Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Icey Manoeuvres in Dark

If you don't get the title, you're not of a certain age I guess...
Ice climbing at Helsinki Airport last night. Thanks to Tony for taking the pictures of me climbing - and for working out how to use my camera far better than I have managed so far.

Corner Climb WI3

Traffic passing in the background spoils the ambience somewhat, but it is the huge Airbus taking off for Japan and passing overhead at maybe 50 or 100 metres that really makes communication tricky!

Me, trying to see my feet

Helsinki ice climbers might like to know that we met both airport security and the police last night and both took a very civilised and common sense attitude. The security guy just asked us not to cross the fence at the top of the cliffs, which we hadn't anyway and you don't need to at all, and not to climb further west than bridge with runway landing lights on it. But again there isn't any need to as all the good lines are east of it, so complying with their requests is no problem at all. The police on finding out Simon was Australian, wanted mainly to know if he had ever seen snow and ice before and to tell him "normally" it would be -20 and 50 cms of snow at this time of year!The police officer was a bit annoyed that he hadn't actually got to watch us climbing as we were packing up by the time he swung by, and I got the impression he might have been persuaded to have go had we still had the top-rope in place.
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1 comment:

  1. Quizbo21 February, 2008

    Sweet pics! Good to see you're getting it where you can :) I've really enjoyed your climbing photos so far this season. Like you've said, things are out of whack weather wise, but it's really good to see you finding the action where it lasts.

    The police story reminds me of when I went out with a crazy old boss who happened to have a Class III license in the States (automatic weapons dealer). We shot one of his machine guns in the mountains till the police drove up. He was making sure his paperwork was in order when we saw the policeman was walking towards us with ear protection in his hands and a big smile on his face. When the man reached us, he just said, "Hey guys, mind if I have a turn?"

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