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What does an ice climber do during the summer? An obvious answer would be rock climbing, but in this case we spent the day fixing our ice climbing tower for the next season. Besides I don’t climb rock that much anyways. 
The weather was nice, as was the company and we got most of the things we had in our minds done. Simply put a splendid day.
Picture above: Yes it’s a windmill up there.
The tower itself is an old construction crane hull that we have upholstered with a cloth to prevent the water (and ice) entering inside the hull. As there’s no electricity nearby we have put together massive battery capacity (48 pieces of 110kg lead acid batteries) which are charged by a windmill. During the winter we pump the water from the nearby quarry to the top of the tower through sprinklers. It takes about two to three weeks of cold weather to freeze up into climbing condition. There’s about 30 meters of steep and pretty challenging ice. In fact Oulu, which probably is the flattest place in Finland, is the only place in the whole country where there’s enough challenging ice to hold national ice climbing championships. There’s been a couple of year’s gap between the championships (due some electricity problems, including a burned generator etc.) but now it seems likely that we’re able to arrange the championships during next season.
Few images of our tower:
