More Kauhala-Kakarsberget photos.

I went back to Kakarsberget in Kauhala today for another session of getting exhausted pulling on sharp little holds. It felt autumnal with yellow leaves swirling down from the birch trees although you could still climb in a t-shirt.

This video clip is of Dave on a great little trad route called Muuvipeikko, Finnish 5- or about British VS 4c.

Below are a couple of photos of the route. It's a really good one.

Muuvipeikko 5-

The crux of Muuvipeikko

I also tried to repeat a new route called "the Pool Cleaner Guy". It's meant to be 5 (about HVS) but I hope it's harder than that because I got spanked on my onsight and eventually had to grab a bit of gear - a 3CU that totally surprised me by actually staying in. After lowering off, Dave went up and did it and found more hard moves and not completely convincing gear to go with it. I reckon at least 5+ but maybe even a touch harder - a very nice route though that goes from big burly fist cracks down at the bottom, to delicate finger tips up at the top.

Dave at the crux of The Pool Cleaner Guy (5+?)

Things are getting cheaper

I was flicking through an old climbing mag recently and happened on an article on ice screws. The article was in the March 1994 copy of Climber. Now I have a scanner, you can read it by clicking on the images below if you want, but what really jumped out was the prices listed. Keep in mind this was 15 years ago but the recommended retail price of the screws that are still on the market, is now lower than it was a decade and a half ago.


Check out the prices on the page below, Black Diamond turbos, at an RRP of fifty quid. Checking out Needlesports, they're currently selling the Turbos at GBP 35 for 19 cms. You can get the Turbo Expresses (that didn't exist in 1994) for 50. Charlet Lasers are still on the market as well. In 1994 their RRP was 35 quid and it remains that now, despite 15 years of inflation.

Firstly this makes a point that many of the youngsters on UKC don't seem very convinced of: that actually the outdoor industry is pretty good value. Secondly, it makes some much bigger point. A HUGE one probably - about patterns of manufacturing in a transnational economy, about the power of containerisation, about the impact of computing power on engineering industries and just-in-time stock delivery systems. All that globalisation stuff. And that ice screws aren't really that expensive even if they seem like they are.

What do the EDL want to be?

Various bits of the British blogosphere and old media have been following with interest the development of and developments around the English Defence League (EDL). The best coverage I've seen has been in the ever superb Bartholomew's Notes on Religion. Much of debate has been around whether the EDL is the "far right" or not. The connections of this rather nebulous organisation's leaders have been one point of investigation down this path - particularly whether they have connections to established British far right groups such as the BNP or NF. I'm not actually sure how important that classification is. EDL leaders have stated they are not a racist organisation although their statements made in an interview (conducted, incidentally, by a visiting American Christian-right activist with a history of homophobia and with the EDL chaps wearing NI-paramilitary style balaclavas) give plenty of grist for anyone who wants to dispute this. There is a very obvious football casual culture and skinhead connection to the group as well, and I imagine that the Brum police will see a few known faces in the crowds from the national soccer hooliganism files. The organisation's mission is quite clear, they are against Islam in the UK - rather than having a more specific target of Islamists or radicals - so they don't seem very keen on any individual Muslims generally. Choose your own word to describe that.

What I found most interesting were two of the pictures that came out of the Brum demo: firstly, on the Daily Mail website, showing a bunch of shaven headed guys surrounded by cops, holding aloft the Israeli flag (scroll down). Pro-Israeli expression is now pretty common amongst far right groups and political parties across Europe, reflecting the centrality of their anti-Muslim discourse domestically. But also amongst the EDL crowd, other shaven headed young men were seen doing Hitler salutes, giving a very different impression. If the EDL attracts people of latter bent, they will alienate potential sympathisers in the former camp. This makes them an interesting British example of a tension in the radical right visible in lots of other European countries.

