Michael's Musings

Zwieselbacher Rosskogel

2012-01-30T12:33:00.001+01:00

Georg and I were hoping for some ice climbing, but the conditions just continue to crumple our cropes!

Oh well, skiing it is then. We went to the Zwieselbacher Rosskogel, which I'd skied the year before. Very nice tour, had a great time. We ran into Adrian at the parking lot and the summit, he and a friend were zooming up the mountain and getting some good exercise. Near the end we were passed by these three relentlessly fast old guys, very humbling!

Schoentalspitze ski

2012-01-15T22:51:00.003+01:00

Josef and I had the day to ski. But I never saw Josef! A series of mishaps prevented us from making our rondesvous at 5:30 am in Holzkirchen. Basically he and I waited for each other separately, then like good alpine citizens, set off on our own solo adventures. While Josef stayed closer to home (building a nonetheless punishing regime of up and down among the smaller peaks), I went for one big mountain: the Schoentalspitze.

I'd first skied it a year ago, but there were too many clouds to get a good view. Today was very cold (-17 C in the bottom of the valley!), but clear, and I couldn't wait to see the sun. I started skinning up around 8 am. I passed a bundle of folks, surprising myself because I am hacking up mucus and generally sounding like someone who lives on the streets! Must be Crossfit...

Below the summit, a guy psyched me out by looking sketchy above, and so I took off skis pretty low on the slope. Climbing up in boots was hella awkward, lots of post-holing or granite slabs with thin layers of snow. Finally on top, I found a wind-protected place to sit. Some other guys came up and soon there was a big crowd crammed into my little "park bench." I freaked them out when I left, because I accidentally grabbed somebody elses ski poles. I couldn't understand that they were telling me to bring them back! Then I climbed back down into the wind shelter area, and promptly stole another persons poles instead. Oh brother...

The ski down was good. Great actually, I had a lot of powder to practice in, and felt like I really improved. Of course I crashed twice...plastering my face with icy crystals of death! Yowwww!

I can't wait for the next chance to ski powder...I think I'm getting somewhere. Of course the last slope was a crusty, skied-out narrow chute of fighting, scraping, jump-turning, just whatever.

3 hours up, 1 hour down. 1400 meters elevation gain. (more pictures here)

South Faces with Wayne

2011-11-02T20:04:00.002+01:00

I knew Wayne Wallace by reputation before moving away from Seattle, and met him when he came to see the Picket Range slideshow Theron, Aidan and I put on. His exploits in that range and elsewhere were really impressive, and it was an honor that he came out. In fact, anybody who does something interesting in the Picket Range can count on Wayne's interest and enthusiasm, which is super nice.

He was on a European vacation, and our schedule matched up for a few days. I was sharpening my crampons Friday night and expecting him to arrive any minute when the phone rang. Disaster! His luggage had been stolen on the train in Switzerland. Climbing boots, tools, you name it...it was gone. He was thinking about just hopping on a plane and going home. It was up to me to convince him to stay...

"We've got 3 days of high pressure, we've got sunny south facing walls and enough equipment at my house to outfit you. Finish your journey to the Eastern Alps and take solace!" I said. Well, maybe not so elegantly, but whatever I mumbled, it did the trick. Wayne arrived Saturday at noon, and we hung around the living room table for a 10 minute coffee break, then roared out of town for the Martinswand (if a 1997 Toyota Corolla can roar).

Our ultimate goal was the Dolomites, but we'd lose the light if we tried to make it all the way down there now. By 3 pm, we were roping up for Maxl's Gamsrevoir, a climb Adrian had introduced me to the previous spring. Wayne, in my borrowed rock shoes, made short work of the VII- highly polished crux, while I finally gave up and pulled through on gear. Wayne had interrupted my whole rhythm of late fall...now was when I was supposed to slide into sloth and put on some fat for winter. It's harder to feel good about that process with somebody so damn good is around!

We climbed 3 more nice pitches, then scrambled up to the base of the "Ostriss" (VI-), a really enjoyable 5 pitch climb I'd done two years before with Dan P. A couple of Austrian guys were scrambling down the easy way and told us we'd better have headlamps if we want to climb so late! I thought we'd make it without trouble. Indeed, Wayne took off on the long (50 meter) first pitch, which is quite interesting. We swapped leads to the top, enjoying the vertical climbing with huge dinner plate holds at overhanging steps. Cracks and corners led us to the top. We scrambled off to the right, put on our tennis shoes and hiked quickly down. Happily we reached the car before dark.

What time is it? Dinnertime! Wayne told me about the epic adventures he'd undergone so far in Europe. Amazingly, none of these epics included a good hot meal. Feeling somewhat like a worried parent, I rushed him to downtown Innsbruck for an infusion of good, heavy Tyrolean food and Weissbier. We slept at the Sella Pass under a cold sky full of stars.

In the morning, we found some coffee in town, then headed up to the Ciavazes cliff to climb the "Micheluzzi" Route (VI), 12 or so pitches of good climbing in the sun. I'd attempted it two years before with Dan, but blocks of ice hanging over the cliff came crashing down while we were on the first pitch...too close for comfort. I was worried that Wayne and I would run into the same conditions, but amazingly, that hanging subdivision of ice wasn't in place this year. There was certainly more snow lying around than two years ago.

Wayne took the first pitch, where already, the Ciavazes wall shows it's character. Steep, with occasional pockets for feet but more often angled edges with an unnerving patina of polish. He reached the belay and I came up, followed closely behind by a couple from Wolkenstein. They stayed with us all day. A bout of rockfall had us all crouching under nothing. One or two parties were above, and we looked forward to the moment when they'd start traversing off to the right. We also had to consider the predations of goats high above on the exit slopes of the upper cliff. Pitch two was probably my most exciting lead...steep and sometimes dicey. The protection was a mix of cams and pitons. It was fantastic, but a real wake up call!

Wayne took the next two pitches, partly because I was afraid to lead a VI pitch! (like I said, I'm out of shape and not too proud to whine about it) However, the feared VI pitch proved to be a (truly) tough move right at the belay, then entirely normal V climbing. I took the next two, a walk to reach the great traverse, then the first traverse pitch (V+). We'd never climbed a consistent horizontal traverse for 4+ pitches, so this would be novel. It was really neat to disappear around the corner and just keep going. Usually fairly easy, the cruxes came when the holds got small for hands and feet. The usual Dolomite mix of pins, cams and the rare nut protected each pitch. On the third traverse pitch, I got "lost" by angling slightly up as I traversed. I found gear, and it seemed quite reasonable, but it ended at a piton with a ratty sling and a rappel ring on it. I could see an ancient sling and piton about 10 meters below me. The folks behind us said that this was the right belay. I decided not to trust the ancient sling with knots that people had used to get down there, and to reverse the pitch and try again. It was the right call!

For the last traverse, Wayne continued right and made two crux (VI) downclimbs that I'd have to follow. Gulp! But actually, it wasn't so bad. I got some nice pictures on this pitch. Then I led around the corner and up on runout terrain to reach easier ground. Three more pitches followed, first, some awkward corner cracks with painful foot jams, then a long route-finding journey up a wide face (fun), and finally, straightforward moves to the "Gamsband."

Can't we sell this as an ad?

This had been an excellent climb, and we saw why it's a classic of the region. Technically, it's climbable year round thanks to the south face micro-climate. I'm looking forward to going back to climb a couple of other routes on the wall.

We searched for a place to sleep, and had bad luck initially. Knocking on many doors, everybody told us we'd need to stay more than one night, or to rent an apartment, or they just didn't answer. It was a real ghost town in Wolkenstein. Finally, on the last call I was going to make before sleeping by the car a cheerful woman answered and told us to come over. We got a room, then went out for pizza at a hockey rink, apparently the only place open. It was great! We watched the local kids play a lacrosse game on the indoor "field."

Looking across to Piz Pordoi, and the Fedele/Dibona combo Danno and I climbed in 2009

I was pretty amazed that Wayne continued to climb despite a worsening cold. At least that way one of us had a good reason for feeling exhausted at the top of approach gullies.

In the morning we learned, to my visible excitement that our hostess was the sister of Mauro Bernardi, the author of 3 amazing climbing guidebooks to the Dolomites! For the last couple of years, I've raved about his topos, they are so good and have saved me from a dozen easy-to-make routefinding mistakes. And it's evident he respects the dream of classic alpine climbs. Though these are becoming much less popular than modern sport routes, they do have their fans (namely, me), and have a champion in Mauro who generates excitement around these routes with great pictures, topos and guidebooks. Let me offer 1000 thanks for them.

Wow!

At the last minute, we decided to climb the Sas Ciampac, via a route called the Geschweifter Kamin (IV+). Two years before I'd climbed the Adang Route (V) with Dan. The Geschweifter Kamin wouldn't offer hard, clean rock climbing, like we'd get with another route on the Ciavazes cliff, but it would provide another view of the Dolomites for Wayne, and the longer approach and descent would be part of the fun, I thought. Fully prepared for scruffier alpine rock, we set off with one rope and a small rack from a parking place just below the Grödnerjoch. We exchanged Mountaineers stories on the way up, having a few good laughs. I think the Mountaineers are great, as does Wayne, but that doesn't change the fact that some close up encounters have been bizarre or surprising!

We found the start in a deep gully (relative to the face). I led off for a dusty, somewhat insecure pitch in a chimney, feeling like there must have been a massive rockfall here in recent days by the powdery layer over everything useful. Ugh. Wayne led off and traversed out of the gully to scrambling terrain. We unroped for the next three pitches of easy terrain, then started up roped again on a reasonable face gouged by chimneys and cracks. Two long pitches here led us to below the "Three Cornered Overhang," where Wayne had found a perch in the sun. As part of fighting the cold, he was prone to overdress and seek the sun, even moving belays around as necessary to accommodate.

A few exciting vertical moves followed, passing a small fixed cam and a piton, then traversing up and left to reach a belay above the overhang. Wayne led a long pitch to a ledge, where he moved so far right in search of sun that the next pitch was just a 50 meter traverse back into the deep, dark chimney that would provide our exit. Ha! Wayne got us into the chimney, and I led a nervous pitch up the right wall past a curious wooden dowel with a coathanger wire to clip in. Weird! But it fit in the crack where nothing else would, so who am I to complain! A bit tired from the moves, I rested and found more gear before climbing up to a cave belay.

The cave was a bit creepy because it looked like we'd have to climb water ice to escape. Gulp! Maybe Wayne would get to use his mixed skills after all...just without any equipment. As it turned out, there was a way around this problem, and Wayne brought us to scree slopes at a notch in the summit ridge. We ate some food and put on shoes, hiking to the summit for amazing views of Corvara and peaks in all directions.

Hiking down, we realized how much we'd admired the LinkCam I found on the Arbengrat of the Obergabelhorn this summer. It was an amazing piece, finding good usage on almost every pitch! Being somewhat old, we talked about knees and their difficulties. We reached the car in early evening, driving home as the late fall sun quickly descended.

Thanks for some good climbing Wayne, and thanks to the mountains for awesome weather!

More pictures here...and Wayne wrote about his whole Europe trip on his blog here.

Wilde Leck (IV-)

2011-10-04T17:00:00.000+01:00

I left Munich at 5:30 am, with my bike, boots, crampons and ice axe. I planned to climb the Wilde Leck by the Ostgrat (East Ridge). It's a glorious scramble on solid granite, rated somewhere between III and IV. With such great weather lasting for weeks, I figured the rock would be as dry and snowfree as it gets all summer. Time for a solo trip!

I like to go alone sometimes. It's kind of a head-clearing exercise. In this case some things happened that marred the spiritual experience of the day, but I'll get to that.

I rode the bike up from Gries, forgetting how painful steep hills are. I'd ride for a while then get off and walk, my inner thigh muscles practically singing. My pack felt pretty heavy. All the "good times" of the last two months were catching up with me. Aside from a couple isolated climbs, I hadn't done much since July, when I felt in top shape. But as usual, life has trade offs. I wouldn't trade taking the kids to Disneyland for anything, or the Dolomite hike with them, or their first days of school. Good times.

At the hut I ate some Apfelstruedel and drank some coffee, then rode the bike a little further on the flat valley floor to where the trail started uphill. This picture looks back on that flat valley:

And here is my goal, the Wilde Leck on the right!

After a steep hill climb, I walked on an interesting moraine, stopping to fill my water bottle at a stream. I hadn't seen anybody yet. Judging from the activity at the hut, everyone staying overnight left long before. Seems like 9 am is the emptiest time for such huts. They were mopping, playing music, eating breakfast...and were startled to see me!

Eventually I gained the glacier, which wasn't very exciting. It made me miss glaciers of the cascades, with their deep and huge crevasses. The continental climate of the eastern alps just doesn't allow for that kind of build up. Turning onto the smaller, but still active Wilde-Leck Glacier, I kicked steps up an icy slope and got my first view of the ridge. I knew people were up there, but they were too small to see.

