A small announcement in the newspaper -- Mannerheim's bunker to open for visitors. Of course I had to go...
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August 2017, Tamminiemi, Helsinki, Finland
Caving (Man-Made); Urban-Exploration (Bunkers)
I was searching for a place to visit this Sunday... with pretty much the only requirement being that a teenager would be interested in going. We ended up going to Kasaberget in Kirkkonummi.
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June 2017, Abandoned warehouses, Strömsby, Kirkkonummi, Finland; Kasabergetin luola, Strömsby, Kirkkonummi, Finland
Caving (Rock, Rock-Granite, Morphology-Crack, Basic, Surveying); Urban-Exploration (Buildings, Ruins); History
Can you drive by something for 20 years, and not be aware of the wonders just few meters from the road? You can. I had not heard about the Bemböle watermill ruins.
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June 2017, Bembölen vanha mylly, Espoo, Finland
Urban-Exploration (Ruins); Caving (Man-Made)
Dead cats were blended into margarine and fed to humans. We're going to a secret, abandoned tunnel to meet the ghosts of the cats. But it won't be easy to get there.
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April 2017, Undisclosed Finnish location, Finland
Urban-Exploration (Tunnels); Caving (Man-Made)
Today's evening excursion was to an abandoned railroad tunnel. The tunnel is 600 meters long, and in the middle of everything, at a place I've been many times, but I had never heard about the tunnel before.
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April 2017, Undisclosed location, Helsinki, Finland
Urban-Exploration (Tunnels); Caving (Man-Made)
Lazy Saturday, and all nearby caves have already been visited! Janne and I decided to visit a rock painting in the lake shores of the Hvitträsk lake in Kirkkonummi.
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November 2016, Hvitträsk cliff, Kirkkonummi, Finland
History; Hiking; Urban-Exploration (Historic-Sites)
This lazy Saturday's program for me and Janne was to visit some of the bunkers and moats around Helsinki's WWI defence structures. There are plenty of these structures, sadly all slowly rotting away. Historic sites, officially almost forgotten and certainly not cared for.
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September 2016, Pirkkola, Helsinki, Finland
Caving (Man-Made); Urban-Exploration (Bunkers)
When skiing or hiking at a new place, suitable maps are essential. These maps can be hard to come by, however, and most GPS maps do not contain information about walking paths, ski slopes or lifts. OpenStreetMap, however, has a lot of good information, and I have been using it in off-piste skiing, finding ski areas, and hiking around the world.
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August 2015, Los Arenales, Araucania, Chile
Skiing (Outdoor, Snow, Lifts); Climbing (Mountain); Urban-Exploration (Ski-Lifts)
A blown-up bunker. Debris. Darkness. Bats. Concrete rising to the heights. Walls hanging where they should not be. An ideal climbing place, if it wasn't for the grim past of this place and the morbid pictures of soldiers.
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June 2015, Humboldthain Flaktürme, Berlin, Germany
Climbing (Wall); Caving (Man-Made); Urban-Exploration (Bunkers)
Have ice axe. Will travel to London to go ice climbing. My cab driver thinks that is the weirdest thing he has heard his customers do. I think that if it is true, then his rides have been pretty boring.
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May 2015, Vertical Chill, London, United Kingdom
Climbing (Ice); Urban-Exploration (Buildings)
Avalanche pack, check. Skis, check. Mule, check. I am sitting on a mule, on my way to the ski slopes in Oukaïmeden in the Atlas mountains of Morocco.
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February 2015, Oukaïmeden, Morocco
Skiing (Outdoor, Snow, Lifts); Climbing (Mountain); Urban-Exploration (Ski-Lifts, Buildings)
Desperation, n. Travel to the end of the world in search of snow, and then find none. Lose your favourite tools, the skis. So desperate that you consider taking up heli-biking, but end up gliding on your butt in an imaginary world instead.
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August 2014, Hobbiton, Middle Earth, New Zealand
Sliding (Grass); Urban-Exploration (Amusement-Parks)
The Berg - a creation by architect Jakob Tigges - is the latest source of pride for Berliners. This artificial mountain covers almost the entire Tempelhof, an old airport. A park like no other. And I am in Berlin to make the first descent!
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June 2014, Tempelhof airport, Berlin, Germany; Arkko summer cottage, Teisko, Finland
Skiing (Outdoor, Substance-Other); Urban-Exploration (Airports)
So close, yet so far. I wanted so much to ski down from Volcán Copahue (2953 meters), but despite trying very hard it was not going to happen.
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August 2012, Caviahue, Argentina
Skiing (Outdoor, Snow, Lifts); Climbing (Mountain); Urban-Exploration (Ruins, Buildings); Swimming (Outdoor, Thermal-Bath, Water, Waterbody-Lake)
Many of my friends are regulars at Riksgränsen. But I had never been to this place that calls itself "Sweden's most legendary ski area". The legends are true. It is an amazing place. For starters, we were there in midsummer, skiing at midnight. In bright sunshine! The ski area is far above the arctic circle, and for about two months in the summer the sun does not set.
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June 2012, Riksgränsen, Sweden
Skiing (Outdoor, Snow, Lifts); Afterski; Sauna (Normal); Urban-Exploration (Buildings)
It is Sunday, +10 degrees, raining heavily, and it is the middle of summer in southern Finland. What should I do? Go ice climbing in Espoo, obviously.
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June 2012, Mankkaan lumenkaatopaikka, Mankkaa, Espoo, Finland
Climbing (Ice); Urban-Exploration (Landfills)