Birthday trip, full of fun!

How much fun can you pack into one birthday trip? I started with a drink ... non-alcoholic, of course. And then things starting going faster after that: a sauna at the Oberstegen, continued with skiing on the Hintertux Glacier, went for a SUP paddling tour in an ice cave river under that glacier, and ended up climbing to the Grafenloch and Rossstall caves, and doing a 3D model of them. Not bad, and that was just the first day! Maybe for my next birthday I'll try to come with an active program.

This article has also been published at TGR. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot or TGR. Photos, videos, and text (c) 2021 by Jari Arkko.

First time in movies again!

October 2021 -- my first time in movies since the beginning of the pandemic. I joined the Banff Mountain Movie Festival in Helsinki, with many interesting ski and other adventure movies.

Lots of interesting movies indeed... some that stood out: Andrzej Bargiel's ski-descent of K2 ("K2: The Impossible Descent") or Toni Arbones' bolting frenzy ("Ten Thousand Bolts").

Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot or TGR. Photos and text (c) 2021 by Jari Arkko.

Namco's Alpine Racer

I visited Tampere's game museum -- maybe the best museum of this kind that I've seen anywhere. Many. interesting things, displayed and playable in the setting of the time. But for me the jewel of the museum was Namco's Alpine Racer arcade game. I wish I had one at home...

View to the Vapriikki museum complex from the outside:

This article has also been published at TGR. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot or TGR. Photos, videos, and text (c) 2021 by Jari Arkko.

More ski training for the twins

 

I just love the colours of night skiing. And in Finland, we only have night skiing, because usually there's either no light or very little light. And I also love taking my sister's twins for skiing, this time in Talma, Sipoo's great ski resort, 30 minutes outside Helsinki.

Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot or TGR. Photos, videos, and text (c) 2021 by Jari Arkko.

Santa Claus skiing

Time for the traditional Xmas eve ski run. Maybe the best one ever was on the steps of the cathedral in Helsinki, but skiing my local hill in Santa Claus costume and a bag of presents was also nice!

This article has also been published at TGR. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot or TGR. Photos, videos, and text (c) 2021 by Jari Arkko.

First fall of the season!

 

First ski run, first fall.

My first time this season on the Kauniainen ski hill. With my crappy, duct taped skis because, well, no need for the better skis in potentially rocky conditions. But the conditions were not rocky. It -8, solid ice blown from the new "snow" machines, probably meter or two thick at places. My skis did not have the edges to stick to the ice, so I fell... and fell further... and further. Had even difficulties to get back up to fetch the pole I left in mid-slope :-)

The icy slope will be a great cover though, we can probably ski it still next summer.

This article has also been published at TGR. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot or TGR. Photos, videos, and text (c) 2021 by Jari Arkko.

It's dark, we're wearing sunglasses, and ski season just opened

 

It is pitch dark. Raining heavily. The whole place is closed. But I'm on a mission, so I grab my skis and walk to the bottom of the hill in my boots, as there's a rumour that there's some snow in the hill. And when I get to the bottom, what I find is a group of teenagers with just a couple of flashlights -- skiing, jumping the jumps, riding the pipes and rails. Wonderful!

One of my local ski hills, Hyvinkää's Sveitsi, acquired some new snow guns for this season. Obviously they tested them. They worked remarkably well, with all that snow generated. And I'm not sure we had more than a couple of nights with temperatures around 0 or -1... 

And obviously, I just had to go there to ski. This completes my October skiing, then :-)

This article has also been published at TGR. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot or TGR. Photos, videos, and text (c) 2021 by Jari Arkko.

Darkness in the Lapland Hotels Tampere Sauna

We had an opportunity to stay at the Tampere for a night in a hotel. The Lapland Hotels Tampere was a new one for me, I had been to many other hotels there in past years. Pretty nice, great breakfast, and the saunas in the highest floor were different from usual hotel saunas. They were black!

Pretty good for a hotel sauna.

For more sauna and swimming stories, check out planetswimmer.com and saunablogger.cool websites! And of course the Planetcaver, and Planetskier blogs for other stories in Blogspot and TGR! The photos and text (c) 2014 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. I never take photos of other saunagoers or swimmers and visit when there is simply no one else or the facility has been closed or booked only for me.

Storfinnhova sauna inside a natural rock. With a waterfall.

 

Smoke sauna for 45 people, with a small waterfall and a warm pool, all inside. Takes three days to heat up. This is possibly one of the greatest sauna experiences I've had.

Link here.

For more sauna and swimming stories, check out planetswimmer.com and saunablogger.cool websites! And of course the Planetcaver, and Planetskier blogs for other stories in Blogspot and TGR! The photos and text (c) 2014 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. I never take photos of other saunagoers or swimmers and visit when there is simply no one else or the facility has been closed or booked only for me.

Finally, a SUP hobby that I can get excited about. Underground.

 

I had been to Eispalast before. It is an ice cave that tourists can visit, 30 meters under glacier, near the top of the Gefrorene Wand mountain in Hintertux, Austria. But when I saw they had an option for trying SUP boarding on the river or lake in the ice cave, I knew I had to go again.

We did a normal tourist tour of the ice cave first, which was nice because my last visit was several years ago. We also did the rubber boat tour through the water that fills the large crevasse inside the ice.

All nice, but nothing compared to what came next: an option to try to standup paddle boarding and ice swimming. Diving, canoeing, and other activities are also possible. I only did the boarding part, however.

I had my ski gear on in this visit to the mountain, and I was told to not wear the ski boots, so I took them off and went barefoot to the board. No problem, the ice surfaces in the walking path were covered by rubber mats, and the board itself was of course also not ice. And I had initially feared that it would be unnerving to board in icy waters, but the board turned out to be huge, maybe 5 meters long and quite wide. It wouldn't be easy to get it to flip or fall down. Phew.

Wonderful experience! Although may be not as refreshing as the other guy who also decided to try ice swimming :-)

I also wanted to try 3D modelling parts of the cave, but it wasn't easy on a busy tour schedule. I in particular wanted to record the Eiskapellen, an ice chapel dedicated to three lost ski tourers.

The tour and boarding cost 36€. Details: go to the official web page. Much recommended, really a great visit, whether you are in walking, boarding, or swimming mode!

Eiskapellen:

Boarding:

Colors:

Glacier monster:

Entrance:

This article has also been published at TGR. Read more urban exploration stories from theurbanexplorer.net, and other underground stories from planetcaver.net. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot or TGR. Photos, videos, and text (c) 2021 by Jari Arkko and Jarmo Ruuth. All rights reserved.