CLIMBING AT ANY COST

Text & photo: Pim Shaitosa

For Pim Shaitosa, climbing is everything; she lives to climb – and climbs to live. When the pandemic forced her to stay home Sweden, she had venture out on icy rock to get her fix. What did she think of it? Not bad, not bad at all.

Name: Pim Shaitosa

Age: 34

Profession: Freelance creative Instagram: @pim.shaitosa

FOR MORE THAN A DECADE, I've been obsessed with climbing. In the beginning, I lay awake at night going through bouldering sequences, which I then demonstrated, grip by grip, in front of my colleagues. They probably didn't get any of it but seemed to find it entertaining to watch.

Since climbing came into my life, everything has slowly changed: how I work, who I socialise with, how I spend my money, what gives me energy, my mood, how I behave and what I eat. There are few leisure activities that have such a big impact on my whole way of life as climbing and now, twelve years later, I'm still just as into it.

Seven years ago, I promised myself to never spend another winter in Sweden, because I'm so strongly affected by the darkness, and I've kept to that promise. I spent my winters in warmer places, but then came the pandemic and I had no choice but to stay in Sweden.

I don't ski, so if I wanted to get out to get some light, fresh air and move around, I could take a walk. That's quite boring, though. So what could I do? I decided to drag myself out of the house, brave the cold and go climbing. There’s no point pretending that winter climbing is just as pleasant as climbing on cool summer days, but it’s still great to get out and get vertical.

Make winter climbing a pleasure

1. Dress properly: down jacket, proper shoes, thick socks, warm underwear and a pair of down trousers.

2. Bring heat packs (hand warmers), either reusable gel or disposable bags. These can be put in the shoes to soften them up a bit. Otherwise they’re very hard and you feel a bit like one of Cinderella’s step-sisters when they try on the glass slipper. Not very nice. You can also have the heat packs in your pockets or chalk bag to keep your fingers warm.

3. The most important thing during climbing: keep your fingers warm! If they get super cold, you won’t be able to feel the biggest grip even if you’re looking right at it. And if you can’t feel the grip, nor can you trust it. You can warm your hands on your neck or in your armpits before and during climbing. Before climbing, I usually like to give my hands and arms a good shake, like when I go cross-country skiing, to get blood to my fingertips.

4. Climb in blocks. The first climber does a warm-up climb. It’ll feel like shit, your fingers will hurt and as soon as you stop climbing, all the blood will rush to your fingers. Be careful not to climb too hard so that you get ’cold-pumped’ (when blood and lactic acid build up in your muscles). Between climbs, make sure to move constantly and get back on the wall again within a maximum of 5-10 minutes and do a real push. Then it’s the next person’s turn to climb their block. This way, you don’t have time to get cold and stiff. Keep your shoes warm between climbs; I usually put my shoes inside my jacket, close to the body.

5. Bring hot food and drinks; this can make the difference between a nice day and a miserable one.

WHEN I THINK OF CLIMBING in the winter, I think of the Alps and mountaineering, but I was stuck in cold Sweden, and here we had lower temperatures and more snow than we've had in many years. But everything can work if you're up for it!

I spent a lot of time at Örnberget in Stockholm this winter. During the warmer seasons, this cliff is very popular, almost like an outdoor gym, but in the cold and snow the situation was different, and we were often completely alone on the cliff. There’s only a short window for climbing in the winter as you can't start until the sun hits the rock. Otherwise, in shade and darkness the holds become icy cold and you completely lose feeling in your fingers. What's more, the sun goes down early, but that also means you get to climb in the soft evening light.

APART FROM CLIMBING and bouldering, in winter you can try dry tooling. It's an odd form of climbing where you use ice axes and crampons to go up stone walls that aren't covered by ice. In the rock there are small grooves where you can just insert the axe. Dry tooling was developed as a way of training when there was no ice to climb, but today climbers do it as a discipline of its own.

Since crampons and ice axes are sharp, it's a good idea to have a top rope if you're not a professional and aren't fully knowledgeable when it comes to technique and safety. A fall combined with a couple of sharp edges could mean that you cut your rope and land on the hill instead of being caught by the rope.

When it comes to winter climbing, I'd have to say that dry tooling is the most comfortable discipline. You have big shoes on your feet, so there’s room for really warm socks, and you don’t have to use your delicate little fingers on freezing-cold stone instead, you grab the ice axe with your whole hand in a cosy mitten. Climbing with a top rope can also be reassuring if your body feels a little stiff and unstable due to the cold. Keep in mind, however, that you only drytool on walls that are specifically for dry tooling, because the tools you use can ruin the rock for other styles of climbing.

I WAS COMPLETELY BLOWN AWAY by dry tooling the first time I tried it. It was so much more fun than I expected. I thought it would be a bit like climbing a ladder, even though you chop with axes, but instead, the ice axes felt like an extension of my arms. I imagined I was a praying mantis, because they have these hooks for arms, which slowly but surely took me up the wall. It was the first time ever that I didn't feel limited by my height. If it was too far to reach, I could just change grip on the ice axe, and then suddenly I could reach 20 centimetres further. Truly magical!

So now I climb year-round, regardless of the weather. It's always climbing season if you want it to be.