"Mongolia is kind of close, right?" Story about an attempt to ski everywhere in the world where there's snow. And in some places where there isn't. On and off-piste skiing on all continents, skiing into craters of live volcanoes, caving, climbing, photography, and travel.
We have a new Finnish cave squeezing record! At the "little xmas party" of the caving association, Jukka Palm and Mike Kushy both pushed through the squeeze box at just 166 millimeters. And I can't even get my fat head fit inside that distance, let alone other body parts! :-)
Here's what the squeezing looks like:
The proud winners, and a signed and certified record of their achievement:
Armas, the official doping sniffer for the contestants:
This article has also been published at Teton Gravity Research (TGR). Tämä artikkeli löytyy myös suomeksi Relaasta. See more caving stories at planetcaver.net, and see other articles by the planetskier at Blogspot and TGR! Photos and text (c) 2019 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.
I don't go caving often, but when I do, I want to do it indoors in a dry, clean environment that is safe for everyone. I have to say that I did not expect much from the caving adventure park at the Tampere shopping mall, but I was blown away by how good this place was. Much recommended!
This is a spectacular place. The caves are in a separate area of the Irti Maasta climbing gym in the Tullintori shopping mall, next to the skyscraper hotels in downtown Tampere. There's a bouldering wall (in darkness, of course) with a set of holes leading to a maze of tunnels. While the tunnels have been made of plastic, they are still quite realistic. And above all, as they are made for children, they are challenging for even able adult cavers. Very challenging!
We also appreciated the water sump feature simulated with a ball pit of white, see-through balls.
12€ for a visit. Much recommended for spicing up your Tampere visits!
This article has also been published at Teton Gravity Research (TGR). Tämä artikkeli löytyy myös suomeksi Relaasta. See also the article about the new Finnish cave squeezing record! See more caving stories at planetcaver.net, and see other articles by the planetskier at Blogspot and TGR! Photos and text (c) 2019 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.
This seemed like a good time of the year to go explore the start of Nobel industries in Vinterviken. Bunkers, tunnels, testing grounds, and simple factory buildings.
The tunnels are signposted by Stockholm's Stadsmuseum, but the coordinates are N 59.3106 E 17.9863. They are easy to find and walk around, as long as one finds out that this thing exists there. I've been looking at various Stockholm sights for a long time, but didn't know about this before a month or two. I actually came across this site at Atlas Obscura, a site that often use to find "odd" places to visit. Much recommended!
The history of the innovations from Nobel is quite remarkable, too, full of struggles and sad accidents in addition to the successes. The Swedes probably have read all about it already in school, but for us others these may be worth a read:
... and my tour was topped off with a Pytt-i-Panna at a local suburb pub, which seemed appropriately Swedish thing to do:
Lake:
More tunnels:
Signs:
See more urban exploration and caving stories at theurbanexplorer.net and planetcaver.net, and see other articles by the Planetskier at Blogspot and TGR! Photos and text (c) 2019 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.
Today I managed to acquire a copy of Jimmy Petterson's "Skiing Around the World" book, volume II: "Collecting Ski Resorts". Can't wait to read this. Jimmy is the world's most widely travelled skier.
Jimmy wrote also a very nice signed message on the book:
Photos (c) 2019 by Jari Arkko, Tero Kivinen and Phillip Hallam-Baker. All rights reserved. My skiing stories can be found from Blogspot and Teton Gravity Research, as well as of course Planetskier.Net!
I've been trying to do this for almost six years. Obviously, it is not easy to find skiing in Singapore. I've been forbidden to ski when there was snow, arrived right after a skiing place had bankrupted, found alternative skiing on off-limits sand, and hidden in despair in caves and abandoned bunkers. But Sport Quest to the rescue! Today I finally managed to ski in Singapore with the help of Sport Quest's indoor facilities at the Snow City. Snow, ice, cold, and on skis. Wonderful!
And all this became clear to me an hour before I was heading to the airport for my business trip to Singapore. A quick reconfiguration of my luggage followed; throw in the boots and helmets and add a ski bag.
Snow City is on the outskirts of Singapore, at 21 Jurong Town Hall Road, but only 20 minutes taxi ride from the centre. They run various programs, mostly for children and local who have not experienced snow and ice before. Their programs include just introducing the kids to the cold environment and ski lessons. A popular part of the program is a blizzard simulator, with wind & snow being blown over the kids :-)
My work schedule didn't make it easy to find a suitable time to head to Snow City, however. But Sport Quest's Emeline welcomed us for a visit at any time that suited us, so as soon as an opening appeared in our schedules, we headed there. It felt odd, standing in hot and humid temperature, carrying my skis and staring at the Snow City building. But as soon as we entered, a familiar, gripping cold and white snow and ice made me feel much more home than in the heat of Singapore :-)
They were also in the process of building a snow castle for the Christmas celebrations, so for that purpose a lot of snow had been made, placed neatly in plastic bags (!) on the slope. The usually wide ski run was therefore a bit narrow, but we managed.