2000 kms and counting

OK, so you can't actually see much in the above photo, so you'll just have to trust me. That was taken just as my cycle computer clicked past the 2000 km mark - the distance I've done so far this year commuting to work and back (I've racked up another couple of hundred 'k's biking for fun, off and on road). I generally average about 25 kmph whilst commuting, so that 80 hours of this year that I've spent pounding the pedals on the cycle path network of the Greater Helsinki area. You can now start to see why I can bore just about anyone with my in depth policy analysis of the place of cycling in the capital's integrated transport planning. I've had plenty of time to think about it.

Today's commute highlight was stopping to scrump apples for this evening's chokeberry and apple jam making session.

Useless berries?

Until I moved house a few years ago, I had never heard of bloody chokeberries. Now my garden overflows with the little buggers. If anyone has interesting suggestions about what to do with them, do tell (and do you like my "Terrorist teapot" lurking menacingly in the background?).

Kakarsberget, Kauhala: "Grand Opening"

Yesterday was the official "opening day" for the "new" crag of Kakarsberget in Kauhala, Kirkkonummi. Of course you can't really have an opening day for a cliff anyone can go to at any time, and it's not exactly new as the first climbs were done at Kakarsberget in the early 90s (I first climbed there in 1997) - but nevertheless it was still a fun event. Kakarsberget is perhaps the Helsinki region's most forgotten crag. Lots of people seem to have been there over the years and thought - "there's a lot of rock here!", maybe top roped a line or two, and then promptly forgot about the crag, or never went back. I did my first ever rock climb in Finland there in April 97 - Vesa and I had been ice climbing at the much better known icefalls on the other side of the valley and stumbled through the snow and trees to find the cliffs, plus evidence of other climbers in the form of a few bolts scattered about for top anchors. We climbed one easy crack line - my introduction to Finnish climbing: pulling lumps of moss off and digging out the crack with my nut key.

(click on any photo for a bigger version)

The view from the top of Kakarberget cliffs

I made a few visits early in this decade, and then in 2005 a bunch of us went and climbed a collection of routes, thinking they had been climbed before but perhaps some of them hadn't. Last summer I went back with Simon and found a new, mysterious sports line bolted at the far right of the cliff. It turned out that another bunch of Helsinki climbers had begun visiting the cliff again and saw its potential. Kimpi, Ossi, Jan, the two Peters and others have put in loads of effort, cleaning and bolting - but perhaps most importantly getting a great access agreement from the landowners, Helsinki Recreation Department - perhaps the best landowners climbers could want.

Vaccinium myrtillus - bilberries

Kimpi is now maintaining the Kakarsberget website where all the (excellent and easy to use) topos can be downloaded for free. The new enthusiasm inspired me and I've cleaned and added a few new routes, and Jody has cleaned and improved by removing some loose blocks - his route from 2005; now renamed Ruuvipenkki 6- (see photo below).

Apologies to climber pictured above making an onsight attempt (unfortunately wet holds necessitated a rest) because I didn't catch your name!

In particular the guys have really realised the full potential of what is now Sector 3 (see pic above for a sense of size) - a wall up higher up the slope and further north than the main area (sectors 1 and 2). Along with a few decent trad routes, this wall now has probably the best concentration of mid-grade sports routes in the capital region. They're aren't too high, and they aren't too steep but you better bring your best 'fingers of steel' and tidy footwork. Jody put in a very impressive effort yesterday onsighting Peter Holmberg's rather smart new 6b, Näkkileipä, without even doing a warm up first.

Avaruushissi, 5+/6- (photo above) is one of Sector III's trad routes. I tried onsighting this in 2005, and got totally spanked and was rather sceptical of Ossi's suggested 5+ for a the grade (around UK HVS or E1) after his first ascent, but Mr. X who did is yesterday reckoned it was around that grade.


Avaruushissi again. The rock is still settling down a bit in this area, it's very good quality and interestingly featured granite, but as with all climbs that have only seen a couple of ascents, expect the odd few crumbly edges for you feet.


