"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.
India. Business trip to New Delhi and Mumbai. Not a lot of time for other things than business... except that small excursion (alt. link) to ski during the weekend... and now a quick dip to the hotel pool and sauna after business has been done.
Great pool! Acceptable sauna.
The hotel was Grand Hyatt Mumbai Hotel & Residences, link to the official home page is here.
This article has also appeared here. Read tall swimming stories at planetswimmer.com and sauna articles at saunablogger.cool. Or all blog articles from Blogspot. Photos, videos, and text (c) 2011 by Jari Arkko. The pool and sauna pictures have been taken when the facility was empty.
The official year-end meeting of the Finnish Caving Association was in December, combined with the pre-Xmas party of the club. Very nice; lots to discuss, videos and photos to share. And new people to meet! Thank you Mark for hosting the event!
The next day we visited some local caves in Kirkkonummi, now that the non-Helsinki area cavers were anyway in town. We visited the Högberget cave and its side caves. The cave is near the popular Peuramaa ski and golf resort, and has convenient parking and even signage thanks to the next door horse farm.
As always, Högberget draws admiration despite its small size. At just seven meters long, it is the most famous Finnish cave thanks it is nice shapes. For some people it brings association of onions, but feel free to do your own ink blot test.
Party photos below. There were stories about mud diving in Sweden's Lummelunda cave, flamingosailing on cave lakes in France, and many other interesting things.
Main Högberget cave:
The team in Högberget (Jari, Jarmo, Duncan, and Paul):
There are several other Högberget (boulder) caves around, some the nice rounded, worn-out forms as the main cave does. Note how happy the team is finding these few meter spaces under boulders. Some even with a through trip :-)
This article has also been published at Planetcaver.net here. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, urban exploration stories from theurbanexplorer.net, and other underground stories from planetcaver.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot. Photos and text (c) 2025 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. The opening photo is by Paul MacKrill.
We drove up to the cottage for a nice sauna and swim. Except... the water is surprisingly hard.
It was also cold even at the cottage. The cottage is cold when we are not there, and heating up the logs of the building walls takes some time.
Visiting in December was the latest we've been at the cottage. Heavy snowfall was predicted six hours after we left the cottage, and this means that the steep hill climb on the road to the cottage is no longer passable, at least not without four-wheel drive and pre-ordered snow plough. So no visits after this.
Bedroom temperature:
Ice for the birds:
On the way to the cottage:
This article has also appeared here. Read tall swimming stories at planetswimmer.com and sauna articles at saunablogger.cool. Or all blog articles from Blogspot. Photos, videos, and text (c) 2025 by Jari Arkko.
It was a long drive, and to the middle of nowhere... not a place I would expect to find southern Finland's best swimming hall. But it may be the best, just finished in 2022, so it is very modern scandinavic style, airy, lots of light. And works well.
Not a hall with most features, no round jacuzzis, no water slides, no steam room... but still, very nice. Also, I like the "shoes stay at the door" approach to swimming halls. Makes the floors of the dressing rooms much nicer.
They have a 25-meter pool with I think five lanes, a small kid pool, training pool/kid pool, and a therapy pool with many water jets and enough space also otherwise to move around.
In the entrance there's a cafeteria with seating overlooking the pool area.
Interestingly, there hasn't been a new swimming hall in the Päijät-Häme area since the 1980s... about time.
The official home page for the swimming hall is in Orimattila's pages here. You may also want to read the Yle article about the hall. Some nearby swimming halls are the ones in Lahti (article 1, alt. link; article 2, alt. link).
Orimattila church:
This article has also appeared here. Read tall swimming stories at planetswimmer.com and sauna articles at saunablogger.cool. Or all blog articles from Blogspot. Photos, videos, and text (c) 2025 by Jari Arkko. The outside pool photo is taken after hours and the inside pool photo is copyright by Orimattila city.
1.5 hour one-way drive just to swim? But it is a new (for me) swimming hall, and I needed a mini-vacation, so... I went. And it turned out to be worth the trip! While old, the swimming hall has been completely renovated, it was closed in fact for two years. It looks entirely new, maybe the pool area is a bit small compared to new ones but otherwise top-notch!
Very nice. Glad I went.
Inside there's clean and modern dressing rooms, a nice, spacious sauna (on both gender sides), and good shower areas. In the pool area there's a 25-meter pool (but only four lanes), a fancy cold plunge pool, a kiddie pool, and a jacuzzi.
The facility is underground in the basement.
