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.