A Pile of Rocks

Imagine rocks thrown together, all sizes all the way up to house-sized boulders. Korkberget doesn't get more than a brief mention in "Caves of Finland". But it is one of the biggest caves in our area, and quite a maze.

We gathered a crew of experienced and eager cavers (mostly consisting of 11 to 13 year olds) and headed out to explore.

The caves are near the waterline, under a big boulder field fallen from a cliff that stands above.

The boulder field caves feel different. Not carved into smooth shapes by water, not cracked open by forces of nature. They just are, and there is space between them. If there's enough big rocks, there will be spaces underneath, and you can crawl around.

The real experts in the caving society's say that Korkberget is 50 meters long. Not sure about that, but it would take a long time to explore all the side paths. And while the main part of the cave is big, many of the paths around it are tiny, or shall I say claustrophobic? Before finding the big cave, the first opening that we found was a hole straight down between layers of boulders. I climbed in, and found myself maybe five meters down, close to the water level. Looking up, I saw the rest of the team look down. Feeling strange, like looking up from six feet under...

And there were narrow paths going in two directions. One through a very narrow crack, one that I didn't even try to pass through but maybe somebody could. Another one towards the cliff, seemingly ending in a meter or two. Except that it didn't. If you crawl through you will see that it turns up to at least two rooms big enough for a person to turn around in, or even stand. And then it seemed to stop, but there were so many holes that I am not sure if I didn't miss a continuation somewhere.

And then thing being five meters below in a tight pile of rocks was that the smaller rocks sometimes moved. This was not building up my confidence, though I suppose the big boulders have been where they are for thousands of years.

While I explored the hole, Jarmo found the main cave. It is possible to enter the main cave from the hole, I think, by crawling under one of the rocks near the surface. Although I chose to exit and then re-enter, as the crawling space would have been quite tight and had sharp edges. The smaller cave explorers had already gone in.

The main cave has a big space - lets call it the dining room because we ate there. Adjoining to the dining room there is a small pool room. The heating isn't all that great in this apartment, though, so the pool was in solid state currently. There are a couple of nice balconies overlooking the lake as well.

Going further back, there are a couple of different exits from the cave, and some more rooms. Janne found a small crawlable tunnel on the back side, leading towards the water level. A small room at the end of this tunnel was big enough for two people, and again there were many small openings but we didn't think it was possible to continue further.

The cliff tower above the boulder field, including a major overhang, a small "arch" cave, and somebody's hastily constructed little hut. Water flows from the cliff, and had created frozen ice. The cliff, and perhaps later in the winter, the ice looks very climbable, though I'm not sure if it is allowed in this area.

I do wonder about the cave though. I'd never thought I'd have to ask about this on a Finnish cave, but has anybody created a map of the cave? It feels like one is needed to ensure that all parts have been found and visited :-)

The cave is at the coordinates N 60°9' 43.332'' E 24° 27' 10.733'', and there's about a mile to walk from the road. You can leave the car on the Kirkkotie, though there is space only for one or two cars near the trailhead.

Pictures and videos (c) 2015 by Jari Arkko and Jarmo Ruuth. This blog is also available at the TGR site. Tämä blogi löytyy myös suomeksi.

Cave with a view

There are usually no great views from caves, at least not of the sunset. Except at Rokokallio.

This cave consists of a crack on a rocky hill. You enter the crack from the top, but the crack ends on a cliff, opening up a small window overlooking the forests below. I happened to be in the cave just at the right time for a sunset, and the view was great!

I often have difficulty in getting up early. With the darkest time of the year, I did not manage to get to the cave before it started being dark. But on the positive side, I have found that dusk and night make for far more interesting visual experiences than plain daylight.

But back to the cave. The caves in Finland are small, but this one is quite interesting. The crack itself is not long, maybe 10  meters. But it runs on multiple levels, and as you descend you'll discover new cracks further down. On this trip I was alone, so I didn't want to venture too far into the tightest places, missing at least one level at the bottom.