Planning to cache my axe, poles and crampons at the place where the ascent and descent routes meet, I emptied my pack to discover I had rock shoes in there. That's why it's so heavy! With only a moments reflection I decided to climb and descend in the rock shoes. It'll be faster and with a greater safety margin too, as long as I don't get too crazy following variations that I wouldn't touch in boots.

Gaining the ridge was exciting. First off, the rock here was pretty loose. First I followed a natural line, traversing right and gently up. But I got tired of that in my snazzy shoes, so I took a steeper line. Pretty soon I was climbing what was probably the crux pitch for me, a polished lieback crack which looked very low angle from below, but seemed to steepen once on it! The handholds were good, but I was glad to finish that, and sought to be a bit more conservative on the rest of the trip to the crest. The worrisome thing was that at the top of the lieback crack I had to rely on stacked blocks overhanging the exit. With the amount of loose material around this involved delicate testing. But anyway, finally I was on the crest:

It continued like this, really nice from the get-go, and always providing solid and airy climbing. Here I caught up to a party above:

And here was a really neat "fin" that is climbed to about 8 meters below the summit, then traversed on the left:

Here I'm looking down from a slabby section on the fin below:

The crux of the climb is supposed to be a "Piazriss" (lieback crack) at grade IV-. I actually climbed the face left of the crack because I was climbing through a party and they had the rope draped over the crack. I wouldn't have done this without rock shoes!

There was some great knife-edge climbing that reminded me of the North Ridge of Mt. Stuart in Washington State:

The ridge in partial profile:

The summit block had a very interesting pitch, I drew a red line for the way I went through:

Life on top:

I met Markus and Sabine from Salzburg there, they were really nice. I hung around a while, then followed them down. The party I passed was approaching the summit. I don't think I'll see this panorama again until everything is covered in snow...

The descent was pretty easy, but one area gave some trouble. There had been a recent and massive rockfall, which overlaid about 30 meters of the descent in fine dust, and many blocks seemed to be loose. I struggled to find the safest way through, exploring 4 possibilities left and right. The correct way is to follow the red paint, though it goes through a zone of uncomfortable looseness, and requires a committing step onto a cantilevered block that doesn't appear well attached (especially considering the violence that overtook the region!). I finally figured out a way to test it by jumping on it with my hands well-attached to a solid block. Once you feel safe standing on the block, the descent continues easily, though a bit dusty for a while.

I used my crampons on the glacier, more to justify carrying them so far than for anything else. I followed the glacier then trail down, nearly making a "wrong" turn and going down to the valley floor. Backtracking a bit, I descended via the moraine. I thought I was in front of Mark's party, but they went to the valley floor and got so far in front of me, that I had no idea they'd been in the hut drinking beer and expecting me to show up. Darn. Anyway, my feet hurt, and I had kind of an exertion headache. I resolved to just go down, especially as I anticipated some bike trouble.

Indeed I had some! I ignore my bike for long periods, and now it got me back. The brakes were already worn down to nothing, and now I wanted to descent 1500 feet on a steep road! I squeezed so hard, grinding metal into the metal rim of my back tire. Ouch! Anyway, this meant I had to go slow. Mark's party zoomed past. By the time I got down my hands were cramping from braking so hard.

Car to car time was 10 hours, and 1800 meters up and down. I was beat. I drove down and decided to get home by Imst and the Fernpass. Big mistake! I ended up waiting in a meadow beside the road for an hour to see if traffic would let up. It only got worse. I gave up and went home via Innsbruck and the A12, enduring a minor adventure with nearly running out of gas and having the gas station I was aiming for closed for construction! What with one thing and another it took 6 hours to get home, where it should take a little more than 3. Oh well, sometimes you have to pay for the good weather somehow!

More pictures here, and Markus wrote about his tour with Sabine here.

check this out, a pretty funny video somebody made on YouTube of the climb! I love when he tries to ride a cow:

Something about veterans

2011-10-04T16:15:00.001+01:00

War wounds. Amputations. For some reason, these were my thoughts this morning. I never knew anybody who lost something big in a war, and my first thought is that it's tragic and depressing. But it's not a useless waste. For us today, war is sanitized and the reality of what is happening is kept away from view. Wounds bring it home, showing that there are consequences. Those that make the decisions to create war need to see, and live among the people who sacrificed for those goals, however worthy they may be. The population at large needs to see the human consequence of political decisions. The war-monger and the anti-war activist are similar in that their rhetoric becomes ever more strident, the further away they are from real suffering and death.

I'm not really touching on the topics of the book here, but recently I read "What it is Like to Go to War," by Karl Marlantes. It was really good. His explanation of the psychology behind choosing to be a warrior was excellent. The problem is that you are not innocent, because you made a choice. But generally, it was a noble choice, meant to save people from harm. But still, there are consequences to killing, and our society needs to try and understand what we ask of soldiers at a deeper level.

Anyway, I guess my completely uneducated thought is that a soldier should be proud of his wounds. They teach the rest of us about the seriousness of what we ask, and the nobility of those who answer.

Anna K. and I record a song

2011-09-25T19:41:00.000+01:00

Anna is on the left...

Back in July, Kris, the boys and I went on a long hike in Italy. The first night we stayed at the Grasleitenhütte, beautifully nestled in the Rosengarten Dolomites. We met Anna K., a student who was spending the summer there. She was playing guitar and singing in the common room. I played along for a while, and we agreed to meet one day to play more music. Amazingly, that happened on Saturday, when she and a friend Julia came to Munich for Oktoberfest. I had a terrible cold, so I had to keep my distance, but we managed to record Anna playing guitar and singing, and Julia played the intro on guitar as well.

That was a fun meeting! Also fun to hear about Julia's adventures as a firefighter (more to come I'm sure). Later, I added two more guitar parts, and sadly had to throw away Anna's part which was great but I recorded it way too loud. Julia's part is just too quiet, darn it. Play louder girl! So what survives is Anna's vocals, a rhythm guit">Hallelujah, by Leonard Cohen, from the Shrek movie.

Big thanks to Julia and Anna for stopping by. Hope to meet again sometime. Anyway here is the song:

Hallelujah by ripsawridge

If you click on the song to go to the soundcloud site you can download the mp3. Seems like great surroundings produce great people :).

The Grasleitenhütte

Why I still blog

2011-09-21T10:56:00.003+01:00

I've blogged rarely since about 2004, when I came late to the bandwagon ("why not just write a page in html, duh?"), and now that it's a much rarer activity, find myself doing it more than ever. I always thought something else would come along and be the new way for me to transmit thoughts into the world. For a while, I was really active on sites like Summitpost.org, and Facebook. But the former is too narrow-band for my scatterbrained interests (sometimes politics, or synth music, or guitars, or climbing, or a family trip, or...), and the latter is...well. I mean, I use Facebook all the time, and still like it. But the thought that they just own everything I put up there bugs me more. Summitpost is different, they explicitly state all the time that it's your content and you can remove it at any time. It depresses me to contribute so much to a corporate juggernaut that's going to remix my 2009 thoughts endlessly and derive profit from them. It's even more depressing that I don't pull the plug on them completely.

So this is my little rebellion. If I've got something worth saying, that I think is worth keeping, at least for a while, I'll put it here on the ol' blog. I know...so 2006!

Hmm...I should probably read the blogspot terms of service...

Another complaint about Facebook...I'm trying to make any time I spent "for fun" on the computer more productive. It's all time I'm stealing from family, from exercise, from real-life visits with friends, and that needs to be remembered (if occasionally ignored :(). After an hour of "Facebookin'," what do you have? You learned your friends trivia, and I've got no problem with that. This won't be a rant about trivia. I actually think it's important and a way to know the texture of a person's life if you can't really see them very often. I think any danger is more that of a Facebooker self-censoring to fit an image they've constructed. This happens...have you ever thought you knew something about a friend only to find out later via some other medium that they quit their job and went back to school 2 months ago? Ouch. Meanwhile their Facebook feed just continues the stream you've grown used to. So I do think that is a problem.

Anyway, sorry for the tangent. But after I've watched peoples funny videos, read their good links, made my occasional comments here and there, then I wonder where did the evening go? So, "productive" computer fun-time is the answer. For me this is

Writing reports of mountain adventures (hey, it's how the whole "internet" started for me :))
Writing songs and sharing them
(Lately) transcribing guitar parts from songs I like and sharing them
Making a movie or song about the kids
Writing some kind of article
Dreaming up new things to do

My thinking is that all of these activities at least leave something new in the world, even if it's only interesting to me. Along the way I hopefully get better at something too.

Fascinating articles on the piton dispute

2011-09-21T03:44:00.000+01:00

I've been interested for a long time in the thoughts of Paul Preuß, Hans Dülfer and other early rock climbers. They grappled with the same problems we have today, putting an amazing amount of foresight into an activity that, looking back, appears at a primitive stage of development because of the rudimentary technology. Not so!

Open publication - Free publishing - More alpinism

A link to the publication is here.

Elijah's Song

2011-09-16T20:33:00.000+01:00

As part of learning how to use the Korg MS-20 synthesizer, I made this instrumental song last night. The drums are from GarageBand, but all the other sounds are from multiple MS-20 monophonic vintage synths!

Today I added some lyrics, and got some sounds from Elijah (at the beginning) and Rowan (he says "Elijah" in the middle of the song). Click here to listen to this song. Some of the vocal effects are from GarageBand, but interestingly, others come from routing the vocals through the MS-20 patch bay, which I see as just the beginning of some fun exploration using that unit in wild ways.

Just for review, the Rowan of the Hills song is still available. I made this almost two years ago, and am happy to finally pay the debt to Elijah of making his song too!

There is also an instrumental version of the Elijah Song available here for your dance mixes! :D

Electronic music links

2011-09-15T13:41:00.001+01:00

I've got a Korg MS-20 virtual synth now, and am trying to really sit down and learn how to create cool synth sounds. I found a great site called Sonicstate.tv, with tutorials on the unit.

On the Nature of Daylight

2011-09-13T11:19:00.000+01:00

This is actually a post from a year ago, but it got lost when I moved blogs around.

I really love this incredible song by Max Richter, "On the Nature of Daylight," from the album "The Blue Notebooks." I decided to make my own version of the song for acoustic and electric guitar, plus some keyboard noodling. You can download it here (4.1 MB).

It took me a few weeks. First I had to figure out the music. It's a beautiful string quartet and a synthesizer bass (I think). It's in B-flat minor, without a single accidental. Beauty and variation come from the simple lines maintained in the different parts, and the song adds layers in a minimalistic style.

My rendition can't compete with the original at all, it's just that I liked it so much I had to try. The biggest problem with mine, I think, is that I have a fixed tempo, which destroys too much musicality. I don't really know how to multitrack without a set tempo, if you have any advice let me know...

I overdubbed 4 acoustic guitar parts, and 3 electric guitar parts (2 are mostly doubling the same line).
Anything by Max Richter is great, I've become a big fan over the last few months.

Pictures and links for Rosengartenspitze

2011-09-12T19:44:00.001+01:00

Since I couldn't take any pictures on this amazing climb, I figured I'd bring a lot of things I found laying around on the web here.

Nice picture from ukclimbing.com:
.

Great image from Radek and Shirley's inspiring Dolomite trip of 2008:

My own pictures of the wall from June:

Here is a link to the topo in the Köhler/Memmel book (in german).

Bivouacs are not usual, usually because of the devious routefinding. Here is a story with an overnight bivouac, and here is another from a friend of mine.

Here is the page on mountainproject.com.

Here is a photo taken by Graham of a friend of mine, Jesse in 2008:

Here is just a really nice photo of the wall. And another, the route on the far left:

Another picture from Graham with the approximate route:

Rosengartenspitze, Ostwand "Steger"

2011-09-12T13:23:00.002+01:00

Alas, no pictures! I forgot the camera at home! But I do have some iPod Nano footage (shaky)

Adrian and I made a weekend trip to the Dolomites. His girlfriend Traudi came along with us to get some relaxation in beautiful scenery while we climbed. We drove down Friday afternoon, and after renting a taxi to the Gardecci Hut, walked in the moonlight up to the Vajolet hut, where Pete and I stayed during our June trip to the area. We had two bottles of wine and potato salad with potatoes from Traudi's family farm in Romania. Delicious!

The next morning, after breakfast, we hiked to the base of the route. Two other guys were in front and we figured our job would be easier because we could follow them for route confirmation. That didn't really work out as planned, however. As we got ready, a multitude of other parties converged at the base. I scrambled up the easy first "pitch," to get in line just in front of a party of three nice Italians, who we would see on and off throughout the day.

Adrian took the first lead, a steep pitch generously endowed with holds to keep the grade down. He belayed 50 meters up at the base of a steep corner that had the crux moves of the climb (pitch 4 on the topo). I followed and led through the crux, finding it most difficult where I needed to place a large cam in an overhanging corner before traversing off right and up to a steep but crumbly face. Adrian followed, then led up through a surprisingly difficult wall up and left of the belay, which we estimated to be as hard as the crux moves below. Later, a look at the topo revealed an easier way up a white wall above the belay that lookd holdless, but actually had big, camoflaged grips. From here, we continued a couple of pitches wondering exactly where we were. The problem was that terrain was not difficult, providing many options, and indeed, the wall is festooned with old pins and slung belay stances. Losing the route is common in here!