Another view of Sector 3 above. The weather wasn't perfect yesterday, with rain the night before meaning a few wet patches, slightly muddy underfoot and holds feel a bit greasy - suggesting that autumn is well on its way. But the crag has been bone dry for much of this summer, so don't be put off by current conditions. Kakarberget is quite a shady crag, so its not a bad mid-summer place to escape the heat.

Yesterday's organising stars had even arranged a raffle for everyone who turned up to try the climbs! Two of the lucky winners are above. Below is a video of me doing a first ascent last weekend:



And if all of that wasn't enough to tempt people to go and try the routes, Kakarberget's final attraction - some superb berry picking. Blueberry pie anyone?

ABC's "Rear Vision" on Lockerbie

Rear Vision from ABC, the Australian national broadcaster, is a consistently excellent radio programme. It really is adult reporting at its best - find real experts on a subject, set the historical context, and let them talk.

Last week they re-ran their 2007 Lockerbie bombing programme with some updates reflect Megrahi's recent release. What comes out from the programme, particularly in the comments of Prof. Robert Black, was the systemic weaknesses in the set up of the Scottish legal process at Camp Zeist, and how that seems to have enabled outside parties - the US, UK and Libyan governments - to influence the trial. Whatever one thinks of both the conviction and release on compassionate grounds of Megrahi, it is well worth a listen. You can also subscribe to Rear Vision via iTunes.

On the same subject, also well worth reading is STRATFOR's piece on why the evidence for Megrahi's guilt is stronger than some suppose. Unfortunately Stratfor's writers specifically do not look at the reliability of Tony Gauci's evidence at the trial, questions about which are now central to those who have concerns over the safety of the conviction.

Conscription politics

I noticed a little news article last week, from the STT wire, which I've been meaning to write about for ages. The new commander of the Finnish defence forces, General Ari Puheloinen, stated that Finland's wartime force numbers are going to fall due to budget cuts and demographic changes. General Puheloinen mentions the magic 250,000 number. Now 250,000 men under arms sounds and huge amount, and indeed it is. But currently Finnish wartime forces are meant to be an incredible 350,000 men. If you ask Finnish military officers and senior people in the MoD what they think about this, they seem willing to say even on the record that it is a bit of a joke. Finland has a reserve military, so to get to that sort of number you would be calling up reservists in their 40s who haven't had any contact with the military for decades and its questionable what weapons there would be for them to use, even if they could remember how to use them. If there ever was a war, the real defence would be based on the air force, navy and the so-called readiness brigades of Kainuu, Pori and Karelia. These brigades would account for less than a tenth of that number but would have the best equipment, and the best trained and youngest reservists.

I've written before about how Finnish conscription isn't really about the military, they can't say it publicly but off the record there are some (but by no means all) officers and policy makers who support professionalisation and getting rid of conscription. But support for conscription remains so high in the public, and hence amongst politicians, I really don't see this happening soon. My oldest son has well over a decade before he gets called up, but there is a good chance things won't have changed much by the time he is old enough.

The General's comments are interesting because clearly the Finnish Defence Forces (FDF) know that they can't run a serious military under the current structure (one foreign military attaché described the Finnish systems as antiquated and poor, saying the FDF simply couldn't run modern combined arms operations because the airforce can do next to nothing in support of ground forces). There are three major upgrades process coming up in the next couple of decades as equipment in the air force, navy and army all becomes obsolete and MoD planners will tell anyone willing to listen about military inflation - that all weapons systems are getting more and more expensive. There appears to be no public support for more of the budget being spent on defence, so the FDF knows they need to make do with what they've got. And they seem to think that this means less men and more machines but the public and politicians feel differently.

The irony is 250,000 remains a massive amount of men, and so far they still can't get even that past the politicians. Civilian democratic control of the military is wonderful thing but if the military are the experts on this war-stuff, its worth listening to what they actually have to say on the matter.

Here's the Finnish army deployed in central Helsinki (snapped from a passing tram) they are involved in an important military activity - shaking charity collecting tins. Ho hum.