As a crack there are openings above as well, and this is how I first discovered the cave. I noticed a crack that I didn't want to walk into.

Entrance is through the side nearest to the cliff, and is relatively easy. You have to climb a little bit to get down and back up, however. Parts of the crack have a roof, or have rocks that are hanging between the walls.

Beautiful green moss covers the upper walls. The bottom of the cave is dry and free of dirt, so it is fun to explore.

The area has multiple caves, however, and I only explored this one particular crack. Several roof slabs can be found underneath the cliff. It would be interesting to know if there's a path from the crack cave to the bottom. You can at least see light through, but at the lowest levels the crack gets very narrow.

This is the entrance:

The Rokokallio area is well marked. Park your car at the northern parking lot on the Lustikullantie. A good map is visible here. The coordinates that I used for the cave are N 60°29'23.0" E 24°28'35.0" (WGS84). For more information about the cave, read this article.

For some after-caving, I recommend the Kuusijärvi smoke saunas. For 10€ you get to visit a real smoke sauna, and dip into the lake before it gets too solid. It was my first time in cold water, and the first time in a public smoke sauna. Recommended! The sign on the pier prohibited sunbathing, however. It didn't say anything about moonbathing, however.

Photos and videos (c) 2015 by Jari Arkko. This blog is also available in English from TGR. Tämä blogi löytyy myös suomeksi Relaasta.

Death Star Skier

He spends his days in meaningless office tasks, like shifting papers around or destroying planets. But he also has a dream... of skiing.

Copyright (c) 2015 by Jari Arkko and Janne Arkko. The great art of Star Wars has provided the background theme in this blog article, which is used here in fair use and parody style. This blog is also available on the TGR site. Tämä blogi löytyy myös suomeksi.

Högberget Cave

I thought there are no caves in Finland, but there are some! This weekend's adventure was to visit the specially formed Högberget flow-erosion cave.

For a long time I thought there are no caves in Finland, and that there are only few exceptions. But there are many, though all of them are small. The Finnish Caves (Suomen Luolat) book lists 165 different caves.

My my this weekend's trip I wanted to visit three caves near where I live. But the day passed quickly, and before I noticed, darkness had set into to the already wet and cloudy day. But I wanted to visit at least the Högberget cave in Kirkkonummi, near the Peuramaa ski area. I work four kilometres away from this cave, but I had never heard of it. There are also no signs, markings, tourist materials, or even a path. Not many people visit this cave...

But we decided to make a visit. The cave has been formed during ice age, as water flowed through a crack in the rock. The form of the cave is pretty exceptional.

The best way to find the cave is with GPS coordinates: N 60° 6.418' E 24° 29.191' (WGS84). But the way to the place goes through rocks, slippery moss, snow (at least today), and cliffs, so it will be slow going. Take it easy! We spent about two hours on the trip, even if it is just 500 meters from the road. But the cave is worth a visit!

Photos and videos (c) 2015 by Jari Arkko. This blog is also available from the TGR site. Tämä blogi löytyy myös suomeksi.

Titlis in the Darkness

You have to take six lifts to get to the top. And we were late, because travel. But it turns out you can also stay late. By the time we started our final 2km vertical descent, it was already dark.

We skied as much as we could, and 5 kms of vertical for starting skiing at 2pm is not a bad achievement! But the day was turning to the end, and our late quick lunch at the top cafeteria was brought to an even more abrupt end when the ski patrol told us to get off the mountain. Well, we did. But it is a long way down, there were some photo opportunities along the way, and ... we missed the last run of a connecting lift. To ski all the way down, we had to traverse to the other side on the Trübsee Hopper, but given that we missed the closing time by about thirty seconds, Swiss accuracy requires that we were not to be let in any more.

