Sprited Away

Friday night was spent in Kalvsbergen in Geta. An area I've only visited climbing once before so it felt a bit exotic. This springs only climbingtrip you could say. I wanted to climb Henkien Kätkemä and possibly Rytmihäiriö, two very highclass boulders.

I have known of the problems since they were put up in 2005 but I just hadn't got the thumb out of my rear mono.

Henkien Kätkemä is a beautiful slab that was a nice contrast to all the steep climbing I have been doing all spring. I loved the moves on the first two thirds of the problem but the problem was slightly ruined in my opinion by me being able to reach the final holds from the last footholds. Jim being 5 cm shorter didn't have the same luxury and despite doing a very solid job on the lower parts was not able to reach the final holds to get home safely. Obviously it is possible also for shorter climbers but they will have to work abit harder. This is possibly the reason of the slightly different grade opinions I have heard. Well, well worth the visit.

Off to Rytmihäiriö. The other classic of the area, a massive arete with really nice climbing. I was able to get up to the part where it starts to get exiting. It's high and I didn't want to risk my back and legs for it today and only had a couple of pads so I let it be and played my responsible dad card once more. ;-) It remains on my todo list however but I'd like some more pads and beta for the top before commiting because it IS high.

On the picture, Jim's doing some solid climbing on Henkien Kätkemä, but no cigarr today.

Frustration is...

...climbing your project with a but.

Happened me tonight at Kasviken. Lovely evening by the way, with perfect conditions again, couldn't belive it!

Sent Evätys and here comes the but, when I removed my left heelhook from the left edge my toe touched the neighbouring rock. Didn't help me in any way, in fact it was just a distraction.

Of course I wanted to climb it again, clean this time but I didn't have enough energy and time left so I just couldn't make it happen.

Well, now I know the moves and just have to do it again for that loveley piece of mind without a but.

Climb like there is no tomorrow

"Climb like there is no tomorrow" is the recent tactics.

The last weeks high temperatures has been really annoying. Shortest spring season ever? However friday night was one of the better this season probably because of the lowered expectations. The temperature was nice, and the friction was ok. Even did some new moves on the problems I'm working on.

Jim also got to work out some new moves on his project.



The weather forecast shows cooler temps for next week but let's see if I will have time to do some climbing then, at least my woodie will be finished in next week. I really look forward into going into a period of training again and hope to stay in one piece and to get out stronger in the fall.

Popped the Glock

First I would like to say that it was nice to see that even though there was a lot of visiting climbers here over May Day it seems like everybody used sense parking and took their garbage with them home. Of course you can see that there has been more climbers than usual but that is to be expected and no permanent damage was done except a few broken holds. This has improved a lot over the years, a few years back there was empty beercans, cigarettebutts and tape all over the places. Nice to see that people are aware. Still you can find traces after fireplaces though, which is not ok.

Pop the Glock was a really enjoyable climb which didn't take very long to complete. There was no real crux move but very even and nice climbing. Think I did it in my second attempt after figuring out the moves.

I think I will dial down a bit on the Mongooli efforts and instead do some easier climbs aswell because I don't know how much I have left of this season because when the baby comes it will probably be a bit less climbing for a while. I have realized that I'm probably not strong enough for Mongooli right now and that it's most likely fingerstrength that is lacking. I will work on this during the summer and come back to it in the fall. I have not done all the moves and the moves I have done I can't do all the time so it will take a long time to link it and I might aswell become stronger on other stuff in the meantime.



Popping the Glock

May Day

May Day usually means lot of climbers in Åland, this year also. Yesterday we went to Djupviken but it was really crowded and the air was damp so the whole situation didn't invite to any climbing. Today was somewhat better so Emrik and I went to Kasviken to meet up with Erik.


More cars than usual at the Kasviken parking, but no record from what I've heard.

The conditions was better than yesterday but the "stick" was not really there and Mongooli was partially damp. We'll conditions was good enough for Anthony Gullsten to flash it in between my attempts and after have been climbing Dodo sitstart earlier in the day.

My attempts was better than last time, was able to do the 3 first moves, which for me is right into gaston, match with left, turn over right into undercling, but not all at the same try. This will take some time, I know I said that for Game Over also but this time it's most probably for real because I don't just have to figure out the sequence, I have to get a bit stronger aswell I think.

Finnished off the day with some work on Pop the Glock wich is much more reachable, did the problem in two sections so I think I can do it soon, there is also a cunning kneebar in the middle which allows no hands rest if you can get into it but I haven't tried that one yet.


Dodo and Mundo Gania, popular today.



Erik Massih

Game on and Over

Jan and I was talking about bouldering last weekend and how we used to say it is much simpler than rope climbing in that you don't need a rope and a whole lot of gear, just shoes and a chalkbag. Something must have gone wrong because today I was carrying about 30 kg of gear including 3 pads and bag up the hill to get to the Kasviken boulders.

Felt unmotivated to warm up so it got a bit sloppy, just wanted to get going, the plan was to figure out the missing link on "Game Over" so it would be game on, so to say, to start the real attempts on the problem. I had based my solution on a video of Peter Bosma climbing the problem I had found on his site, he obviously has some overcapacity for the problem so I had to finetune it a bit to work for me. Taking any swing during the climb was not an option, I didn't have the strength to control it. The last moves was also too dependent on fingerstrength so I had to add in a few more moves. I thougt I had the "finbeta" for this problem now and started working. First go I totally forgot the sequence leading into the end but second go was a success.

I worked the problem for 4 session prior to today and I rate it as my best climb so far both in difficulty and in beauty of the moves. On first session I was totally lost and certain that it must be harder than my other personal best, now I realize that it's in the same ballpark and I would have had a little more to give. Without the Bosma video it would probably have taken me much longer to figure a problem as hard as this out.

Looking forward to something new!

Again the sun was f**king up my video.

Got a Life

Jim on "Voodoo", next to "Geta Life".

Today I took an intermission from my efforts on "Game Over", on which I by the way now only lack one move before I can start trying the whole thing, to have a more social climbing session in Djupviken with my family, Jim and Jan with his sons.

One thing led to another, not exactly, I had an hidden agenda, and it was time to try my longtime project "Geta Life" which I started to work on in 2003, but to be honest I only did a couple of sessions on then, and then not so much, and now this was the first session after the 7 year rest.

My plan was to use the method that Tomi Nytorp does in the "Å movie", that is going with the left hand first. It felt wrong for a few reasons, one reason was that I was looking straight into the sun when doing the move, another that I had been working a method going with the right hand first. If I would compare the methods without having done the left hand first version I would say my method has a shorter dyno, only have to move the right hand about 40 cm but with my method it is all points off and I also think the swing is more violent but overall it felt more natural for me.

Speaking of natural, "Geta Life" was about 80 percent or more about breaking the mental block I had to do the dyno, to talk my brain into the idea of letting go of two if not perfectly good, at least two reasonably good holds while hanging with the back to the ground and go into an uncertain future. After atleast 20 attempts to do the dyno with better and better result I finally had the guts to go for it fully and to take the swing. Then it took 3 or 4 more tries from the beginning to get the problem bagged. Did it on what I promised the others would be the final go and with only a couple of layers left before splitting one of my fingertips.

It was not the most stylish ascent the problem has seen but an ascent never the less, and also the first local one. I also apologize for the movie quality, the sun was working against me in more than one way.