Our Apres-ski session was, obviously, downing some Singapore Slings at the Raffles Long Bar. With skis...
Nice experience, and much recommended for the cold-starved Singapore residents and visitors!
The snow-making tube and bags of snow:
Other Singapore views:
This article has also been published at Teton Gravity Research. Tämä artikkeli löytyy myös suomeksi Relaasta. Photos (c) 2019 by Jari Arkko, Tero Kivinen and Phillip Hallam-Baker. All rights reserved. My skiing stories can be found from Blogspot and Teton Gravity Research, as well as of course Planetskier.Net!
I was on a business trip in Singapore, and stayed a few days at the Conrad Centennial hotel, before the prices got higher than in the conference hotel. And first things first, even if I was tired from the trip, I went straight to the pool on the first night.
The pool was quite nice, even if they didn't have a sauna.
More swimming stories from planetswimmer.com. The pictures and text in this post are (c) 2019 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.
Photos and text (c) 2019 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. Read more sauna stories from saunablogger.cool! And all sauna photos have always been taken when there were no other visitors, after closing hours, or with permission.
On the following week, I managed to score a luxury accommodation, a hotel room with a window!
Upgrade from last week? Once again, they of course had a sauna, which was quite nice.
Photos and text (c) 2019 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. Read more sauna stories from saunablogger.cool! And all sauna photos have always been taken when there were no other visitors, after closing hours, or with permission.
Connect Hotel: In my quest to try all the saunas in different hotels in Sweden (or Kista, at least) I booked this hotel for a very special price... only for me. Cheap, but the room didn't come with a window. That was fine, it was a hack-documents-until-2am day anyway.
And that document hacking made me miss the sauna opening time, too. Now that hurt!
But I did manage to try the sauna the next morning, the the staff even turned it on for me :-)
Not a bad sauna at all, in fact probably one of the better ones in Kista, maybe with the exception of the Scandic Victoria.
Photos and text (c) 2019 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. Read more sauna stories from saunablogger.cool! And all sauna photos have always been taken when there were no other visitors, after closing hours, or with permission.
I visited yet another free mountain sports related evening of talks at Helsinki's Partioaitta. This a great program for interesting talks, much recommend.
Some of the talks are a bit marketing and not so much new content there. But I really enjoyed Artturi Kröger's talk on ice climbing, wilderness camping, and (e)fat-biking. I'd love to try fat-biking the winter some day...
Artturi runs tourist services for these activities in Pyhä, at Bliss Adventures.
Read more stories from the Planetskier at Blogspot, TGR, and, of course, planetskier.net! Copyright (c) 2019 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.
Because the bunker was close to the Sentosa island, we decided to stop in Sentosa for a quick dip into the sea. By now I was running out of time to get to the airport for my flights home, so I just stood in the sea for a bit, rather than change clothes and actually swim.
But, it was good nevertheless. I liked the bar on the beach too, with their Mexican food, and the after-bunkering Margarita :-)
Sentosa can be reached by car over the bridge, by train, or by the cable car. Roundtrip tickets on the cable car are 25 local dollars. There's a number of hotel and public beaches on Sentosa, with fun views to the massive shipping traffic to and from Singapore.
More swimming stories from planetswimmer.com. The pictures and text in this post are (c) 2019 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.
Once my meeting ended, I wanted to use the couple of hours I had for exploration, and got Tero to join me. I've already covered the Singapore caves and skiing... what remained was bunkers!
One abandoned bunker - the Seah Im Bunker - resides near the carpark for the cable car to Sentosa island. Just behind the fence for the carpark there's a small brick bunker in the cliff base, with one tunnel and one room. You can access the bunker by squeezing through the opening in the fence around the large tree, and then walking 20 meters forward in the thick forest.
The fun thing with the bunker was that it is home to an army of lizards. Walking in the bunker felt a bit odd, with the lizards spinning around above your head. Well, I suppose they are not likely to fall on my neck, but...
For after-bunkering, we chose to head to the Sentosa island and get Margaritas...
This article has also appeared in TGR. Read more urban exploration and caving stories from theurbanexplorer.net and planetcaver.net! And follow all stories from t he Planetskier and Planetcaver at Blogspot and TGR. Photos and text (c) 2019 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.
