My wife is not a walrus.

Lina's belly is reaching gigantic proportions and some have begun comparing her to various animals and fictional creatures. I think Lina's belly is beautiful and would never call her a walrus, or fat, or a cow, or a hippo, or barbapapa, or mumin. (if you don't know those last two google them)
Anyway, Hammerstryke is growing and doing just fine in Lina's belly and we can't wait to meet him/her.
Here are a couple belly pics for those that have been requesting.

Exhibit A: Lina eating food

Exhibit B: a full belly


Dr Lina and her belly experiment

Jesus Flys to Heaven...to get away from choss

I think we call it "the Ascension" in English but the day Jesus was said to ascend into heaven has a better ring to it when translated from Swedish. Jesus-Flys-to-Heaven Day is a national holiday in Sweden and Lina and I paid our respects by trying to ascend some boulders in Småland.
Since Lina's new physique doesn't allow her to climb the trip was primarily scouting as we cruised around checking out several bouldering areas. Some were disappointing and some were a welcomed surprise.

Järnforsen
I'd been wanting to go to Järnforsen for some time and when I rolled into town I was expecting to climb myself to oblivion. Unfortunately I discovered that the rock is generally decomposing choss or glued choss, which is even worse. I spent hours hiking among perfect sized boulders hoping to find one that wasn't about turn to rubble at the touch of a hand. It's a shame that all that rock is wasted and I won't go back unless I have someone to show me around as there was occasionally descent quality rock. I did manage to find and climb one sweet problem as Rythm in itself is worth a stopover.

Rythm. A bad picture of Järnforsen's good problem

Kyrkstenarna
I'd seen a picture of a super line at a small area 40 km from Järnforsen and since it didn't look like choss we cruised down. Kyrkstenarna is a little area with good rock. I think the problem I did was called Salvation and it was worth the detour. There seemed some good high stuff still to do.

Salvation from choss.

Värnamo
The bouldering around Järnamo is the exact opposite of Järnforsen. The rock is incredibly good but the boulders were generally runtish. There were a few respectable sized boulders and I'm convinced there is some good stuff to be found. I'd like to go back and see the areas I didn't have time to check out.

One of Värnamo's mini boulders. Sitstart to get more bang for your buck.

The best problem I did. Great line and good height.

Project. Looks sweet. I think it's hard.

Spain Installment: Albarracin

Unfortunately this vid is only climbing. Hopefully I'll have more babies and animals in the next one.
Enjoy.

Spain Installment: Albarracin from Walker Kearney on Vimeo.

Vallhamra

Trying to salvage my weekend after a planned trip to Bohuslan fell through I went back to Vallhamra, a rarely visited area just outside of Gothenburg. I'd established a few problems there a year or so ago and remembered a few worthy lines still to do. It ended up being great as I FAed 4 new quality problems, one of which climbs out a cool triangle feature on a beautiful roof and goes on the list of best in Gothenburg. For some reason my memory had downplayed the area and I have no idea why it took me so long to go back there. I think it's interesting that Vallhamra is barely mentioned in the Gothenburg bouldering guide despite being better than other areas and easy to get to.

On a side note, I named the best problem Hammerstryke after our unborn child. Lina says the name can only apply while the kid is in the womb, but I wanted the name to live on so I attached it to an exceptional boulder problem.
Anyway, here's some pick of the new problems.

Peter on the Doughnut King. Quite a lot of climbing for such a short wall. A good time.

Twister. Pretty unique and super fun.

Peter on Stomach Capacity. This one took a little work and was trickier than I thought.

The other Peter on Hammerstryke. Super good problem out a beautiful roof.

Peter taking the lip on Hammerstryke. The crux is still a couple moves away.

Newness

The weather has been fantastic. That said, here's some pics of what I've been doing instead of making a Spain video. I'm still hoping to have a Spain segment on the blog within a week, but it depends on the weather.

Peter finds balance on Mantelpiece

Lars on the popular Double Arete in Lyse

Working one of my projects

Lars on the FA of a fun steep problem. Name?

Spång on his 300ith attempt of Kött Festivalen (Meat Festival)

Randomness

Nothing says "comfortable with my sexuality" like a bright pink cup

Enough said

So swoll'

The ladies can't keep their hands off us. Nbd

Sweet hair

Going for the rock'a'billy look. Greased Lightning!!

Dr Princess

Since I've been together with Lina the standard question I get from my friends is "what is she doing with you?". Said with the right tone it really gets the point across as it's pretty apparent that she is way too good for me. I guess people find it hard to understand what a beautiful and intelligent girl like Lina sees in a rambling dirtbag with sub-par personal hygiene and a penchant for climbing. Well, Lina's status as far superior to me has reached even greater heights as she is now officially Dr Lina. Congratulations Lina on receiving your PHDizzle and further baffling my friends.

Over four years of work conveniently organized in an easy to carry book.

Dr Lina receives congratulations from her opponent, Christer

The Slab-Dyno King

Anyone that knows Fredrik is well aware of his almost super human slab-dyno ability. Heading down to Spain there had been a lot of hype about a particular problem that had Fredrik's name written all over it, a balancy slab finnishing with dyno. I had spent hours falling off the Grasshopper on a trip two years earlier and helped hype up the problem (as did one of the Dosage movies). Fredrik's standing as supreme master of the slab-dyno was on the line but if he was worried it didn't show. It may look like a warmup for him but I found it quite hard. Enjoy.

Albarracin Slab-dyno: Grasshopper from Walker Kearney on Vimeo.

Spain Pics: Albarracin

Here's the last installment of pics from Spain. Albarracin is of course the well known sandstone area that has enjoyed a fair bit of popularity. Maybe too much popularity if you judge by the amount to toilet paper you find surrounding the parking area. Regardless, the place is pretty cool and well worth a trip for those that haven't been there.

Jesper puts on his war face

Mario on one of the many roofs

Johan on a sweet arete

Suyapa gets her slabclimb on

David on the recently broken Jabaloyas