I led easily up into a corner, then by a slung "sanduhr" (hourglass) traversed left across a small face to then climb a rapidly easing corner to a stance. I knew that the route makes a devious gentle traverse rightward in this area, but neither we nor the party of three below could figure out where it was, despite 2 topos and one italian detailed pitch description. I was cautious because a friend had already spent a night out in a cave on the face due to an error here. Adrian led off, inclined to follow the two climbers above, though they seemed to be getting off route by going straight up a black crack that one topo writes "NEIN!" over! Adrian searched for the right way, knowing he should go right but not sure exactly how or where. Finally he settled on a traverse of a difficult face, emerging on a ledge that, to me and the Italians below, looked like nirvana: a perfect belay ledge. But Adrian found only a few edelweiss plants. The Italians started up and found the proper ledge 10 meters higher than Adrian. Now he had the unenviable task of reversing his route, cleaning cams and nuts along the way. He did this, and climbed up to the proper belay. It was costly, but overall, time well spent because the error could have been worse!

Two really nice pitches followed, a IV+ and V, first cracks and face up to the base of a steep corner (and crowded belay, with the Italians), then Adrian led a stellar chimney/crack pitch that marked the halfway point on our topo. Yes!

Three more straightforward pitches led up to the base of another beautiful steep corner crack. Still, it was easy to get lost. The Italians headed off right, missing the key climb behind a massive block in a chimney identified on route maps (fun climbing, too). Later, confused, we ventured right to follow them, then came back to the main line, a little apprehensive about the steep faces they were climbing above! In the lower part of this section I cowered under an overhang as two volleys of highspeed rock fall from high above exploded around me. That distinctive fluttering sound is never easy to hear! Again, Adrian got the V+ corner crack on his lead...I started chiding him for stealing all the hard pitches. It was a really fun ropelength, well protected by cams and the occasional piton.

Two moderate and fun pitches led up and right, closing off options as a smooth yellow face loomed above us. Birds whooshed around the cliff at high speed, and clouds began pouring through the low gap in the range to the south. We caught the Italians again at a belay before the final chimney, perched scenicly above a steep, yellow grade V face. They had had good adventure on a line off to our right, and we'd heard them every now and then around the corner for the previous 4-5 pitches.

I got the last full pitch. We'd put on jackets now, as the clouds through the gap had spread and finally made it over the summit. Adrian, smiling through gritted teeth said: "Please. No delay. Climb. I am cold." More direct words were never spoken! I went up the final bit of the yellow face, then into the chimney, favoring one side and then the other, with the crux moves ascending a hand crack on the right side. Wow, what a pitch! I emerged at a notch in the ridge, seeing the Italians scrambling the summit, coils of rope in their hands. I couldn't find a good gear belay, and finally just wrapped the rope around a section of the ridge. Adrian came up, pleased as punch, then set off on a scramble to the summit. I coiled half the rope and followed to the top. We stood under the cross and offered congratulations all around! There were clouds to block the view of the Gardeccia, but valleys and peaks to the north were visible. Swaths of green ridges were especially impressive, constrasting so greatly with the big yellow and gray bulks embedded into the clouds.

We descended easily to the north, scrambling on a ridge past an unnecessary (in dry conditions) rappel anchor, then reaching a notch in the ridge to make a 50 meter rappel to more scrambling. We passed a hut and continued down to the Vajolet Towers, and then our own hut, just in time for dinner. Traudi said she heard me and my loud voice for 20 minutes coming down the canyon. Oops!

We had a great dinner, and finished with good wine, talk and a much-needed hot shower. I was getting lots of German practice with Traudi, who explained the history of the opera and many other interesting things. Adrian and I resolved to climb the "Fedele" Route on Punta Emma the next day. A short climb, it would allow us to leave early and get home at a decent hour.

Fedele Route, Punta Emma, V-, 11 pitches

I ended up basically scrambling the first pitch (IV+) due to a misreading of the topo, oops! Finally at the end of the pitch I got a decent cam in to protect the final moves up a slabby corner. I led the next pitch too, a really fun V- corner crack. Adrian continued on easier but still interesting terrain to a spot below a distinctive black crack. I climbed up to the crack, placed a solid cam, then traversed left to a line of pitons in a shallow, smooth corner. Amazingly, there was a small hidden hold just where necessary. Clipping the last of three pitons was very awkward, as I was already traversing out of the smooth corner along a line of holds leading left. Now, up and left a long ways for a full 55 meter pitch to a 3 piton belay on the right side of a buttress of imposing black rock, permanently stained by waterfalls in the rainy season. Adrian came up and led an impressive looking pitch with a short overhang directly above my belay. We talked about how Fedele was a genius at finding easy routes up vertical faces, both veterans as we are of the "Fedele/Dibona" monster line on Piz Pordoi, improbably rated grade V. This smaller climb shared the serious feeling of the larger, because of the vertical angle of rock all around you.

Adrian had combined two pitches, leading up into the final black chimney, easily visible from trails below. In a repeat of the day before, I got the final chimney moves, emerging on easy ground 100 meters below the summit. Here we unroped, joking about my decision to climb without a pack (and therefore without food and water). Basically I was tired of climbing with a pack from the day before, and knew this climb was easy enough to allow a break from the alpine traditions. Adrian tried to offer me water, which I gallantly refused. Then he tried to offer me his favorite candy, a "Kinder Pinguino" (children's penguin). When I refused that he called me an unprintable name and all but forced me to accept it. Good fun!

We walked the summit, talking about past and future climbs to do. I remembered being here with Pete two months before, thinking about how he'll be a dad soon. Man, time flies!

Easily down with scrambling and a rappel, then to the hut and down to Traudi, enjoying herself in the beautiful meadows near the Gardeccia Hut. This was an amazing place, with families laying out on the grass, kids running around, all beneath the fantastic towers of the central Rosengarten ridge. It wouldn't have hurt Adrian and I to spend the day here, either.

The taxi and the drive home followed. Big thanks to Adrian and Traudi for driving, companionship and the friendship of the rope!

Detailed pitch descriptions

Rosengarten Ostwand "Steger"

P1 - II, scrambling.
P2,3 - IV+,V, Adrian combined these easily in 50 meters climbing cracks and a yellow corner to a belay in the corner.
P4 - VI-, I led up from the corner to an overhang, then right and up a sometimes-loose yellow face to a belay.
P5 - V+, Adrian led left and up from the belay in some hard moves, then IV+ crack terrain to easier ground and a belay.
P6 - V, Michael led easily up to a corner, then traversed left at a block (good nut) into an easier corner and grade III terrain to a belay on the left of a gully.
P7 - IV+, Adrian, up the gully to then turn right after 25 meters beneath a yellow corner and gain a yellow ramp. By no means continue up the corner or veer left into a black crack ("schwarzer Riss" on german topos).
P8 - IV+, Michael, enjoyable easy but steep climbing up cracks, wandering left then back right to a belay in a corner at the end. 30 m.
P9 - V, Adrian, up a steep crack which widens to a chimney. Climb first on the right then the left wall to reach a nut and Sanduhr (hourglass) belay. 40 m.
P10 - IV+, Michael, Follow a crack straight up into an easy gully. Higher, the gully steepens to offer enjoyable grade IV climbing at it's exit to a nut belay. It's easy to lose the route in the middle of this pitch by veering right. 45 m.
P11 - IV, Adrian. Continue on easy (II) terrain to where the gully gains more definition again and a distinctive huge block is wedged inside. Climb behind the block to a two piton belay. 35 m.
P12 - IV, Michael. Don't be tempted rightward here, continue straight up the chimney/gully where it steepens at a crack, then eases to a belay below an impressive black crack. 35 m.
P13 - V+, Adrian. Climb the crack straight up past some pitons to a belay on a ledge/terrace. 35 m.
P14 - IV, Michael. Follow a ramp up and right in very pleasant climbing with big exposure below, but good holds always at hand. We found a 3 piton belay. 45 m.
P15, 16 - IV, V, Adrian. Clip a piton 2 meters above and right of the belay, then continue up gully/channels (we ignored the topo's idea of going right and around a ridge). Emerge on a yellow face, climbing the easiest line past a few pitons to a spectacular belay with the valley laid out below. 50 m.
P17 - V+, Michael. Finish climbing the yellow face, and into a chimney with the most difficult moves shortly before the exit, in a solid hand crack on the right wall. Belay with gear and slings. 30 m.
P18 - III, Adrian. Climb a last slabby step on low angle ridge to where the ridge melts into a low angle face. 25 m.

From here, scramble to the summit (II, 80 m).

Punta Emma, "Fedele"

P1 - IV+, Michael. Climb steep but grassy face directly below a striking dihedral to a belay at the base of the dihedral. 30 m.
P2 - V-, Michael. Climb the dihedral with good cam and piton protection to a belay where the angle lessons. 25 m.
P3 - IV, Adrian. Climb easy terrain in the gully up and right to a solid crack (IV) and a three piton belay. 40 m.
P4, 5 - V-, IV, Michael. Climb easy ground to the base of an obvious black crack. Look left of the crack for a line of pitons in a shallow black dihedral. Ascend this, then continue left and up, past a two piton belay. I continued up and left to a three piton belay at the right side of a black wall. 55 m.
P6 - V-, Adrian. Climb up enjoyable rock to a piton and exposed moves over a slight overhang. Easily back left and up to a two piton belay. Also possible to continue a bit into the chimney and another good belay. 20-40 meters, depending on option.
P7 - IV+, Michael. Climb the very nice chimney to easier terrain.

From here we scrambled to the summit on grade II terrain.

Disneyland Paris trip

2011-09-08T18:25:00.002+01:00

We had a great time, though it was tiring and sometimes frustrating to live in the very hemmed-in "pay to play" corporate environment of the park and it's hotels. Still, it's for the kids, and they have no complaints. I'm just keen to write down the action packed days:

Saturday - arrived from Waterloo to our hotel. I took a nap and the rest of the family went to the park. I joined 2 hours later at about 5:30 PM. The hot, tired, truly exhausted-looking people coming out of the park impressed me with their sheer numbers. I met everyone at the exit to "It's a Small World," a really underwhelming ride that they went on. But they liked the Star Tours ride a lot. We wandered over to Adventureland and got into a massive rainstorm after dinner at au Chalet (meh). The rain was kind of fun. It got dark and the rain didn't let up so we went home on the shuttle.

Sunday - rest day. Kris and I exercised after sleeping in. Then the family went shopping while me and the boys spent the afternoon swimming, playing in the play area, then hanging out and playing in the room. Chinese take-out for dinner.

Monday - Got an early start and headed right for Thunder Mountain which we rode twice. No lines! This was great! Had an early lunch at Fuente del Oro, which was pretty good. The churros were amazing, the boys went and ordered more. We wandered through la Cabane des Robinson (partially closed) and Adventure Isle, which was nice. Did Pirates of the Caribbean which was okay. Did the Peter Pan ride which was pretty nice too. Then Kris and I went to Paris to visit friends. Stumbled home at 1 am after having to walk from the train station at the park back to the hotel. The grandparents spent a lot of time with the boys in Discoveryland, riding Autopia, Buzz Lightyear and Star Tours.

Tuesday - slept in, then when to the Studios park. Elijah found a truly great toy, a white stormtrooper laser gun. Rowan found a nice sword. They decided that would be the toy they would buy for the trip. We bought tickets for the Wild West show, then started trying to ride rides in the park, often stopped by ridiculous lines. The Slinky Dog Spin ride had a long line but only lasted about 70 seconds! Same thing with the Flying Carpets ride. We had Fast Passes for the Tower of Terror, but ultimately only Emma, Rowan and I rode it (Kwansei was shut out due to a misunderstanding about the number of Fast Passes, then Kris had to escort a scared Elijah to the bathroom). But Rowan, Emma and I really enjoyed the ride...it was the best of the parks so far. Then the Studio Tram Tour which was okay, but we got tired of the cheesy narration. The explosions, fire and waterfall were momentarily cool. The Moteurs Action Stunt Show was really good, we all enjoyed it. But the Rock and Roller Coaster (with Aerosmith) took the cake for the best experience of the parks. A really good roller coaster, the boys loved it. We thought it would be too scary, but they were thrilled. We rode it twice.

A quick word about lines. We never stood in a line that advertised more than 20 minutes wait. We used Fast Passes wherever we could. The most crushing lines were for trivial rides that would be good for 3 and 4 year olds. We tried for two days to ride Crush's Coaster, but the wait times were an alarming 50, 60 even 70 minutes. No way! And that ride doesn't have a Fast Pass option. We had no problem just crossing that thing off the list as essentially "closed." There was also a great deal of variability, with unexplained near-empty conditions right next to rides that had hundreds of tired, sweaty bodies seemingly standing still for hours. We just worked the park to maximize experience and reduce line waiting. The boys were really good sports, able to move fast and mostly weren't disappointed when the adults made seemingly arbitrary switches in the program. As long as they had a steady diet of Star Tours and the Aerosmith coaster they were happy!