Oh well, we could always ski there, this lift was almost horizontal. But it did take some time, and by the time we had hiked the few tens of meters up, it was dark. We had skied this path via Untertrübsee before, we knew where to go. But it was icy, narrow, and there was still a kilometre of vertical left. Fortunately, Tero had a flashlight. We skied in the darker and darker evening, me following Tero's light and occasionally taking a few photos. It was amazing to see the lights of the Engelberg village below us. 

But having headlights would have been better. This is an obvious addition to the skiing backpack, as we also noticed the next day.

We had run into two other Finns and Engelberg regulars, Panu and Jari, and spent the morning skiing with them at the Jochstock and Jochpass chair lifts. These lifts serve an 800-meter vertical, well-groomed, and nicely turning, hilly ski run. My legs were aching, however.

For the afternoon, we went back to the Titlis, using Rotair, the world's only rotating gondola lift. At the top we explored an ice cave that you can access from the lift station. The blue, incredibly smooth ice is beautiful. Recommended. It also costs nothing extra, unlike most other places that have similar caves.

But our next cave proved to be a harder one to access. I had earlier spotted caves along the cliffs surrounding the ski route from Gletscherlift to Stand. We planned to reach one of them by traversing the steep slopes at the bottom of the cliffs. We got near the opening of the cave, perhaps only 20 meters away. But as the other Jari started climbing higher, crossing the rocky part of the slope caused rocks to get loose and fall down. This was not safe for us or the skiers on the piste further down, so we had to turn back. With only a little more snow, the cave might have been reachable. But the slopes are quite steep. At the lower part where Tero waited for the first of us to go higher, he measured 34 degrees, and it must have been over 40 higher up.

I've been recently interested in caves, so I'd like to get a second chance at exploring the holes at the bottom of the cliffs. Maybe some day.

Finally, I wanted to recommend the Crystal hotel in town for their friendly service and the three different saunas at the top floor. That was where we met the other Finns, obviously :-)

Photos and videos (c) 2015 by Jari Arkko and Tero Kivinen. This blog is also available at the TGR site. Tämä blogi löytyy myös suomeksi.

It's a Cham!

Chamonix is open, and there's powder! And under all that light powder, there's ... rocks.

My skis will need care. And so do my boots, because they came apart as I was trying to put them on in the morning. I was able to put the parts together and the boot held temporarily, albeit the sharp edges were cutting into my feet.

Amazingly, the guys at my ski repair shop, Skiservice, not only fixed my skies but found a spare inner boots. At 40€ that's incredible value, and without having to re-modify my outer boots to fit my feet again. This is even more amazing because the most expert shop that I found in Chamonix told me that they couldn't fix the boots. But I guess the extreme ski equipment capitol of the world is Pitäjänmäki, not Chamonix :-)

But back to skiing. This weekend Chamonix opened for the first time, with a couple of runs in Le Grand Montet and one run in Les Houches. In practice I was able to ski a bit more. In both places you could ski all the way down if you were willing to take some closed runs. At Les Houches a special bus served skiers from the lower base to the open area at Maisonneuve chair lift. But taking those closed runs can be a bit dangerous, as sometimes there are surprises. Obviously there will be rocks, but I also almost run into an deep, open ditch across the slope. And I almost fell down at a tunnel going under the road, as the middle section of the tunnel did not have snow, and it was hard to see in the darkness and with sunglasses on; fortunately braking two meters before the start of the rocks was enough.

The skiing was great though. At Les Houches the winding, well-groomed ski run was fun to cruise. At Le Grand Montet, the Bochard gondola took us above the clouds into sunshine and 50-70 cm of fresh powder. But as noted, there were a lot of rocks underneath.

I also want to mention a couple of restaurants. First, my favourite on-piste restaurant, La Ferme, was the only open (!) restaurant in Les Houches. Recommended! Secondly, Le Cap Horn is probably the best restaurant in downtown Chamonix. I can recommend their salmon or their soufflé dessert (set alight on your plate, with a shot). I also liked the furry chairs at the restaurant.

Videos and photos (c) 2015 by Jari Arkko. This blog is also available at the TGR site. Tämä blogi löytyy myös suomeksi.