This is my first blog post to 27Crags. The blog used to be at http://www.boulderkeskus.com/blogs/jarmo.

My friends told me that there would be a deep water soloing competition and I was all in. I've always wanted to try DWS and my friend said that the comp would be a kick-ass event.

We drove to Niemisel, climbed there for an evening and then spent the night at cabin and enjoyed a little bit of sauna.

The next day we drove to the competition place and the profile looked so scary. First 10 meters of about 10 degree overhang and after that straight roof for 5 meters and then a couple of meters up.

It seemed that people got easily to the roof and then they got scared. The holds looked big enough, but when you are 10 meters high with your back facing the ground, even big holds feel too small.

When it was my go I cruised easily to the start of the roof and thanks to my scare of heights, I just touched the first hold in the roof and jumped down. It didn't feel to bad and I thought I'd climb a little further on my next try.

On the next try I could climb two holds further, but then I was scared shitless and jumped down.

Our friend Paavo didn't have the luxury to land on his feet. He landed his side first and got a rupture in his lung and went to hospital :( The girl in the picture below made almost a faceplant and she didn't look too good after she got up from the water.

If it had been me who designed the wall, I would have made it less high, more hard and the scary moves to first 4 meters so that people could have real fun without a fear of getting injured.

Let's see if I could manage to arrange a similar event to Finland - but a lot less frightening...

There's a video link below where Saku cruises through the easier qualification route.
http://www.vimeo.com/5889664