After the coaster, we finished up with the Armageddon "ride." Ueber lame! Well, okay we were tired. My main reason for going in was the line was nil, and my feet hurt and it looked kind of like something where you'd get to sit down. Wrong.

Then off to the Buffalo Bill show. Elijah was completely wiped and hungry too. He refused to wear his cowboy hat for a while, poor fella. But me and Kwansei got good beers, then we went and sat down, pretty happy with our seats in the "Green Mountain Ranch." Immediately the waitress came around and gave us new beers, juice for the kids and Coke for the ladies. That was heaven, actually. The Texas chili was very good, though we wanted more. The meal was really good too, potatoes, sausage, chicken, and ribs for the adults. The show was entertaining as well. I thought the Indians were the best, the lighting and music did a great job of highlighting the drama and mystery around them. Annie Oakley got irritating because she wasn't really shooting (maybe this is just the adults...we didn't tell the boys how obvious it was!). A great dessert too. Actually, we had an awesome time with this, and the fact that we got to keep our cowboy hats was a real plus as well. The day ended with a 30 minute swim for me and the boys...whew!

Wednesday - We resolved to get up early, and made it to the Studio park by 10:15 after checking out from our room. We tried Crush's Coaster and couldn't believe the 70 minute line...next! We road the RC Racer, and never got to ride the Toy Soldiers Parachute Drop as the lines never dropped below 45 minutes (this for a very short and uninvolved ride). Next we all rode the Tower of Terror twice, and Elijah loved it despite being scared of it the day before. Two times on the Areosmith ride for Kris, the boys and I, then we headed back to the main park for a hot dog lunch.

In there we went straight to Discoveryland, rode Buzz Lightyear together then split up with Kris and I going to Space Mountain while the grandparents took the boys on Star Tours (yet again!). Space Mountain was uncomfortable...maybe we ate too much or had already been jostled too much by the Aerosmith coaster, but I came out with a headache feeling banged up. It was too dark...you just don't see anything! We saw Captain Eo, which was entertaining on a few levels. Then the boys bought their toys, Rowan having converted to a light saber. Grandma bought their toys and she bought me a laser gun too! Who hoo! All us kids were very happy. From this point we hung around the Videopolis, snacked and then left. What else did we wish we did? Well there was a haunted house, and the train around the park was still closed though supposed to open. Finally the boys were just a bit too small for the Indiana Jones roller coaster, they would probably have loved that.

Then we began the long journey home. Oh, the boys got to meet with Darth Vader who used Rowan's light saber against him at one point. I got scolded for climbing up on a railing to get pictures. Such is life.

Alpstein Marathon (6b+, 21 pitches)

2011-08-24T18:29:00.002+01:00

Adrian and I took a day off work to go do a climb that he'd had his eye on for months. A 21 pitch monster called "Alpsteinmarathon," it's the longest climb in the Appenzell Mountains of Switzerland. Over 800 meters of climbing through long and sustained pitches, it wouldn't be easy as we both felt a bit out of rock climbing shape despite being in peak condition a month before. Activity had fallen off to nothing! Oh well, let's see what we can do...

We drove down after work and hiked in to the Bollenwies Hut under the stars, arriving at about 10:30 pm. After many admonishments to remove our shoes and put on our pants (well, for Adrian. It's a long story, but he was kind of just hiking in shorts that looked suspiciously like underwear), we were allowed up to a room to sleep. In the morning we hiked for 15 minutes along the beautiful narrow lake to the start of the route, only about 50 meters above the lake and a small sheep farm.

I got the first lead, a 6a+ "entry test," that was indeed a good test. Strenuous but fun too. I combined with the next pitch and ran into what would be a common problem on the climb: awkward bolt clips. In fact I had to climb up and down 3 times to feel secure enough to clip this particular bolt, which required pasting feet on a crumbly, sandy slab, and making due with an equally crumbly handhold. Above this clip the pitch was enjoyable again, going over a little roof to broken face.

Adrian continued and we swapped leads for a while. The sun was getting uncomfortably hot, and this part of Europe has been in a heat wave for over a week. Our energy already flagging, we worried about being able to finish the climb. Increasingly, I thought hiking or swimming was the right thing to be doing now!

Pitch 6 was an amazing steep face which required some commitment. A long (8 meter?) runout between bolts mandated a nut placement, thankfully bomber. I really enjoyed the continuous 6a moves on this pitch. Adrian took the next, at similar difficulty, then led the crux pitch with it's outsized difficulty of 6b+. Aside from this pitch, the route is 6a+. Adrian used an aider to get past most of the pitch, which was fairly sustained. Following, I could climb free until a brutal transition out of a crack to a face and slabby terrain on the right, then I was happy for the etrier Adrian had left me. I remembered that aiding is pretty tough too, twisting around on slings and basically doing pull-ups on occasion. Emerging at the belay short of breath, I was happy for Adrian to lead again.

At pitch 10 we started swapping leads again. In here, beaten down by the heat, I started pulling on draws reflexively. How would we possibly finish? We had a fair amount of water left, but were conserving it. The rubber in our shoes heated up so much that we had to try to keep the toes out of the sun to prevent painful burns. A few days later, I've got a nasty blister on the back of my ankle where I missed a spot of sunscreen. Only our stubbornness kept us on the rock for the next few pitches. We slowed down, cheated liberally and just tried to keep moving. The forecast called for some clouds in the afternoon and we were counting on that! I try to write down a detailed pitch description right after a climb, but for the life of me, I can't remember a stitch of pitch 11 (5c), which Adrian led. Was I a zombie?

Pitch 14 was cruxy at 6a+. I climbed enjoyable slab, then had a heart stopping moment traversing to the left with a crumbly undercling hold and slowly slipping-off feet. Although mostly a bolted climb, it's not "over-bolted" at all. A fall in here wouldn't be great. I pressed my cheek to the wall and contemplated the few millimeters of skin and rubber holding me to the wall as I pawed for a right handhold. Whew! That was a certain kind of fun! At this point I started cursing like a sailor and would continue for the rest of the climb. Me and Adrian both, actually.

But some shade was sent by deities unknown, and did so much to improve my spirits. Adrian hit "the wall" a pitch or two later, feeling unable to free climb for a while and making strenuous moves in slings. Stubborn man, he pulled through and regained strength as we climbed in shadier conditions.

Pitch 16 climbed a runout face (well, I missed a bolt, that's why!) to a steep chimney with a tough exit. Pitch 18 featured a slabby buttress, a dicey move around into a gully (I pulled on this draw), then a fantastic overhanging crack. Finally, a "sting in the tail" with a really difficult traverse of a steep slab to reach the belay. This route makes you work for every inch!

Adrian came up, asked me to sign the route book at the belay, and set out on a hard move right off the belay (6a+), going past an overhang via crack and face. After this workout, thankfully the long pitch moderated considerably on a left-leaning journey to easier ground. Another pitch led to the grande finale: the 15 meter pitch 21, rated 5b.

Here we had a hilarious argument, though we were really mad at the moment. I felt it was really important to clip these last two bolts, but Adrian wanted to do a "walkaround" of those final moves. We hollered at each other heatedly for a minute, me demanding to lead the pitch if he wouldn't, and Adrian pointing out I was being an unreasonable son-of-a-bitch. Finally he told me to f*(k off at which point we both broke up laughing. We were tired, strained and at the end of our tethers...finally we'd been able to step outside ourselves for a moment and see the ridiculousness of the situation. "Okay, I'll clip your bolt, but MY WAY!" he said with a smirk. In the end he didn't clip it. As I followed the pitch, flipping the rope over the buttress crest so I could follow the bolt line I had to admit it was both hard and contrived. I guess the routesetter wants to make sure that the last move feels the hardest, because 5b after 20 pitches will certainly feel like 6a+, at least.

We were all smiles on the summit, happy to have a lot of work done with, enjoying the evening air and lack of hot sun (it was 7 pm, the climbing took about 11 hours which was 3 hours over "normal time"). We shared Adrian's sandwiches, looking out to the Bodensee, and in to Saentis and other Appenzell peaks. We saw gaemse grazing steep meadows. We hiked down, reaching the Bollenwies in an hour, where beer and coffee restored what was missing. Laughing and talking with two women on a multi-day hike, listening to an impromptu men's choir, we watched the light fade from the dark water. Hiking away, 23 hours after we arrived, we made the long drive home.

Thank you Adrian for a good adventure! Thanks to the weather, the mountain and the route.

Detailed description below. A PDF is here.

Pitch	French	YDS	Meters	Leader	Description
1	6a+	5.10c	20	Michael	Short, sporty moves up a pillar and into a gully
2	5c+	5.10a	40	Michael	Continue up a gully wall, awkward clips but a nice roof
3	5c+	5.10a	50	Adrian	Faces with water runnels in a grassy garden
4	5c+	5.10a	45	Michael	Follow a buttress up on slabs with holes
5	5c	5.10a	40	Adrian	Short slab with water runnels to a grassy exit
6	6a	5.10b	35	Michael	Beautiful steep slab with good holds. Nuts required.
7	6a	5.10b	25	Adrian	Continue up the slab with a few tough moves
8	6b+	5.11a	45	Adrian	Crux pitch, we aided liberally
9	6a	5.10b	40	Adrian	Initially difficult Wasserrillen on a smooth slab
10	5c	5.10a	40	Michael	Straightforward rock avoiding grassy sections. Ends with a hike up the 4th grass band.
11	5c	5.10a	45	Adrian	I have no memory of this pitch! It was very, very hot.
12	5a	5.8	50	Michael	Pleasant climbing staying on clean rock with occasional grass. Ends with an interesting traverse into a gully to belay.
13	4c	5.7	30	Adrian	Climb easily left to connect with the main summit buttress
14	6a+	5.10c	35	Michael	Very nice face/slab climbing, with a real "cruxy" move traversing left with a tiny undercling.
15	5b	5.9	50	Adrian	Follows good rock left between grassy bands. Pretty sustained for the grade thanks to this "always seek the best rock" principle.
16	5c+	5.10a	50	Michael	Excellent pitch up a featured face, finishing with a few steep moves in a chimney.
17	5b	5.9	50	Adrian	Climb easily left again on the increasingly defined summit massif.
18	6a+	5.10c	35	Michael	Nice moves on a slabby pillar to a hard traverse left into a gully, then spectacular steep crack climbing. Ends with a difficult moves across a slab to the belay.
19	6a+	5.10c	45	Adrian	"One move wonder" very hard move climbing above the first bolt, then easier terrain up and left.
20	5b+	5.9	50	Michael	Up and left to the first bolt, then traverse hard left for every subsequent bolt. I missed this, and was soon walking grassy ledges.
21	5b	5.9	15	Adrian	Somewhat contrived difficulty clipping two bolts on a ridge, then begin scrambling to the summit.

Finally made the video

2011-08-17T22:54:00.000+01:00

It took a few days, but with the able help of Kwansei we made this video of me playing the Incantations Part 3 solo. I overlayed the video with snippets of the sheet music I uploaded for my previous blog entry:

Michael playing "Part 3" of Incantations from michael stanton on Vimeo.

I hope I didn't butcher the song too greatly. As I said in the last entry, intonation is kind of a problem. I altered the guitar part a bit here and there to avoid high notes on low strings, where the problem is worse. Kwansei recorded me twice, so I had two videos to splice together, but I just took the soundtrack from one video. I couldn't resisted embedding a few photos from my weekend trip to the Wilder Kaiser mountains.

Thanks to Kwansei for the help, and the rest of the family for putting up with my constant practicing! Thanks to Mike Oldfield for an amazing song from an incredible album.

Transcribing Incantations

2011-08-15T22:24:00.006+01:00

Incantations is an album by guitarist and composer Mike Oldfield. I've loved his music ever since my dad introduced me to Ommadawn, which is still probably my favorite album of all time. Mostly instrumental quasi-folky music with occasional ripping guitar parts, these album-length songs really impressed me when I was learning the guitar. Still, most people I knew never heard of this stuff.

Recently I bought Incantations, which I'd never heard before. I was inspired to transcribe the guitar part starting at about 3 minutes into the song "Incantations 3." I didn't even look around on the net to see if anyone had done yet, I really just wanted to do it myself for fun. I used the charming music notation program Lilypond, and wore out my mousepad going back and forth over the faster guitar parts to write them down.

I wrote down the music in ordinary notation with pencil and paper, and learned the guitar part at the same time. I made a synth loop to be able to practice the harder parts at a slower speed. I took a break from transcribing at about the midpoint of the guitar part (about 5 minutes of music) in order to memorize and consolidate what I'd learned so far in my mind. This was hugely entertaining, but a bit irritating for Kris who got tired of hearing this song over and over!

