Slouppi

-- Posted by leviathan on 9:16 pm on Nov. 4, 2001

Hi, everybody.
I'm a spanish boulderer living in Edinburgh. At the moment I'm just trying to get strong doing lots of campus.
When I told my mates about going bouldering to Finland, they all started to laugh. Are you ready to climb with gloves? they answered...
Well, to say the truth, I know nothing about climbing there, but I had a penfriend from Finland and if everybody are so nice, I'm gonna go there even if I have to climb boulders with gloves...
Now, please help me with some information about where to go, the best time of the year and if I can go bouldering there Knowing nothing about Finnish.
Thank you very much and enjoy your boulders...





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-- Posted by Jarkko on 8:43 am on Nov. 5, 2001

You dont need to wear gloves because it is nearly impossible to boulder outside during the winter (too much snow, temp often below -10..15C). There are usually some days during the winter when really enthusiastic locals go bouldering in temps around 0 celsius.

For a visitor the best times are from around mid April to the end of June and then from mid August until perhaps late September/early October. Temperatures in July and early august can be quite hot (for finns :biggrin:, temps seldom rise above 25C). During this time there are also lots of mosquitoes and other small flying and biting animals. Weather is usually more predictable in spring, so that would be the the ideal time to come to continental Finland. The season in Åland (Ahvenanmaa in finnish) is quite much longer, this should be checked from locals, because I dont live there and dont know too much about it.

Best places for a visitor in Finland are Vaasa and Geta (in Åland) because there is so much problems in both places. Other places worth visiting are Helsinki and Turku regions. See the topo pages in pulteri.net for Vaasa and Helsinki area info. Turku info (and the rest of the country) is available from a topo book by finnish climbing association.(http://www.climbing.fi/topo/index.html, page unfortunately in finnish, book is available from Mountainshop

You dont need to know Finnish to be able to visit Finland, speaking english is enough. Dont be afraid to ask if you want to know something more specific.

(Edited by Jarkko at 8:36 pm on Nov. 5, 2001)





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-- Posted by Samppa on 1:34 pm on Nov. 6, 2001

hmmm...

What's the ideal time of year to boulder in Finland?
I'd have to say it's from mid May to mid June. That would be the time I'd visit or maybe mid August to mid September. The ideal days to boulder happen earlier in spring (mid April) and later in fall (October). But I wouldn't recommend coming here in April or October, since the weather is a bit unpredictable.

I agree that the season in Åland (geta) is longer. Even the mosquitoes don't bother there so much..well they do but...

Vaasa from mid may to mid june and mid august to mid september (topo in pulteri)
Rovaniemi from mid may to mid june ?! (some kind of not-so-complete topo in finnish climbing associations topobook)
Geta (Åland) from mid may to september altough the summer months can be hot and the mosquitoes... (no topos of the main area, some topos on Blåkk, see links section)
Helsinki and Turku are good from mid may to mid june and mid august to mid september

But don't come here in winter unless you want to do some cross country skiing!





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-- Posted by jmakinen on 2:18 pm on Nov. 6, 2001

I'll give you a floating point..

28.7

Enough said.