom shoetree in order to preserve the concave form of the Solution (or Miura VS).

I've climbed with the shoes and they feel good. I cannot say about the feel or performance outdoors because there is snow on the ground (and on the stones).

I decided to flee the first snows in Finland and go to Spain, Albarracin. Albarracin is also famous for its ancient paintings to the rocks. Here's one example of a bit faded "pintura rupestre". Can you spot an ox or a cow?

There are also of course more clearer paintings, like this horse. Turn your head 90 degrees counter-clockwise to spot the horse.

I've heard that Albarracin offers endless amounts of good quality sandstone climbing. It is true - partially.

There is a _lot_ of stone, but as it seems after five days, that there is incredible amount of easy stuff (between 4 and 6c). And more limited amount of harder stuff (>7a). So if you are a keen climber and want to crank hard, you'll visit Albarracin only once.

I'd describe Albarracin like this: Take Åland Archipelagos, change granite to sandstone and change crimpers to slopers. Voila! There you have it. There's a roof after a roof and top-outs like in problems like Geta life, Hammas, Make's roof, Frispel... You get the point :)

I've tried to climb as much stuff as I can, so now I've climbed some 40+ problems in 4 climbing days. So far the hardest tick is 7C, but there's a slight chance I could tick a couple of 7Cs more. Not sure about harder stuff - though.

There's a short video in Vimeo where I climb a nice 7C called Alevosia ss. There might be some rude language at the start + the knee-techniques involved are not advisable for anyone :D

I've been doing lately some campusing since I relocated the campus to a better place at our gym.

So. I managed to pull off 1-5-8 and I was like "I'm on top of the world". In comes Nalle and puts me in line with this pretty impressive 1-5-9 routine. He also did 1-6-10 but I didn't get it on the video.

I think I'm going to cry.

Video at Vimeo

Okay. I'm probably the most sceptic person when you talk about a climbing wall which works like a treadmill. And I didn't have really high hopes for the machine so I didn't even bother to take my camera with me.

Afterwards I have to admit I should've. But there's plenty of press photos so I use one of those. One thing that goes wrong with the machine with us climbers is those photos and videos.

There's always some beginner or mediocre using the machine like a uphill walking machine. There should be some real action with steeper angle and harder climbers so you could say immediately "that looks hard".

First thing I noticed that you could not use chalk so the holds were slippery because of the grease which oozes out of our fingertips. That was due to the place the Climbstation situated at. Of course if I had one in Boulderkeskus one really MUST use chalk.

I took the hardest level (level 12 or so) which had -29 degrees maximum. I hopped on and started paddling, oh, I meant climbing. First it was slab and I was about to fall asleep. Then the wall went vertical and after that overhanging. I had to look for better holds and start concentrating on my climbing. I managed to climb the whole program using all holds. The machine said that I'd climbed 41 meters and burned 41kcals. I was sweating and my forearms were pumped!

So what do I think of the machine? Is it like real bouldering/rope climbing? No.

Is rowing machine or tread mill like their real world equivalents? No.

But if you think the machine like a helper in your training. If you want to develop your endurance and you want to climb eg. 6c boulder for 50 meters with 30 degree overhanging, then you are getting the picture... Is there a 50 meter high continuous climbing wall in Finland? No. Will there be? Not in the near future.

And plus sides for a boulderer is that you don't have to hassle with rope, you don't have to have a belayer and you can really climb till you drop. And when you drop, you drop to the mattress like in Boulderkeskus.

So all in all. I was pretty darn impressed of the _endurance training side_ of the machine.

Tuomo and I planned a trip to Lofoten, Norway. Tuomo had checked the rain statistics and for last 25 years the rain amounts had been about the same as for the June and July. That seemed nice and we loaded the Transporter full o'junk and started our 1600km journey to Norway.

As usual the rain started when we were driving towards west across Sweden. It rained the first day, second day was a very nice day and we managed to do some good climbing and we ticked some nice ascents. We climbed on Stem Bastensen and I made quick ascents to two nice problems by the road. A 7B and a 7B+. Then Tuomo cruised through one 6C+ and 7A on the Knight Rider -block. I amazed myself by climbing Michael Knight 7C+. It has a powerful and dynamic start to a sharp edge. I had to execute some delicate (yearrait...) foorwork in order to match my hands to the edge and to the topout via wet hold. Then we went to Tare Baby -stone and climbed some easier problems there. I tried Tare Baby but couldn't figure out one move - so we left that bit alone.

Then we went to Djupford and climbed Helmenkalastaja (7A) and Viileä Viive (7A). I think we got something wrong with the Helmenkalastaja because we flashed it easily. Viileä viive was really soft for its grade. Maybe 6C would be proper grade for the problem.

For a nice relaxing warm out we hiked to the top of one of the hills (or mountains?). As usual, the slope looked more easier as it really was. I was panting like a steam train while Tuomo basically run his way up to the hill using some 4 wheeled techniques. It was only my prize - Pepsi Max that kept me going all the way up.

We were really expecting for the days to come - even though the weather forecast didn't look so good. The next night and day rained day in and day out. The next day promised a small rainless window from 0800 to 1200. We set our alarm clocks and woke up. I tried to climb Presten roof but managed to fell from the topout on my first try. There was no second try, the rain started at 1030. We crawled under the Presten roof but when it started raining horizontally and rain poured 4 meters under the roof we decided to call it a day. Actually we decided to call it a Norway and headed to Rovaniemi.

After 10 hours of driving we arrived at Hiidenkirnut. And boy oh boy. It was NOT raining and the weather was so goooood. But it was also midnight so we went to sleep. The next morning was also perfect - not a single cloud in the skies. Good!

I didn't have much expectations but Tuomo was on fire. He ticked easily Planta Baja's problems like Planta Baja, Mantteli and Maria Sola (7B). He had also some very good tries to Uskonpuute, but couldn't hold the top hold. After a while I showed Tuomo some more problems. He cruised Pyramidi (7A) and some old classics like Perhonen and Los Cojones.

When the night fell, I climbed with Kalle and Jesse. I did quick ascents to Susiraja (7A+) and Rovaniemi - Helsinki All Night Long (7A) and failed miserably in Purple Turtle (7B).

The next morning we went to Martti Servo -block. One of the best single stones in Finland. The rock quality is amazing. It feels like sandstone but it looks like normal granite. Tuomo looked around for a while and decided to climb the best problem around - Pimp My Ride (7B+). The very same problem has been my Nemesis for quite some years now. I climbed the problem quite nicely and after a while, Tuomo sent it too. You can check the video from Vimeo.