Finally, on this holiday weekend I transcribed the 2nd half of the solo, then entered all the music into Lilypond, in what reminded me of my days of typing in programs from "Antic" magazine as a kid. Just look at it! Now you know why I have a headache.

Here is a picture from the first page of the transcription. The PDF is here.

I was hoping to benefit from Lilyponds automatic tablature support, but the strings they chose were always terrible, so I just decided to specify which guitar string every note appears on. I did this while the family watched "50 First Dates," so it was about 2 hours of entry and occasional puzzlement just to get that feature done.

The music could use more expressive marks, for sure, but it doesn't make much sense to learn without being able to hear the original song anyway.

All markings on the high E string that are higher than the 24th fret are actually achieved by bending the string up. Careful...you have to reach a high G...I broke a string at least once trying to do this! You really need a 24-fret guitar to be able to play this piece unless you occasionally transpose something down by an octave.

Another interesting thing about this song is that Mike Oldfield apparently had a Gibson SG guitar with amazing intonation in the high fret region. I, sadly, don't have this, so some of the sweeps of 5ths and 4ths near the end just don't sound as good when I play it.

I'll follow up with a video of playing over the song. Anyway, if you want to see the music, it is here.

Predigtstuhl Nordkante (IV)

2011-08-14T21:57:00.003+01:00

David and Mike were going to fly into Munich to visit the Eastern Alps and Eastern Europe more generally. As it turned out, I could take a day to climb, and the weather forecast looked pretty good after many days of rain. They came over Friday afternoon, and we headed out to the Wilder Kaiser and the Griesener Alm Saturday morning. Knowing these guys are hella good rock climbers, I was thinking we could climb the Duelferriss on the Fleischbank, which has been on my wish list for years. But to my dismay, the expected light rain around 2 am had extended through the morning, and we soon found ourselves a bit shell-shocked in the Gasthaus at the Alm, drinking coffee and wondering when the rain would stop!

Finally, at about 10 am, the sky looked a little brighter. We packed the piece of bread and butter I'd bought as our sole food for the trip, along with another piece of bread with the anis spice in it (not a great idea!).

No sooner did we start hiking, but it rained again. I talked a lot about how English climbers are very hardy and climb cheerfully in the rain, hoping we'd be suitably inspired. No one was fooled by such play acting! Still, we kept hiking up, wondering what we'd actually do in the end. We'd already eliminated the Duelferriss as an objective, and settled on two ideas: The Nordkante on the Predigtstuhl (IV) and the "Via Classica" (V+), the former a beautifully scenic but easy mountain climb, the second a modern bolt-protected rock climb. Having decided the Nordkante would be better in the rain, we walked under Via Classica" and saw two parties starting the route, to our surprise. "Glad somebody is optimistic!" we thought.

We hiked up into the Steinere Rinne, it was cool to show this interesting landscape to Mike and Dave. Mike got some good pictures of climbers on the Fleischbankpfeiler with his enviably cool camera. I'd climbed the route before, taking a variation start that is suggested for when there are parties above (and potential rockfall). This time, for variety, we'd do the normal start. We scrambled up the first pitch, but pretty soon the loose and occasionally wet terrain made the gully feel insecure. We roped up and belayed the rest of the gully to the notch. Another pitch, this time on solid rock got us to where the two starts join.

"You mean we are only at the top of pitch 5?" said Mike. "And there are 16 pitches?"

"Uh...yeah."

His dismay was justified. We were a little behind schedule, but I hoped to make up time in a block of easy terrain ahead where we could short-rope and simul-climb. Pretty quickly, we reached the first "real" pitch of the route, the "Matajek Traverse." This is a really entertaining pitch, where you have to traverse a smooth wall to reach a hidden crack that takes you back up and right of the belay. Mike and Dave were happy to let me lead this, being in "euro-tourist" mode! It was really fun, and Dave found a better way to climb it by traversing considerably lower. Well, I hope his variant was as fun as ours!

Another really nice pitch followed, with sustained but easy crack climbing. We continued around a corner and ran into some difficulties gaining the easy scrambling terrain. We had to downclimb a short but loose section of rock that seemed unjustifiably ridiculous. We did kind of a cool move where a sling on a horn allowed Mike to lower past the section. In general, we had to use a lot of gear on this route for a supposedly "bolted belays" climb. Often we didn't find the belays, and just as often I blindly missed them, only to sheepishly see the bolt across from my sling and nut belay 20 minutes later! At this particular difficult point, our topo marked a belay where there was none. The uncertainty of our absolute position added to the stress of the downclimb because it made it easy to think we were in a wildly bad location.

But once past that pesky spot, we could short rope for a few pitches. A cloud had bedeviled us for a while, but now it was gone and we knew it wouldn't rain for some hours. We'd been granted a reprieve from rainy retreats and other such nasty difficulties!

Really nice, easy climbing on the ridge led to a notch, then a short pitch below the infamous "Oppelband." This is a 7 meter crawl around a corner with massive exposure. I tried to get Mike or Dave to lead but they successfully evaded my charms. I started crawling, and soon was bringing the guys over to hilarious grunting noises and soft cries of supplication. Dave got a pretty funny video of Mike coming across. This was fun. Overall, we'd suffered the stresses of bad weather and bad rock. Now, close to the end of the climb, with decent weather, we could laugh a little bit. In fact the next pitch, the last, was really good and gave a nice finish to the climb.

We joked around a bit on the summit, finished our anis bread, and admired the "New Age" crystal that was embedded in the formidable summit cross. The things people think of!

I hazily remembered the descent, but it's amazing how much you forget in a few years. Still, we found the scramble down and around the Middle Peak, to reach the Botzong Chimney. We decided to be conservative and make single rope rappels, not knowing how 60 meter raps would work. But with three people the setup time for each rap is high. We thought about changing over but didn't. At the bottom, I'd lost count of the raps, and after skipping an anchor landed perfectly at the bottom of the part of the chimney we descend. The topo doesn't make very clear, but you are supposed to leave the chimney at this point and follow a scramble route around to the side to reach hiking terrain. Due to confusion about this, Mike and Dave reset the rappel and made one more needlessly. I blame my food-addled brain for not being able to explain why one more rap wasn't needed. Still, soon we were on hiking terrain again, and watching a beautiful sunset paint the walls around us orange and finally a muted pink.

The hike down felt long, and Mike had a bothersome old knee injury. We were happy to reach the stashed pack with hiking poles, and the piece of bread with butter which we shared happily. Now a long march out in the dark. We chatted about various things, and somewhere in here Mike turned into a speed demon with his hiking poles and zoomed past me and Dave. That was funny, then, a creepy voice croaked in the darkness. It was some young fella hiding in the bushes hoping to scare us! "We're gonna kick yer ass!" said Dave. I complimented the young fellow on his timing and timbre. Back at the car, we tried to see if the restaurant would serve us but it was after 10. Oops! That's okay, Burger King awaits!

We enjoyed the climb and the company. I wish I could have shown more splitter cracks or clean dihedrals to these guys used to climbing in Yosemite all the time. But our scruffier mountains would have to do, they have their charms! We all came back to Munich, Mike and Dave crashed in the guest room and we enjoyed spicy scrambled eggs in the morning with hot peppers from grandpa's backyard on Oahu. Thanks to Dave and Mike for a good adventure in the mountains, till next time!

Pictures by me, David and Mike. Awesome to have 3 cameras!

The Vajolet Towers and Punta Emma

2011-06-27T11:08:00.002+01:00

A fellow American, Pete, and I visited the Rosengarten area of the Dolomites for a quick introduction to that beautiful group of spires. We had hoped to get three full days of climbing in, but bad weather effectively canceled the first day, and then the logistics of travel times and appointments caused us to shorten the last day considerably. But still, a day and a half of movement over good stone is nothing to sneeze at! We had a great time and planned many future ascents.

We arrived late in the touristic town of Pera, mistakenly believing that a bus taxi was still running to get us near the Vajolet Hut. Some frantic phone calls eventually found a bus taxi willing to drive up the road. He charged us each 15 euros, which is 3 times the normal price. As rain started to fall, we easily decided to pay instead of walking up a road for 2 hours.

A humorous event occurred next. Halfway up the road, we found 2 Germans and their van blocked by the closed road. They asked us to return with them to the parking lot and come back up. Somehow, we thought we could then pool our money and have a cheaper fare. The driver didn't really speak English or German that well (duh, he's in Italy after all. :)), so he didn't understand our thinking. Needless to say, we all payed 15 euros by the time we got to the road terminus an hour later...

After a drenching walk to the crowded hut, we ate dinner and attempted to dry our soaked clothing in a hilariously crowded drying room strewn with clotheslines. We planned to climb the three main Vajolet Towers by easy routes the next day, even if they were a bit wet. The forecast was "okay," but Saturday would be the best day.

By 9 am the next morning, we were at the base of the Delago Tower, intent on the spectacular and easy "Piaz Edge" (IV+). The waterfalls running down the faces the evening before left us little hope for dry rock, but the whole thing was perfectly dry, which surprised us.

One other party was on the tower this morning, a nice couple from the Munich area. We climbed along with them throughout the day. Here, on the first pitch, I was a bit impatient and decided to pass by on an independent line a bit left of the one Franzy (the nice girl) was taking. This meant I didn't get to use the nice pitons! No matter, there were good nut and cam placements along the 30 meter pitch, the only problem was that my fingers kept going numb in the morning chill. Here is a picture of Pete coming up in the blue helmet and our other friend from Munich on the left:

We continued up the ridge 4 more pitches to the summit. The most fun was when there was exposed climbing right on the crest. Sometimes the clouds would blow away and reveal stunning deeps far below. A few summit pictures, then down 6 ~20 meter rappels to our packs.

Next we headed up the "Fehrmann Corner" (IV+) of the Stabeler Tower. It was a bit hard to find the start, as we walked too far along the access ledge and found ourselves wandering around on an easy but confusing face. The couple from Munich joined us as we puzzled it out. Eventually Pete came to the insight that we were much too far to the right, and led me back down, around and up to exactly the right place to start. I hollered over to indicate we found the way, but we lost our friends temporarily.

Pete and I went two pitches, then he lucked out to lead the crux crack which was, alone among all the climbs of the day, dripping wet. Doh! We discussed the strategy, then he headed up the crack, careful and sure at every step. Following, I felt the section right level with and above a skirted roof were the most demanding. A good lead in trying conditions!

The Delago Tower from the summit of the Stabeler Tower.

An easier crack followed, then a short wall led to the fairly large summit. Pete found a nice natural rock chair. Good times...two down, one to go! Another 6 rappels and scrambling got us down.

Now for the Winkler Tower. Another party was seen on the imposing "Steger Route" (VI), which looks worth coming back for. We opted for the "Winkler Crack" (V, but we took an easier variant at IV+). Along with our friends from Munich, we scrambled over to the high ledge that accesses the route proper. We used a rope for a brief grade III step on the approach to the first pitch, then I investigated the Winkler Crack. It was quite strenuous. The day was late, and we needed to preserve energy for a big climb Saturday...I came down and led us on the easier variant. Looks good though...next time!

Friends coming up on the Winkler Tower

Franzy...

Ledges on descent...

Enjoyable climbing led to an especially enjoyable final pitch along a nice hand crack. Franzy and her friend were a couple of pitches below, and relying on us for route information. I hollered down some advice, then after a nice visit on the summit in better weather than the first two, we started down. The descent goes along the ascent route for a while. After some more information exchange, Pete and I headed off, scrambling around the corner to eventually reach the notch between the Stabeler and Winkler Towers. The obligatory rappels followed.

One interesting thing, we always used a single 50 meter rope for rappels instead of trying to combine with doubles. In certain situations this might have slowed us down, but often the rappels are at discontinuous locations or have features that could hang up the knot of a double rope rappel. It looked like we were at least as fast this way, and certainly had less coiling/uncoiling to do, along with less apprehension over the whole "stuck knot" issue. Pete and I are both pretty used to making fast and efficient rappels, a really useful skill.

We hiked down to another great dinner, and good views of the face we planned to climb the next day: Rosengartenspitze East Wall, via the "Steger" (18 pitches, grade VI-). But Pete tossed and turned all night, worried (justifiably!) about making it to Prague by noon on Sunday if we did such a big climb. In the morning, we immediately decided to do something smaller. Happily, the "Steger" route on Punta Emma fit the bill nicely.

Low on the Steger Route.

We climbed the first two easy pitches in gloves against the cold (well, me in socks!). We came into the sun and enjoyed several hours of great climbing, with three sustained pitches of gray and yellow Dolomiti face climbing at it's center. This was really excellent, and the warm sun made up for many rather chilly hours the day before. The clarity in the air was magnificent. Some scrambling brought us to the summit, then a rather intimidating long rappel got us to a snow-choked gully. We picked our way down, and soon were back at the car, enjoying a good pizza lunch below the "Rotwand" on the road to Bolzano.

Our playground....

