"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.
While skiing off the Gamsleiten 2 ski lift in Obertauern, we spotted a potential small cave. It was outside the pistes on a steep slope, but I skied to investigate. And found what would in Finland be classified as a cave: 2-3 meter long roof cave on a cliff. But not in Austria...
See more caving stories at planetcaver.net, and see other articles by the planetskier at Blogspot and TGR! Photos and text (c) 2020 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.
At the Vienna museum of military history (Heeresgeschichtliches Museum ), we saw a funny "kugelbunker", a concrete boulder for one person shelter from the world war times.
There was also a hole. Probably not the best, if any protection...
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.
Our quick start for year 2020 involved skiing in the Austrian alps, about an hour south of Salzburg. We found a nice, affordable hotel, LUFA in St. Michael im Lungau. While being affordable at only a bit more than 100€ per night, it had nice sauna facilities.
There were three saunas, a steam sauna, an infrared sauna, and my favourite (of course), the Finnish sauna. Quite hot, and as long as one conformed to Austrian style of going to sauna's, it was quite nice. You'll have to have a towel underneath you, even under your feet if you're sitting. And it is a mixed sauna.
I really liked the location for skiing in different places in the region, easy to get to, no mountain roads to drive for the hotel. Much recommended. Here's the google maps location link.
More sauna and swimming stories at Saunablogger.cool and Planetswimmer.com! Photos and text (c) 2020 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. All pool and sauna photos are taken with permission, when there have been no other guests, or when the facilities have been closed.
I was in Vienna already in 2018, but for 2020 Janne and I toured the Vienna museums before heading to the ski resorts in Austrian alps. This allowed a new visit to Haus des Meeres, the refurbished bunker-turned-into-and-aquarium, and visits to three other bunkers.
It turned out that Haus des Meeres had been renovated to be almost no longer recognisable as a bunker. Still, they had a tour of the bunker side, but sadly our timing didn't allow staying for that. Maybe next time.
We also visited the control tower pair of the Haus des Meeres flak tower at Esterhazypark (the latter held the guns). Sadly, we could see the control tower, Flakturm Stiftskaserne, but no get closer due to it being inside a closed city block. The coordinates for the bunker are: N 48.2016 E 16.3560.
Secondly, we visited the control-flak tower pair in Arenbergpark. The coordinates for the bunkers are N 48.1981 E 16.3906 (control tower) and N 48.1986 E 16.3926 (flak/gun tower).
The location of all the Flaktowers built in 2nd World War can be found from the Wikipedia page. Towers were only built in Berlin, Hamburg, and Vienna, although there were plans to add more to München, Bremen, and other cities.
Today these structures remain in view to remind of us of the horrors of war. We think of ourselves are educated and civilised, but there's ample evidence that societies can convince themselves to build horrible weapons of war and rage insane and immoral battles that leave tens of millions of people dead. It is everyone's responsibility to make sure this does not happen again.
Arenbergpark:
Stiftskaserna:
Haus des Meeres:
This article has also been published at TGR. Read more Urban Exploration and Caving stories from TheUrbanExplorer.net and PlanetCaver.net! You can also read all the Planetskier and Planetcaver articles at Blogspot and TGR. Photos and text (c) 2020 by Jari Arkko and Janne Arkko. All rights reserved.
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.
