Rock Hunting - The thing to do while the climbing is banned

"Can you picture us living in a place,

where it would be possible to climb when ever we want?"

This is a game we play often in the evening,

while waiting for a sleep to catch us.

This has particularly come our routine now,

when all the indoors activities are prohibited,

and during the long and snowy Northern winter

only possibility to continue climbing is indoors.

Rock climbing or bouldering in -20 degrees

would be little bit too much.

And also dangerous for that matter.

So we have intentionally turned our eyes to the future

and to the summer to come.

When the snow melts away and it will be plus degrees,

what kind of routes we wanna climb?

Sure we have a lot of unfinished projects waiting for us.

But what we can do right now?

We can hunt.

Earlier it has been just something we have done,

if there hasn't been anything else to do

or we have just accidentally found an ok nice new boulder

on our mushroom picking trip.

But it has always been more like blind shooting

and pocking the ice to see if it would crack.

As we want to take everything out of the next summer

and those 4-5 months, when it is possible to climb.

As you never know. 

Next winter could be the same as this one

and the winter before that.

Which would mean no climbing again.

So now, we actually step up in the game.

To goal is

 to find the biggest and baddest boulder

in the whole Lapland.

Located on our backyard.

For hours and hours

during the long and dark winter evenings

we have been searching the maps and books.

I have been studying the book called

Suomen lohkareet ja tarinakivet (Salakirjat 2019)

(eng. Finnish boulders and story-rocks).

About the known boulders in Finland,

about the impact of ice ages to the boulders and rocks.

How to read the terrain

in order to have a clue where the ice streams

have been driving the lose boulders.

In Southern Finland most of the boulders

are marked in the maps with a specific symbol,

but here in the North,

where there is bigger and smaller rocks

and huge rock fields everywhere,

the map makers hasn't bothered to separate

the different size rocks from each other

and just been using same symbol for everything.

But little by little we have got better at reading the maps.

With countless field trips to explore the rocky areas,

we have been able to find a pattern

from combining different map forms

and our basic knowledge of the terrain.

Our exploring field trips have been various.

In the worst scenario the road is blocked with a barrier

or it is not maintained in winter time.

In which case the area will be left totally unexplored

or post-phoned to a summer time.

Few times we have been sitting in the car asking

"what now?"

Learning from our mistakes,

now we have always plan B and C to follow.

Meaning some other somewhat interesting places to explore near by.

Sometimes even that's not enough

and at least ones I have been spending two hours in the car

driving there and back

without finding any place to park my car due the snow.

Most commonly,

if we even get to the destination,

we will find shattered rock fields (rakka),

as this is the most common form of the rock in Lapland.

As the several ice ages and the harsh weather

have been grinding the boulders and rocks

through out the history of Earth,

we have been left with the crumbles.

Occasionally we spot the boulder symbol from the map.

At first we were thrilled.

If there is a boulder symbol in the middle of all these

rakka symbols, it has to mean something, right!?

Well..

I don't trust the map makers anymore.

They have very various visions,

even from each other,

about what is a boulder.

Usually the boulder symbols has been taking us

to a pile of small rocks.

So technically those might have been boulders

thousands or millions of years ago,

before ice age, gravity and Northern winter has done their job with them,

but not anymore.

Other times we find a boulder in one piece,

but it is a size of a big hound

and won't stand out much from the rocks around it.

What an anticlimax.

But surely every time we would spot a boulder symbol,

we will need to check it,

as you never know.

Then there is the times,

when one of us actually yells

"I see a boulder!"

And yes, there,

between the trees is a boulder.

It's high enough.

It has at least one straight side on it.

Maybe with little bit decline.

Yes, yes, good.

And then standing by the boulder

we realize, that the whole surface

is shattered with cracks and steps.

Damned. Too easy.

If it is possible to climb with your rubber boots on,

it is not worth it.

I was listening the Kiipeilijä podcast

guesting Sami Romppainen.

(Finnish climber, founder of Voema and savolainen herrasmies)

(Gotta love his dialect by the way)

He was telling how in Eastern Finland there are so many boulders,

you can just pick one and make a new route there.

(Ok, remember here, when savolainen speaks, you need to listen with caution)

But still.

Imagine that if you will.

So many boulders,

it is impossible for one person to climb them all during a life time.

Wow.

It made me thinking.

There is something in there.

Being able to be successful explorer

and discover new places and boulders

and being able to tell about them to others.

Leaving your name in the climbing history.

These all are super cool things.

But,

being able to stand in front of an untouched,

yet unknown beautiful boulder.

The rock is like a clean canvas,

but not so, you would be painting your mind there on the rock,

but rather open your mind to the rock

and listen what kind of possibilities the rock has to offer to you.

After unveiling the character of the rock,

then you can go wild with your creativity

and start creating moves,

solving the puzzle it lays in front of you.

That there is the crux,

the soul of the climbing and rock hunting for me.

An opportunity to be creative and express myself.

Usually it goes so,

on our rock hunting trips,

that maybe in every 10th trip

we actually discover something.

Often it is something "quite nice".

You can definitely create there a road or two.

But is it good enough

to go through all the trouble of getting to the site?

Maybe.. yes?

Then, finally,

after countless field trips,

we might come across a place,

the boulder,

that is not the biggest and baddest you have ever seen,

but which is more high, more beautiful, more suitable for climbing

and better than you have managed to discover so far.

The boulders are all covered with snow and frost.

And there is half of meter of snow hiding the roots and tops of the boulders,

but you know it.

This is the place I have been looking for.

Hopefully just one of them.

But still.

You feel tingling while thinking all the possibilities.

You can't wait for the summer.

But summer is still super super far away.

It will be months before you can actually go there.

So, we keep exploring.

We keep going to the new places we have pinned to the map.

Crossing over the list.

Hoping, that something else

or even yet better,

would come around.

And yes, I have found a place.

No, I'm not going to unveil it yet.

Yes, I will write about it, when the time comes.

Yes, I keep skiing and exploring until the snow melts away

from my new climbing Narnia.