The Steger Route on Punta Emma. Some climbers are visible.

It was great to climb with Pete for the first time, looking forward to awesome future adventures!

A future adventure...

Detailed pitch description:

Delago Tower, "Piaz Edge" (IV+)

P1: II, 30 m. Scrambling up a ledge to reach the ridgecrest on the left.
P2: IV+, 30 m. Enjoyable, solid climbing up a face with cracks to a piton belay on the crest. Well protected with pins, though we climbed a variant on the left with natural protection.
P3: IV, 25 m. On the ridge crest, beautiful exposure and solid (albeit polished) rock.
P4: IV, 25 m. Climbing an enjoyable dihedral passed fixed pins.
P5: IV-, 25 m. Leave the crest, going right a bit, then coming back.
P6: III, 25 m. Climb easily along the flattening crest to the summit.

Descent via 6 straightforward short rappels.

Stabeler Tower, Fermann Corner (IV+)
P1: II, 30 m. Scrambling up a face just left of a steep edge to a two piton belay stance.
P2: IV-, 25 m. Follow a slab to a short vertical step to the base of a corner on the right.
P3: IV, 30 m. Climb a nice corner up to a narrow band below an overhang.
P4: IV+, 22 m. Climb a nice crack on the left of the belay to escape the overhang. The crux pitch, we found it very wet.
P5: IV-, 15 m. A short scramble to avoid an overhang via steps on the right.
P6: IV or IV-, 30 m. We avoided the steep crack left of the belay by a face variation even further left, later rejoining the pleasantly vertical crack at a chockstone (protectable). Belay at a notch where the normal route intersects.
P7: IV-, 10 m. Short step, probably should be combined with P6.

Descend via rappels and scrambling.

Winkler Tower, Winkler Crack (IV+)
P1-3: Scrambled the first two pitches of the Stabeler Normal route (III), then a brief move of grade III along a ledge.
P4: IV+ 26 meters. Nice face climbing to the right of the official "Winkler Crack," later rejoined higher up.
P5: III+, 30 m. Easy gully to a strange rightward move and a crux exit onto a ledge.
P6: IV, 17 m. Up an awkward crack which eases after two pitons to a belay at a notch.
P7: III+, 20 m. Up a face and corner to a belay below a crack.
P8: IV-, 20 m. A very nice crack pitch.
P9: II, 20 m. For us, this easy terrain was simul-climbed with P8.

Descended via rappels and some short-roped climbing (III).

Punta Emma, "Steger" Route (V+).

P1: III+, 45 m. Easy climbing along a natural ramp.
P2: III, 45 meter. Continue along the ramp to it's terminus at a grassy point with many belay pitons. Confident climbers might begin roped travel here.
P3: IV, 45 m. Climb a nice gray dihedral/crack to a piton belay at a yellow notch on the (apparent) ridge crest.
P4: IV-, 25 m. Traverse left from the belay on a ledge, then up a gray chimney/crack passed a piton (I missed it).
P5: V, 15 m. Exposed face climbing, going a few meters up then right and eventually down at a "yellow niche." The crux is a few face moves before climbing down passed the niche. Belay in a shallow gully right of the niche.
P6: V, 30 m. Really fun face climbing, well-protected by pitons. Generally straight up, though a bit left and up again at the halfway point to end up in a yellow niche beneath an overhang. The crux is escaping this niche on the right with slabby footholds. A well-fixed nut protected those moves nicely!
P7: V+, 25 m. Our topo describes the crux of this pitch as "continuously difficult." It was definitely continuously enjoyable. Step right to avoid an overhang, then continue out of sight of your belayer for the whole pitch, up a steep face festooned with holds. Finish via an obvious crack to a hard-to-see belay station. I missed it and only found it later thanks to some cigarette butts!

Me heading out for the crux...

P8: IV+, 35 m. Traverse left then up a very nice gray corner crack. Protects well with cams and the occasional fixed pin.
P9: III, 50 m. Scramble up gullies and crests, with the best climbing on crests (solid).
P10: III, 50 m. Continue as before. We combined P9 and P10 with simul-climbing.
P11: III, 50 m. A short vertical step (III) accesses solid but low-angle scrambling terrain. We soloed this pitch to the summit.

Descend via downclimbing, a spot of belaying (III), a long (25 meter) rappel, then more downclimbing (II).

Night hike in the Rofangebirge

2011-06-06T21:26:00.002+01:00

Sometime around 5:30 in the evening I left Munich for the mountains. I wasn't completely sure where to go for a hike, but when I saw that the expected afternoon thunderstorms were holding off well, I drove a bit further to the Rofan Mountains. I hiked up to the Kotalm on a steep trail, then back into a valley to the abandoned upper Kotalm farm. Here I turned due north, walking uphill on grassy slopes (no trail) to reach the ridge crest right at the magic time. Booming ridges of clouds filled the sky to the north, and outliers of that massive system strafed the south and west. Pink, red and golden rays of sun shafted through the vapors, highlighting lonely crags and far-off snow peaks. In the cold wind I snapped as many pictures as I could. Before complete darkness, I resolved to scamper down as many meters as I could. I made it to the lower Kotalm before getting out the headlamp. 3 hours and 10 minutes round trip, for 1200 meters elevation gain/loss. Lots of fun!

Alpspitze with Brecht

2011-06-02T21:21:00.000+01:00

A morning hike in foggy weather with Brecht, who I just met. He studies Ornithology (birds, to the layman) and had some neat stories. He got some good pictures too.

It was a big hike, going up from the valley station of the Alpspitze lift to the summit with just a brief detour for struedel at the mountain station. I foolishly wore big honking mountain boots, but I guess that is good training too. We decided to be nice to our knees and take the lift down.

Kampenwand with Uli

2011-05-31T13:40:00.003+01:00

Uli and I took the lift up to the Kampenwand on Sunday. We knew it would start raining eventually, hence the laziness! Right away, we climbed the Staffelstein Westkante (V-), which gave 2 nice pitches and some change. Then the route Ulknudel (VI) which had a pretty darned hard first pitch! I had to rest a couple of times on the sustained sport climb, but I particularly enjoyed an outrageous move at a roof where you get a foot up by your head.

Next we did the Kampenwand Traverse. First I tried taking the most adventurous way on steep slabs, then eventually getting into a corner with a hard move by a piton. I had to aid on the pin! Uli came up and we simul-climbed over a summit. Later we had a nice climb of the Gmelchturm Westkante (VI-) as a nice little part of the traverse. Well protected climb to the top of a tiny tower. We finished the traverse with a couple more interesting pitches, especially a crack (IV+) leading up to the main summit. It was quite interesting, though just a bit wet.

After this we hiked down to the south and got on the Südostwand (VI). Uli led the first (crux) pitch, then we had an embarrassing communication mishap that need not be recorded here! However eventually I followed the pitch, and we went for one more pitch up a slab and across a slabby traverse. From here, our time was up, as the storm clouds that had been gathering were ready to burst. We made two rappels to the ground, and hiked out in strong rain.

We visited a hut along the way for a beer, then hiked down to the car. A nice visit to a new area for us both!

Also wrote about it here, and the flickr gallery is here.

Crossfit

2011-04-23T19:04:00.003+01:00

Since Christmas Kris has been really into Crossfit, the exercise craze whose goal is to reduce you to a pile of blubbering meat before building you back up again into a fine specimen! (I just made that up, but I doubt they'd disagree). She attends a "Box" here in Munich, and I started going once a week. These are really hard workouts, packing in much more punishment than I ever could on my own. Generally, something about getting older, and knowing that I tend to favor cardio/endurance exercise more than anything to do with weightlifting and pullups, I thought it would be good for me.

Well maybe it is, but as I type this I can't lift my arms. Today was Kris' 40th birthday, and Marco, the coach, devised a special workout just for her (but everyone there had to follow it). 4 sets of 40 "burpees," sit-ups, kettle-bell lifts and squats. The night before I had joined her for a workout too, and my arms were still jelly from the 120 push-ups which were a component of that. It didn't take long for my form in the burpees to collapse. If you don't know, a burpee is basically a push up followed by a jump in the air and clapping your hands over your head. By the time I'd done two sets of burpees, I was an old man who could barely get out of bed. I would collapse on the ground, painfully get to my knees and stand up, jump, and collapse again. Needless to say, I was the last person to finish. I think it took me 54 minutes, with the absolute cut-off time being 1 hour. I think the best time of the day was 36 minutes. Jeez, I can't imagine doing that!

I've spent the rest of the day moaning and dropping off to sleep at odd times. Kris however, is fine. She posted a more respectable time, and has been a chatty cathy. As a matter of fact, she's about to go for an 8 mile run. :p

I only hope (and pray!) that this punishment leads to becoming "harder to kill" in the mountains. Overall, I'm pleasantly surprised at how far I can be pushed and keep pushing further. Though my abilities may never climb to "respectable" levels for a real Crossfitter, I feel certain that the extra stamina and strength will come in handy in the years ahead.

Skiing in the Jamtal

2011-03-14T08:51:00.003+01:00

Saturday morning I was skiing up from Galtür at 7:30. I made it to just below the Jamtalhütte at 9:45, had some tea and cookies behind a rock where I hid from the wind. I think that was pretty good time because the guidebook says it should take 3 hours. I continued in the valley for a few more minutes then turned right on tracks leading up to the Totenfeld Glacier and the Haagspitze summit. The wind was strong, blowing down from the valley head and the impressive Vordere Jamtalspitze. Talking with my friend on Friday about the proposed trip, we worried about hot, wet, avalanche-prone slopes. But I actually had the opposite problem! The wind prevented the crusty, icy, skied-out slope from unfreezing.

The Totenfeld Glacier has some impressive icy walls, which I skirted on the right. A short steep slope facing south led to the summit. No worries of avalanche today. A group of 5 french-speaking folks came awkwardly down the frozen slope. I made new tracks to get up as my skins were slipping in polished tracks. Stashing my skis in a semi-protected area, I clambered to the summit, holding my breath for the final dash across a rooftop in violent wind. I hunkered down behind some rocks and started alternately taking pictures and warming my hands. The sky was blue and the sun was out, but the good weather was coming to an end. Clouds scraped by Piz Buin and the Dreiländerspitze, peaks I'd climbed 2 years before with Christian. Clearly, the bad weather in the south was coming to get us!

I scraped gracelessly down the summit-slope, then found decent conditions on the glacier. I would search out wind-protected pockets where I knew forgiving powder snow was hiding. I continued this behavior all the way down to the valley floor, at one point running into the worst "breakable crust" (bruschharsh, in German) I'd ever seen. I simply couldn't turn in it at all. My light Dynafit ski setup was at a disadvantage here...I would go clattering off the wrong way. Ei yi yi...

In the hut I met a nice older fellow named Heinz. He told about his love for these mountains and his grandkids. Meanwhile the wind and clouds built outside...

The next day I hoped to make a big traverse and bag three peaks. I skinned up and to the south to the Chalausferner (a glacier), along with two other guys named Michael and Berndt. We seemed to be the only ones trying to get out today. We traveled in a murk of cloud and light snowfall, sometimes swirled up into icy blasts from unexpected directions.

On the glacier I pulled ahead, and then waited for Michael and Berndt because I wasn't sure if I was right below the pass or needed to continue on steeper glacier to the right. Getting out the map wasn't an option in the screaming wind. In fact, rocks peppered the white slope around me, having been flung here from 100 meters away! After a few minutes I skied down to them, and they confirmed I was at the pass. We had a brief pow-wow, and I decided to do whatever they did for the moment. I wasn't going to go off into Italy by myself in a cloud with these conditions. We figured to hit the pass and hide in some rocks Michael knew about on the other side. Then we could decide if we wanted to ski the Augstenspitze or just turn around.

But after a few minutes of skinning back up to my high point, it was clear it would be crazy to continue. We could barely see the pass in swirling snow, though it was only a short distance above (50 feet?). We organized for descent with freezing fingers, then got the hell out of there. Again a mix of good snow and breakable crust on the way down, though ending in an unexpectedly nice wind-protected gully with decent snow.

I said goodbye to the guys, who were going to the hut for tea. I pointed my skis down-valley for the 7 mile ride to Galtür. It went pretty fast, but there were some tiring sections where I had to skate to make it across some flats or up a short hill.

Out at around noon, I tried to figure out what to do with the rest of the day. 1000 meters of elevation gain just wasn't enough! I drove back over the Fernpass (getting in a 45 minute long traffic jam...grr.), then decided to hike up the good ol' Kramerspitze in Garmisch. I just carried car keys, an iPod and 5 euros up the hill. I reached the hut in 30 minutes, and the high pass in something like 1.5 hours. Another 1000 meters gain. It was enough. I only had tennis shoes and no gloves, so making the snowy traverse to the main summit didn't seem wise. On the way back down I had a cappucino in the hut, then headed home.

So, I didn't really find the great skiing I expected for such a long trip. But I saw some interesting mountains and got some exercise. Good enough!

