Oulu, Finland March 2019

My trip to Finland to compete in the World Youth Ice Climbing Championships 1st/2nd March 2019.


On Tuesday 26th Feb me and my dad done some last-minute packing before my mum drove us to Edinburgh airport for our flight. As soon as we got dropped of my mum phoned me to say my dad had left his phone in the car! We ran back to get his phone and then back inside and checked in.
We had 3 connecting flights so we went from Edinburgh to Manchester and from Manchester to Helsinki and finally from there we got a flight to Oulu. We arrived at 1.30am in Oulu airport and collected our bags before getting on the bus to the town centre, there we met the guy we were renting his flat and he gave us the keys and directions. It took us a little while to find the apartment but as soon as we did, we had a quick shower and jumped into bed.
As we didn’t get in to the flat until early Wednesday morning we slept until just after 9am. Once we were both up and ready, we headed out to get some breakfast. We went to this small place called pancake house and funnily enough we ordered some pancakes. I got Oreo and cookies and my Dad got butter and syrup. I only ate about half because they were really filling. 

We then jumped the bus to the local climbing centre. I warmed up and bouldered around for a wee bit and done some auto belays. We then had a quick break and had some water before doing some top rope, we couldn’t do any lead since we never had a rope with us. A couple of people from the American team came to the climbing centre and climbed for a while and then we left to go to a café. Me and my dad got the bus back to the apartment and went for a walk around the town and got some food in. 

 

On Thursday we woke up and went for a walk just around the local area and got some food. We then got the bus to the holiday resort where we had to register for the comp and have the opening ceremony. 

After everybody had registered the opening ceremony began. I had to walk up and stand on the stage myself since I was the only competitor from Great Britain. I really didn’t want to do this on my own because all the other teams had a lot of people in them but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be and they all gave me a big cheer. 

All the countries went up on stage and then the choir came on. They were really good but the total opposite of what we would describe as a choir back home. There were also snow sculptures that were still up from a recent competition so everyone spent a wee while looking at them before going back inside. Once inside the cafe all the different age groups had our briefing. I competed in the under 19 even though I was still 15 whilst I was competing. After the briefing was over we walked about for a short while and actually saw the northern Lights, we caught the bus home and went straight to bed. 

It was an early morning on Friday since it was comp day, we were up at five and left the house at six. As soon as we made it to the climbing wall I started to warm up. 

Waiting on the bus, What time is this?

 

First glimpse of the Ice Tower

 

In the warm up tent

Ice tower, 22m high

I was tooling around in the warm up area for a short while. I was up first for both routes so I was really nervous but I had warmed up and just managed to watch the video of somebody climbing the route. 

Trying to warm up

 

 

 

Getting ready to go out for first route

My first route was on an almost vertical wall which isn’t my favourite, I prefer a steeper overhang. Once I had tied into the rope, I took my jacket off and started the route. Straight away I knew I hadn’t warmed up enough my hands were so cold I could barely grip my axe. I climbed really slow and wasn’t very confident on the wall and unfortunately I timed out. I was really gutted because it wasn’t actually that hard at the start and I knew I just had to climb a bit faster. I went and chilled out for a wee bit just before my second route which I made sure I was fully warmed up and ready for. Again, I didn’t climb very confidently and was stopped by a big move. I knew I had already messed up my first route so I was even more nervous on my second route. The move that I struggled a lot on wasn’t that big but I couldn’t bring myself to fully commit. After a good couple of minutes trying this move, I finally made it. I only managed to make one other move after this before once again getting pulled down for timing out. At first, I was really upset and disappointed with myself because I had not performed the way I would have liked but as soon as I had some lunch and calmed down a bit, I reminded myself that it was my first time in under 19 lead category and I really was one of the youngest there. I decided to forget about my lead climbs and turn my focus on my speed. 

