Bouldering – The Crag Journal

Climbing in Estonia: Baltic Bouldering

1st Oct 20236th Sep 2025TheCragJournal1 Comment

The Baltic region is well known for being flat and it sits in the heart of the Great European Plain, which is the largest area in Europe without mountains. This probably accounts for why Estonia sees so little climbing activity, but you would be very wrong to assume there is no climbing in the country. On the contrary, there are hundreds of boulders in Estonia and it isn’t low-ball pebble wrestling either, many of them are enormous.

Climber on large boulder with a flat grass landing with rocks — Spooky slab climbing on ‘Right Parallel’ 6B, at Jaani-Tooma

The large number of erratic boulders in Estonia were used to help develop early theories about continental glaciation. Now we know that both igneous and metamorphic boulders were carried to Estonia from Finland on a glacier, around 20,000 years ago. The boulders were deposited in their final resting place roughly 13,000 years ago when the glacier melted. Geologists have compared the composition of the boulders to those in southern Finland and have been able to map out which areas specifically they travelled from.

Climber using the crack features on a large boulder in the field above a bouldering mat — Great climbing on ‘Step Dad’ 6A, Tammneeme

We started our journey in Estonia much the same way the boulders did…by taking the ferry from Finland. After reading about the boulders on ClimbEstonia, we knew we wanted to spend some time climbing here and enjoy seeing some beautiful parts of Estonia that are off the radar of almost everyone.

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Sport Climbing and Bouldering in Bosnia and Herzegovina

10th Oct 202126th Mar 2026TheCragJournal4 Comments

POST UPDATED 2026

Bosnia and Herzegovina is hands down one of the best countries in the Balkans, and it is one of the most interesting and unique countries in all of Europe. For climbers, Bosnia is a real treat, with loads of great crags and a variety of styles – tufas, pockets, slabs, overhangs and many multipitches as well. The crags are often near historical sites of great interest or national parks of immense natural beauty, meaning you will always have something enjoyable to do on your rest days. The people of Bosnia are incredibly friendly and welcoming, you will meet lots of great people here and it is easy to feel a connection to the place. Despite all of the great things about Bosnia, it is not yet affected by the mass levels of tourism that many parts of Europe struggle with more and more. This means you often get to enjoy some truly spectacular places completely crowd free, especially if you visit outside of the summer. Considering all this, there really isn’t any reason not to visit Bosnia, so go and enjoy it for yourself!

We love Bosnia so much that we have visited 4 times, totalling around 3 months in the country. This blog post is an amalgamation of all of our experiences in Bosnia across these trips, including from our latest visit in 2026.

A climber in a blue t-shirt on a large conglomerate limestone cliff that projects out of the hillside, with a forest below and a green valley in the background. — Truly excellent climbing and position on ‘Liječeni Rupofiličar’, 6b+, Pecka

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Bouldering in Prilep, North Macedonia: Europe’s Lesser Known Block Heaven

26th Aug 20216th Sep 2025TheCragJournal3 Comments

Arriving in North Macedonia, we were dropped off in Skopje with only our bags, no Macedonian dinar and in search of where on earth our rental car company was. With no guidebook but a name of a city and a Petzl RockTrip video from 2014 we set off on our journey.