Luisbodenfall (WI 4/4+)

2011-02-27T22:03:00.004+01:00

Christian, Adrian and I had a day for some ice climbing. I chose the destination, the Luisbodenfall in the Pitztal valley. Pretty far for a day trip, but an injection of reliable ice was much needed. I'd been there with Dan a year before, where we mostly confined ourselves to top-roping the stellar 2nd pitch of the climb (the first pitch was dominated by guides and students).

We were bedeviled by problems today. Adrian was fighting a strange stomach virus, and was 20 minutes late at our meeting point. Later, he still felt sick on the drive. I led the first pitch, an easy WI4 which seemed pretty "dumbed down" by the presence of so many previous climbers. All I know is that I was amazingly calm and relaxed for the first pitch of the day!

Adrian and Christian came up, but the virus that Adrian had picked this time to move to Christian. He felt nausea and dizzyness. He arrived slowly at the belay and, looking rather green, realized lowering off would be a good idea. We lowered Christian, making sure he had the car keys and plenty of money to hang out in a warm restaurant. I was glad the climb didn't have an approach!

We continued. Christian loaned me his great new Black Diamond leashless tools. These made the 2nd pitch feel very entertaining. It was about 50 meters of continuous WI3 and 4. I alternated between vertical towers and easier lines that snaked up for the engaging pitch. On top I built an anchor from two screws and an Abalakov ice anchor.

Adrian enjoyed the pitch a lot, and send me off for a short but steep column. There was a WI3 way, but further to the right I could push the angle to just off vertical, while still benefiting from the passage of others. This meant that often a good tool placement had already been made. Same for the feet too.

Above this column, I walked for 10 meters to another short ice step. I ran out of rope just below the top and built an ice screw anchor.

Adrian came and hiked up for pitch 3. We had a devil of a time keeping the ropes from getting tangled because we had to climb through a tree that fell across the ice. It's branches really wanted to steal the ropes! Definitely strange to crawl under a tree on 50 degree ice.

After quite a bit of hiking (10 minutes?) we made it to the upper wall, which was quite impressive. The party above us was belaying in the wall, which was dripping in full sun, though the valley was already coming into shadow. I led up the center of the wall, staying out of the path of debris from the party above. However, frozen icicles on a cliff directly above me where losing their grip. A couple of these crashed around me. They weren't that big, but carried a volley of snow and shrapnel for which I just had to put my head down and hear the clattering of ice on my helmet. Soon I could move out from under that and get above, which was a relief.

I knew I'd used about 50 meters of rope, and wasn't sure if I could make it to the top. The bad thing about ice climbs is that where the ground levels off is usually a hard place to find protection: the solid ice turns to powdery snow over rubble. So you have to expect to spend another 10 meters getting to a tree or something.

Therefore, I decided to build a screw belay. I placed three, and was not happy with the melt-out rate. I dug under watery ice for better stuff. Still, the sun quickly turned the ice to water. I packed snow over the screws. Oddly, one of them seemed to have a higher melt-out rate than the other two.

Adrian arrived and led out immediately. He didn't plan to lead today but obviously didn't relish hanging out at this "boiling" belay point. He placed a screw just above the belay, and another one just a bit higher, then made the crux move to reach easier ground. A bit of walking got him to a screw belay below the last cliff.

I found this last pitch tough. I was feeling tired, and it was dead vertical, such that it really felt overhanging. I rested on the rope after placing the first and second screws, wondering how I'd get through the very steep ground above. I went forward, often able to hook a tool securely where two icicles merged together. I measured available strength, distance to go and the amount of rope out since the previous ice screw. I decided to go for it. After a few tough but exciting moves the angle lay back enough to chop out a rest and get some protection (I was back in groundfall zone here, I think). Whew! The penultimate moves involved stemming, which provided a massive rest for the calves and arms. Thanks stemming technique!

Above, I found a tree with slings. Adrian came up, enjoying the pitch a lot. Rather than have both of us twisting around in my cramped hanging tree belay, I lowered him to the previous ledge while I rigged for rappel. I came down to him and traded places. I'd been at so many awkward belays on ice that my feet couldn't take another awkward, splayed stance. He reached an Abalakov anchor in the middle of the upper ice wall. We rappeled to the there, then one more double rope rappel got us to the scrambling terrain below the 3rd pitch. From here, we knew we could walk off to a road on the right. All this went well until the last few meters down, when Adrian slipped on some very icy trail and injured his ankle badly. He said he saw stars as he violently impacted the ground. Yikes! I carried his pack and we made it to the car. We picked up Christian in the nearby hotel. He had felt better in the early afternoon, and done some ice bouldering with my old-fashioned Black Prophet tools.

While I hiked up to retrieve another pack, Christian told Adrian to make a snow pack for his ankle. On the drive home, Adrian said that helped a lot. Hopefully he'll just have swelling for a few days and be good as new.

So, a trip not without a few difficulties, but some good things too. Thanks guys!

Jochberg Right Gully (WI3)

2011-02-05T19:27:00.001+01:00

Christian and I climbed the Jochberg Right Gully (WI3), an entertaining set of N pitches (N=6? something like that), on a mountain I'd wanted to explore for a while. We soloed up the first steps, then used about 25 meters of the rope to belay sections, and also travel in coils for the bits of walking in between ice steps.

Near the end was a long section of climbing up a 30 degree snow couloir with interesting rock walls. Then an interesting "mixed" step on ice and rock to get above it. Finally, the climb ended with some more mixed moves, including fun frozen mud hummocks to reach the ridge crest. I dropped my pack here and we made the hike up to the summit in brilliant sunshine. The views south into the Karwendel were great.

The hike down was extremely icy, but we suffered only a few prattfalls. Thanks for a great time, Christian!

New Year's Stubai Skiing

2011-01-01T17:38:00.001+01:00

Zwieselbacher Rosskogel

Eight o'clock on New Year's morning, I was alone in the parking lot, getting ready. A man shoveled snow at a nearby inn and watched me from across a snowbank. I had 2 pairs of gloves, a wind jacket, two fleece layers, and the warm hat Kris made for me. I had a shovel, an avalanche beacon with fresh batteries, and an avalanche probe. A map, a cell phone, some goggles, a camera, a hot thermos of tea, some cookies and an iPod with the riveting audiobook "Unbroken."

Skins on skis, then I left, into a cold blue valley. It hadn't snowed in a while, and this was "the most popular ski tour in Tyrol," according to my guidebook, so there was a good track to follow. I'd been here two years before with Daniel A., but we turned around because of unstable snow slabs that made us nervous. There shouldn't be any problem today.

For a long time I was lost in thought with the story I was listening to. Louie Zamperini competed in the 1936 Olympics, survived deadly bombing missions in the Pacific, survived for more than 30 days in an inflatable raft with no food, drifting over 2000 miles, only to become a Japanese prisoner of war. I couldn't believe the hardships endured or the determination to overcome.

Conditions were much better than when Daniel and I were here before. I entered an exciting upland plateau, with a frozen lake below on my right. One more plateau lay above the Kraspesferner Glacier, which I dutifully switchbacked up. Finally I was in the sun! It was time to take pictures, but to my sadness I realized that both batteries were nearly dead, partially because of the cold. I managed to snap a few. For the summit my trusty iPod Nano's video camera came into service. It's not a great shot, but it conveys some of the wild winter in the Stubai. It was a rare pleasure to be complately alone.

I started down, skiing cautiously as it's the first time since last year. That always bugs me that the first time I ski in a year is high on a wilderness mountain, when the consequences of an accident are highly unpleasant! Maybe I should become mature and visit a ski area once first!

But the skiing wasn't hard, and before I knew it I was sliding down the Kraspes Glacier, and seeing people. 4 or 5 late risers were coming up. One man decided not to go to the summit, and started down, skiing very well. Where the slope flattened he lost his bearing in the deep snow and crashed spectacularly! He was laughing so I, the single member of the audience, whooped and clapped.

Later, I think I crashed in the same place.

I skied further, resorting to "side-slipping" a steep slope above a raging creek because I didn't like the possibility of falling there. It looked like others had done the same, as the fresh powder snow was mostly scrubbed away, leaving hard snow with a few twigs sticking out. Faint humps showed where a few brave souls made turns.

"That was fun!" I said to no one in particular, back at the car. I drove a few minutes down to Gries im Sellrain and found a room plus breakfast. I spent some time making the room homey, took a nap, then went out to dinner. I had two non-alcoholic beers (weird, I know), and the menu of the night, which was a pork steak with pasta and cheese. All I'd eaten during the day was a few cookies, so I planned to order a big dessert but I was too full. I'd been to this restaurant before, with Josef who is a vegetarian. I remember he had a terrible time trying to cobble together a meatless dinner. Looking at the menu now though, I noticed there was an actually vegetarian section...so next time would be easier!

After dinner I walked through the cemetary, which was lit up with little red lamps on most of the graves. The hulking mountains around were only sensed by the absence of stars in blackened regions of the sky. After some more walking, I turned in.

Sunday dawned rather grey. I'd awakened a few times at night to make notes on a horrific story idea called "Tea Party Nation." :D. I had all these archetypes, like The Judge, the Welfare Queen, the Pundit, and how they would fare under a massive political change in the U.S.. Often not how you'd expect.

At breakfast I talked with a couple, and they recognized me from my car! The husband had seen my car parked in the Munich climbing gym several times. So we started talking about climbing. He told me two stories of the great Hermann Buhl, widely considered the greatest climber of all time in Tyrol. One, that he worked at the big Schuschter outdoor store in Munich during the 1950s, occasionally swiping gear. But everyone loved him so they didn't mind. Herr Schuschter used his considerable funds to make sure Hermann got on the Nanga Parbat expedition that would make him famous. He threatened to withhold funds and gear, making the expedition pay full price for it all if Hermann didn't go. Of course, we know it was the first ascent of an 8000'er without oxygen. Solo, and with an exposed bivouac above 8000 meters.

I told the man that my favorite Buhl story was when he rode his bike from Innsbruck to Piz Badille, soloed the North Face (a 5.10 rock route in modern terms, but much snowier/icier in the past), then rode home. We talked more about climbing and said goodbye.

A few minutes later I was in Luesens, getting ready to ski amid a bevy of ice climbers. I headed up, alone again, to the slopes west of the small cluster of buildings that make up town. One short but steep slope seemed to take forever because the skin track had been blasted into oblivion by descending skiers. There was a lot of traversing and trying to ascend here or there.

Despite the great weather forecast, I entered a thick, dark cloud, and was soon covered in snowflakes. I put on a jacket and kept going in the flat light and pea soup that made it hard to see more than a few feet. This would be "fun" coming down! A couple of guys caught up to me while I drank some tea. They were from Bolzano. I asked if they knew Daniel B., but they didn't. We exchanged notes on good Dolomiti climbs. They had done the Comici on the Grosse Zinne in September. The crux pitch had very, very small handholds, they said. I told them about how Jesse and I sat below it for an hour, with a queue of people above us not moving, and abseiled off. Next time then!

I continued in the lead, aiming for a patch of blue sky. Visibility improved and I reveled in the beauty of the area. Higher, many tracks diverged to a subsidiary summit on the right. I looked at the map and was sure the Schoentalspitze was on the left. Snow there was sparser, and it looked like you'd just have to stop skiing halfway up a broad slope because too many rocks were sticking out. I cared more about the summit than skiing, so I headed that way, along with the others.

We skinned halfway up the slope and left the skis, then continued in boots to the summit. This time we were barely above a boiling array of clouds, swirling in rough congress with the nearby peaks. The sun felt nice. It seems to be typical for January skiing that you only see the sun at the summit, because southern slopes often don't have enough snow to make skiing fun. So you sneak up the mountain by wind-protected northerly slopes. A quick peek over a ridge gives you a bit of warm sun, then it's back to the shadow.

I coaxed a few pictures out of the camera, thanks to keeping the batteries warm by my chest. Skiing down, I soon entered the cloud. Two guys were ahead of me and I used them to orient myself. By keeping one of them just visible, I could ski better because I could recognize the approximate angle of the slope. Had I been alone I would have gone very slowly indeed! There was no indicator of the angle ahead of you, and it was even hard to see cut up tracks in the snow left by those ahead. The best sense was feel. I could feel the undulating layers of compact and fresh snow beneath me, and that way I knew I was on track. The whoosh of gravity was a warning to turn!

Finally they skiied off to the north, a different way than the way I'd come. But I was stranded on a slope that dropped off into scraggly trees. I'd missed my turn off. Rather than climb up, I tried to ski the slope. It worked, mostly. Some scraping along and grabbing of little branches, then I was on a road. I went northeast, to follow the two helpful skiers. A combination of road and skied-out slopes got me back to the village.

Another great skiing day! It was snowing heavily down here, and I decided not to go "ice bouldering," though I did see some people on Gasthausfall as I drove away. I saw terrible traffic jams between Innsbruck and Woergl, and was happy to go the opposite way. That is, until I entered one. It took about an hour to get to Kufstein, where I decided to get off and eat dinner.