Route 2

Route 2

Speed warm up soon came along and I had my two attempts on the wall and then went back inside to catch a heat before qualifiers. On one of my speed routes I had hurt my knee but I climbed anyways. After doing both the qualifiers I was pretty happy with how they went and I went away back inside to the heat. I found out I made finals for speed which I was really happy about. I also found out I placed 11^th in lead. We headed home and after some food, and a hot shower we went straight to bed.
The next morning Saturday was the same as the last. By the time we were at the climbing wall I warmed up straight away since speed finals was the first event of the day. On my first route I did ok but I knew I had to go faster if I wanted to move up a place at all. On my second route I had a false start but I didn’t even notice and so we restarted but I went away too quick and popped off. I was actually really upset because normally I can go pretty fast so I was disappointed and, in the end, I came 8^th. We stayed the rest of the day to watch finals and cheer everyone on before getting the bus back to town. 

Lyndsay and Me

Watching the finals

Stole my dads coat for a heat!

We quickly changed our clothes and headed to the after party. The after party was being held in the same climbing centre my dad and I had already been to. We had some food and spoke to a few people. Me and a couple of the American team went round using google translate to talk to all the people who we had competed with or seen throughout the past couple of days. We spoke to some French people, some Russian people and some people from Switzerland. This was one of the highlights of the trip for me because we were able to have a full conversation and congratulate everybody. At the after party we went to sign up for Europeans the next day but despite registering and the organisers happy that I could compete, the UIAA said I was too young to compete which I was gutted about. We hung around for a while then headed off to catch the bus back into town.
The next day my dad and I had a long lie in and got up at about 10am and went for food before getting the bus to the Ice tower. I really wanted to go because I knew a few people had early flights home so I wouldn’t see them at the after party. It was great watching everybody climb and I got to watch the finals as well which was really impressive to see. Once again, we got the bus back to town got a quick change of clothes and headed to the after party. This time everyone stayed longer because they weren’t up at five for a competition the next day. This was one of my favourite nights because everybody started talking and was so excited and happy. We all took pictures and exchanged numbers and social media and everybody agreed to keep in contact. My dad and I literally just made it to the last bus of the night and headed home. 

Kat, Lyndsay, Georgia, me and Kylie

 On the Monday morning Rob Aidie, Velli-Matti a local finish climber and Alex picked my dad and I up. We had a 4 hour drive further north to a town called Posio. We dropped my dad off where we were staying – an old school used mainly by climbers and hunters – then me and the others drove another twenty minutes to the place where we were climbing, a gorge called Koroummo.
We didn’t have too long to climb since it was already midday and the sun went down a little while after five so as soon as we parked the car, we all started walking to the waterfall we were climbing. The walk in was about an hour and it was so pretty, I really liked the walk in. There was a little path through the woods and on the way there it was mainly downhill. It probably took us about forty minutes to get there but it felt a lot shorter than usual. I was slightly warmer since we had been walking but I soon got really cold so I was constantly moving and trying to keep warm while Rob lead the first route. We were planning on doing it as one pitch but right at the top Rob slipped only a couple of feet from the top and was really pumped so he set up a belay and we all top roped up after him. 

Old school whee we stayed in Posio.

The climb was amazing even if I was absolutely freezing. The view whilst climbing was more than worth being cold for. Once I reached Rob, I made myself safe and the others climbed up behind me. After I done the first pitch, I had such bad hot aches, which I found out the Americans call them screaming barphies because they make you want to scream and throw up and I think that’s a better description! Velli-Matti lead the short second pitch and the rest of us seconded. This pitch felt much easier and shorter and I also felt a bit better at the top. Since it was so cold, we didn’t waste any time in setting up an abseil. Rob went down first and I followed, since we were going to pack the bags and head to the car. Velli Matti wanted to do another route so Alex stayed to belay while me and Rob ran back to the car. We had some food and a quick nap before Alex and Velli made it back to the car and then we headed back to where we were staying.
We got back to the school and a lovely cooked dinner since my dad was being head chef and custodian for the trip. We had really good soup to heat us up and then a chicken curry and also some pasta. I really enjoyed this night because we all just chilled out and Alex played some Romanian songs on his ukulele which was really impressive. 