The home page for the hall is here. The official name of the hall is Solinan uimahalli. The coordinates are N E 22.690916.
Photos:
Paimio's church, the Church of the Holy Michael:
This article has also appeared here. Read tall swimming stories at planetswimmer.com and sauna articles at saunablogger.cool. Or all blog articles from Blogspot. Photos, videos, and text (c) 2025 by Jari Arkko. The pool pictures have been taken with permission & when the facility was empty.
First I thought of driving to Jyväskylä's Laajavuori (4 hours away) to experience one melting slope.. but then I found out that I can drive only 1.5 hours to another melting slope in Messilä near Lahti... win! And it only rained a bit. But it was actually quite a lot of fun!
And the tickets were only 15€ during the opening season. Well done!
Here's was the appealing alternative, Laajavuori:
As my friend Mark noted, it wasn't clear if there was four hours of melting time left on that snow...
But back to Messilä. While the ticket was cheap, I of course had to have a small sandwich and a bottle to drink something, and that was 10,70€ And this wasn't a gourmet dinner, nor were there any proper options for it. Fries and sausage... or pizza/pasta in the mansion restaurant. But it isn't Messilä's fault... the problem is that Finland is not France, Switzerland or even Italy or Austria. Finland is more like North American ski food... blah. See my comparison of Peuramaa and Chamonix (article, alt. link).
But then I drove up to Lahti for a swim in the Lahti swimming hall. It was a surprisingly good experience as well. For sure it was cramped in the pools and even in the saunas and dressing rooms.. but the hall was in the middle of the city and had some history. And on the proper swimming lanes it was plenty of space, just the jacuzzis and jumping tower were crowded. Well done, Lahti. I had previously visited the Saksala swimming hall (alt. link), which was a good experience as well. Apparently there's more, I should make visits, as long as I have a working car...
Skiing:
Swimming hall:
City:
This article has also appeared here. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, swimming stories at planetswimmer.com and sauna articles at saunablogger.cool. or all blog articles from Blogspot. Photos, videos, and text (c) 2025 by Jari Arkko.
My car is on its final stretches [too expensive to fix after check-up declared the hull to be fixed], so driving it while it is still legal... so I drove up to Tervakoski for a visit to the their swimming hall. I thought it would have been an old, tired hall. And it looked like being from the 1970s. But inside it was actually quite nice. Recommended.
This article has also appeared here. Read tall swimming stories at planetswimmer.com and sauna articles at saunablogger.cool. Or all blog articles from Blogspot. Photos, videos, and text (c) 2025 by Jari Arkko.
In February 2022, I felt like I wanted to ski in a new country, a destination that had been in my mind for a long time. I booked Lufthansa flights to get there, and wow, was it worth it! The biggest snow dump in a decade had just arrived on Mt. Troodos even though they don't get snow at all on some years. I skied forest powder all day long... and the atmosphere was relaxed and happy. Very happy that I got here. A wonderful mountain!
The ski resort is operated by the Cyprus Ski Federation & Club. Wonderful, a ski club rather than a commercial company! The season usually runs from the beginning of January until the end of March, and they run a FIS competition yearly as well.
The ski area is divided into the main "Zeus" slope (!) and the Sun Valley area. The latter is where a lot of the tourists and beginners are, and on this area there's also some excellent forest skiing. The Sun Valley area is served by two lifts at different points in the ridge/valley. There are about five main slopes, plus all the interesting forest skiing in between, particularly around the Hermes lift, i.e., furthest side from hut. the But the most challenging and steepest area is the one around the Zeus slope and lift. This part of the area has two lifts and five official slopes. The most challenging run is the Jubilee run.
The mountain is at its highest point 1952 meters, on a peak that is called Mt. Olympus or Χιονίστρα (Hionistra) in Greek. That is not super much compared to alps or rockies, but it is a lot rising up from an island. It overs one third of the island! And this time it was enough for a wonderful snow to be present! The highest peak by the way houses a radar and listening station run by the NSA and GCHQ. More information about Mt. Troodos can found from Wikipedia and the ski club's home page. The ski area map can be found from Skiresort.info here.
While just a couple of days, the Cyprus trip was wonderful also in other respects. I also managed to ski on the North Cyprus side (article, alt. link) by taking snow from Mt. Troodos roadside over the border and then skiing an otherwise snowless slope on it.
This article has also appeared here. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot, TGR. Photos, videos, and text (c) 2022 by Jari Arkko.
