Monday, June 07, 2010

Climbing at Angelniemi

Angelniemi is a crag for all season - the most reliable ice around Salo in winter and some great sport climbing in summer. Anni, Tony and I went over from Helsinki and met Dave who was coming from the west.

I decided that if I want to get some good photos it time to get serious and try something a bit more technical so took a spare rope and jumars with me. I'm pretty happy with the results and, to be honest, jugging up and sliding down the rope a few times was good fun.

Dave on Lähetysseura ("The Mission") 7a+

Dave and Tony both put in cracking efforts to climb this very nice looking route up a fine red wall of granite.

Dave again on Lähetysseura, 7a+

Tony's turn, same route

Lähetysseura from below. 20 metres of powerful and balancy granite wall climbing.

Tony on Kaisanprojekti ("Kaisa's Project"), 6b

I fell off the crux of Kaisanprojekti last year and bashed my hip up, so both wanted to do it and was a bit scared of it at the same time. A long sling clip-sticked to the crux bolt sorted that out and I found a ridiculously tenuous stemming method to avoid laybacking the crux that I'm to pathetically weak to do. I got it on my third redpoint attempt including the use of the the "crouching tiger, hidden dragon flying kung fu move" higher that totally made my day.

4 comments:

Tony said...

Some fine photos Toby. Your photos just keep getting better and better. Well done on your RP too.

Anonymous said...

Well done to all! I was just wondering whether "clip-stick" method is the same as the "stick-clip" method?

Toby - Northern Light Blog said...

> I was just wondering whether "clip-stick" method is the same as the "stick-clip" method?

Indeed it is and your method works much better in the past tense. With my butchering of the English language I had to resist writing "clip stuck". "Stick-clipped" is much more elegant. :-)

nikko said...

Nice pics.

Jugging is a wonderful way to bypass all the dificulties of rock climbing. Providing someone reliable sets your rope on a multi-pitch climb..

Ah, also a frown on the quickdraws clipped together on the first image of Dave on Lähetysseura.

-n.