1080 Rob and Alex on the uke

Velli-Matti and me

 We all had a reasonably early night since the next morning we were getting up at 6am. My dad had got up before us and made us all breakfast and then we headed out the door. We went to the same place we had on the Monday then walked for another thirty minutes and to another waterfall. Velli-Matti set up a top rope which me and Rob planned on trying. I was so cold and wasn’t feeling too good so I didn’t climb. I did belay Rob up the top rope and he came off so he tried again and then we collected all our gear and headed back to the car. It was so cold I marched and jogged all the way back to the car. Once we were all back in the car we went home where my dad had made us pasta, and baked potatoes with lots of fillings.
It was only the afternoon but we had to leave early because Alex had a flight so we put all our bags back in the boot and drove to the airport. Rob then dropped me and my dad back to the apartment and we just done some last-minute packing and I took Dad out for dinner to say thanks for putting up with me all week. We went to a fancy burger place and then went for a nice wee walk around town. The next morning, we walked to the bus stop and got the bus to the airport and then we started our journey home. Unfortunately it wasn’t a very smooth journey. 

Heading home, wish I had more time to sightsee

 We managed to get the plane from Oulu to Helsinki but as we were about to land, I checked times for our flight to Manchester and it said they had already started boarding so I started to freak but my dad was calm because there really wasn’t anything we could do. As soon as we go into to airport, I ran ahead to our next flight but it had already left. We went up to talk to the woman who at first told us our luggage had went on the plane when it hadn’t actually. After a while of trying to find flights ( were going to send us to an Arabian country then put us in a hotel overnight) we managed to persuade them to fly us to London Heathrow and from there to Glasgow. When we got to Glasgow we collected our luggage and got picked up by my mum. Overall the whole trip was amazing, I had a brilliant experience and learned so much. I’ve been invited to so many places to climb and train all over the world and asked if I would be competeing on the World tour next year! 

Central Oulu with the main church

 Special thanks go to my Sponsors @RAB for their continued support and financial assistance and to Snow Factor- Braehead, Krukonogi and Summit to Eat.
I'm so thankful to everyone including mum and dad who helped make the trip happen, it really was a great trip. Roll on next year!!!

My first White Goods trip.

a couple of weeks back was the first time I visited the dry tooling venue White goods. I travelled down to Simon and Laura’s late on the Saturday night, reday for an early start on the Sunday morning.

 

As planned, Simon and I got up early in the morning and drove down over to White Goods. The crag is near Ruthin in North Wales. As soon as we got there, we walked five minutes into the crag. At first, I was nervous because it was high, but the nerves soon left and the excitement took over. 

After loosening up, it was time to warm up! the first route I went on was Jazz an M8. This route is made up of several blocky overhangs. I found the route quite pumpy but I still really enjoyed the route and managed to on-sight it. 

This got me psyched to try the M8+ White Goods. For me the crux was the large overhang but I managed to get through it, making it my second on-sight of the day. 

I was super chuffed with how I had climbed and I then tried to repeat Jazz, unfortunately I popped off at the second last clip. I was feeling pretty tired and really happy with the climbs I had done, so to finish off Simon and I messed around trying some moves and figure 4’s on an M11. 

We packed up and left the crag just after 1 o’clock giving us plenty of time to go bouldering. 

From Simons we ran 2 miles to the climbing wall. 

We bouldered around trying different problems before stopping and eating some pizza, Simon had to pay as I had on-sighted the 2 routes! 

We then got straight back to climbing for a short while before running back to Simons. I had a quick shower then headed for the train back home to Glasgow. This was one of my favourite days out dry tolling because I really liked the venue and I was happy with my climbing.

My next trip down to Macclesfield was just there and not to climb but to be at Simon and Laura’s wedding and what a brilliant day that was, congratulations to them both.

Thanks as always to my sponsors for being so generous in supporting me.

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