I hiked up to the fortress to get a few of the mountains around, mostly hidden in cloud. My mission now was to explore Kufstein to it's limit! I found a bunch of historical plaques and read them all! I discovered that until the 19th century riverine travel was the way to go. It took half a day to raft from Innsbruck to Kufstein, but 5 days to go the opposite direction! They had a team of draft horses on the bank to pull the boat upstream. Whew. Kufstein was a border town for a long time. Germans would come, show their papers, and go drinking in the bars. Apparently musical competitions were a specialty. It seemed like the town spent the 18th century rebuilding from rubble when the Bavarians attacked in 1703. Just as they finished, the Bavarians (as part of Napoleons Army) attacked again. Ey yi yi...

The oldest record of human habitation in Tyrol was found in caves nearby. Tools and spears, 30,000 years old. The town was a Roman garrison, and later an important strategic location in the Middle Ages. It earned the right to build protective walls.

Oh, the sewing machine was invented here.

So it went on like that for hours. I found a restaruant with wi-fi, and watched the enormous traffic jam slowly unlock. Finally around 7:30 the roads were pretty clear, and I drove home.

Stats: The peaks had 1450, and 1400 meters elevation gain. I climbed them each in something under 4 hours, and the ski down was always quick (like an hour or less).

Pu'u Konahuanui

2010-12-23T17:38:00.001+01:00

I met up with local hiker Alex (Aliki on Summitpost) for a quick hike up Pu'u Konahuanui. We had a great time hiking up and talking about things. Climbing was a huge topic, as he's getting into that in college in Boulder. Alex also explained a lot to me about rare plants and how they get protected in the islands, particularly on army land. For example, an area with wild rare plants to be protected will often be fenced, because wild pigs root up everything. There is a crew of local guys who put in the fencing, which is often in remote wilderness, on steep and dangerous terrain. A job benefit is that they get to hunt all the pigs left inside the fenced area. Pig hunters in Hawai'i have so many interesting stories.

Amazingly, we made it to the summit before the usual clouds drifted in, although the view northeast was usually obscured by a cloud, and as we hung out up there, traversing the ridge to the main summit, the cloud kept trying to spill over to the south side of the ridge. From the main summit we could look steeply down to the Pali lookout, and across to Kaneohe and more Ko'olau Range peaks. What a cool place!

I resolved to get some cleated shoes like Alex, they seem custom made for these slippery slopes. My tennis shoes were utterly devoid of tread, so I pretty much wallowed in the mud on the ridge and part of the way down. Whew, was I dirty! "Be one with the dirt," Alex said, or something similar!

Anyway it was great to meet Alex, and get some ideas for future trips. I've got 2-3 steep ridges to climb next time around. Mahalo!

The Ammergau "Director's Cut" route

2010-11-15T17:35:00.001+01:00

I enjoyed a great hike yesterday, getting the idea from Summitpost here. I headed out in tennis shoes, confident that the recent foehn wind had melted the considerable snowfall from the latter part of October. Parking at the wrong trailhead, I spent 20 annoying minutes walking on the flats outside of Graswang to get to the right place.

As I listened to interesting music, I quite enjoyed the hike up the Kuhalpenbach. After about 500 meters of elevation gain, I reached a road and walked east on it for a while, before leaving it for the hike up to the Hasenjoechl. Now I'd gained the ridge of the "Director's Cut." I would traverse this from this point in a wide clockwise rotation of about 270 degrees back to Graswang, bagging 8 named summits along the way.

It worked really well. I only encountered some tedious sections of snow at the Vorderer Felderkopf. Beyond that it was a beautiful fall day, with plenty of dry, brown grassy slopes. However the wind was quite strong a lot of the time.

I saw my first people below the Geissprungkopf, and then a continue stream of folks. It seems like a lot of people hike the three named summits on the western side of the great arcing ridge.

Back at the car at 2:45 pm, I realized that I could have easily climbed the entire ridge, throwing in the Ochsensitz, Ziegelspitz and Notkarspitze, certainly doable with another 1.5 hours of travel, and a bike shuttle to Ettal for the start. I'll do this next time, having already proposed the name: the "Extended Director's Cut." :D

Pictures on Flickr here.

Kranzhorn hike

2010-11-06T21:47:00.000+01:00

Danno, Kris, the boys and I hiked up the Kranzhorn, maybe the last chance to do so before snow embraces it's summit and the little hut on the meadow beneath. It was really fun to have Danno join us! We had a great time on the hike to the summit, then enjoyed hanging around the hut a while on the way down. Thanks to Danno for joining!

The Montscheinspitze

2010-10-31T17:34:00.000+01:00

October 31, 2010.

I went for a hike near Pertisau. I wanted to hike above the Achensee, but when I saw the sun hitting the Montscheinspitze behind the Seebergspitze I decided I had to go there. Parking at the Gernalm I started up. The first 500 meters were on a road, but it was quite steep and efficient. At the pass I headed up to the Plumsjoch and admired the views.

The weather was very good locally, it was very obvious that my local area was protected by the "foehn," a band of high pressure that sometimes develops over the Northern Alps. It also brings a warm wind, which can melt snow rapidly. Clearly, a good bit of snow had melted since the weekend before.

From Plumsjoch, I descended and reclimbed to the Montscheinspitze.

Now I was also getting a view of the Achensee and the Rofan Mountains on the eastern bank.

The trail on the Montscheinspitze sometimes required me to use my hands and be very careful on slippery snow. It's telling that it took me 2 hours to the summit where signs advertised 1.5 hours! But having only been out three hours so far, from the summit I wondered what to to next. Ah, that will do! The picture below shows the Satteljoch and the Kompat from the summit. I'll wander over there and bag those summits:

This turned out to be a great idea because views of the Engtal ("narrow valley") became fantastic.

By the time I got to the top of Kompat I was pretty tired. At one point on the ridge near the Satteljoch the wind became incredibly strong. I had to walk leaning radically to the side in order to stay up. Tough Latschen bushes were being shaken like grass. But the wind wasn't very cold, thank goodness, and I was glad the ridge wasn't especially narrow! Some more folks from Munich were on top and we chatted. I got a good view of the Laliderer Walls, including the Herzogkante. The Steinfalk and associated peaks looks very adventurous.

And I got to see back to the Montscheinspitze from earlier.

And Josef and I hiked a week before on the right side of this picture:

Winter has arrived in the mountains!

Elevation gain:
1921 - 1170 = 751 from gernalm to plumsjoch
2106 - 1794 = 312 from the sattle to Montscheinspitze
1921 - 1794 = 127 from the sattle back up to Plumsjoch
1935 - 1840 = 95 from the pass up to Satteljoch
2011 - 1805 = 206 for the Kompat climb
1935 - 1805 = 130 for the climb back up to Satteljoch
=1585 m

Secret Karwendel hiking

2010-10-23T21:53:00.002+01:00

Josef had an idea for a hike that pieced together bits of trail and ridge crest in the northern "pre-Karwendel" part of the range. We thought we'd see as far as we could get. There was a lot of snow for this time of year, and once on the ridge crest we were post-holing quite a bit. The views were fantastic though, however a cloud and cold wind hovered above us, and the best option was to keep moving.

Oddly enough, one other fella was out on this day with the same idea. We bagged a few peaks on the ridge together then Josef and I continued on. He didn't know how far we'd get, but he knew a way down from a previous attempt.

We ended up descending the same way as Josef did beftore due to the late hour and heavy snow. It might be a long ways further before we could safely head down into a valley. Thanks for the fun hike, Josef!

Östlicher Schoßkopf, "4er Weg" (V+, 15 p)

2010-09-14T11:00:00.002+01:00

Uli asked if I wanted to go climbing on the weekend, and we thought we'd climb the Watzmann. But the route had become snowy in the recent cold snap, and likely wouldn't be any fun. I suggested climbing the "4er Weg" on the Östlicher Schoßkopf instead. While I was pretty sure the rock quality on the route would be somewhat below par, it had other attributes that seemed like a good match for the day. The elevation was pretty low (we top out at 2100 meters), the route faces south and east, and while it offers many pitches of climbing (15), it's bolted and not very difficult (V+). My hand was still a bit sore from the accident in August, and I had done no climbing at all, so I felt a bit weak. Finally, I was unsure how I'd really feel back on rock after the accident. This climb seemed like it might offer a good trial run at climbing again!

I picked up Uli and we made the 2 hour drive to the trailhead in Obermieming. A long walk up a dirt road through the Mieming Plateau, then switchbacks up forested slopes led to a series of tiring scree slopes. It's not a fun approach! The East Face of the mountain is quite impressive, a 400 meter wall of rock with quite a few lines along it's length, divided into chimneys, gullies and slabs. From the town the mountain looks like an undistinguished hump because lower walls are blocked by forest slopes, and peaks of the Mieming Range crest are arrayed behind it.

I'd been here once before, Daniel A. and I tried to climb the Goedeke "Ostwand" route (V) several years ago, but we got lost (physically and enthusiasm-wise) after a few pitches. We came to a curious ledge festooned with a dozen bolts. We ended up down-climbing a series of ledges to the north after an aborted attempt at a direct rappel over a massive cliff. I couldn't tell if the ropes touched anything useful, so I prusiked back up the rope, unwilling to descend too far into the void.

Uli and I found the first pitch, marked with paint to separate it from two other climbs that start in basically the same place. I had the first pitch, and ran into trouble immediately. The first bolt was over 20 meters up, actually near the end of the pitch (where there were 3 bolts placed in rapid succession!). I found this mentally difficult. There was a piton much lower, and I clipped it and hemmed and hawed for a while, resting on the rope and remarking how much this reminded me of the terrain where I fell (also a kind of chimney, also wet in the back...though much wetter in that case!). Finally I climbed...well enough, but without feeling "cured" at all. In fact, for most of the climb I rarely found myself looking forward to the next pitch. I found I could do things that were demanded of me, but I wasn't excited about it.

Still, the climbing wasn't all bad. That first pitch had some interesting moves at the end, and Uli led a very good V+ chimney for pitch 2. Clean, solid rock and interesting moves with one foot on each wall of the chimney. It was also well-protected. Pitch 3 had a grade IV chimney with lots of climbing with your back on one wall and your feet on the other. Two easier pitches crossed a via-ferrata installed on a sloping ledge system, useful for emergency descent or to get down from shorter routes on the south side of the face.

Uli climbed an easy face, then traversed left on an imposing slab with a sloping ramp. I led up the slab from this point on it's left side, following the easiest line up and right. There were some tough moves, especially at a little "V" scoop which was extra smooth. One handhold with a broken edge could be used along with some fancy footwork to get by. Whether it was my mental state or just plain old physical weakness, I developed an "Elvis leg" shaking that nearly knocked me off the holds a few moves above. Wow, not my best day, I thought!

Uli came up very easily, then went to the left on a vague 30 meter grade III pitch. He was lost in a sea of rubble, and couldn't find the start of the next pitch. I thought that the right answer would be straight up (the vague topo supported both of our interpretations), and after Uli came back, sure enough I found a bolted anchor straight above. Another grade IV chimney/crack led to another anchor, but then we began to feel we were on a different route. "I think it's Strada del Sole, mentioned in the Panico guide. No worries, it meets up with 4er Weg soon," I said, sure I was right. I led an easy pitch to another belay below an impressive chimney.

Uli did a great job leading this chimney pitch, which turned out to be pretty hard. Near the top, he touched a big buttress of seemingly solid rock with his foot and it exploded from the wall. Suddenly surrounded by flying rocks, I got away with a glancing blow on my shoulders. I cursed like a sailor for a few minutes, mainly irritated that my belay was right in the path of debris like that. C'mon, I thought, this is the Mieminger Kette...the rock here is terrible!

I was heartily impressed with Uli's lead, powering over tough but delicate moves. At the top we couldn't see any bolts, but a long obvious gully led upwards. After 50 meters I had nothing but a series of rotten bushes I'd lashed together. Uli came up and repeated the exercise, finding a fixed nut in a crack at mid-way, allowing us to breathe a sigh of relief at ONE very good piece of protection. We'd clearly lost the route. But I knew that 4er Weg was somewhere to the left. From Uli's sling belay, I traversed left to find it. After a few minutes I saw a bolted anchor above and went for that. Nothing will make you feel more foolish that wandering around on a mountain with a useless rack of quickdraws. "I'm always bringing a rack of nuts from now on," said Uli.

Indeed, we'd found the last 3 pitches of 4er Weg. Dispatching them quickly, we scrambled to the fore-summit where the log book revealed that we were the 5th party to climb the wall this year. Though I chose the route from a popular guidebook, I'm not surprised that the mountain sees little traffic. But we'd had some fun, and the scenery couldn't be beat. Snow had already powdered the northern ramparts of the Stubai and Ötztal peaks to the south. According to the Wandbuch, we were the 5th party of the year. We enjoyed the views for a few minutes, then made a 50 meter rappel down a gully to reach a sloping green terrace.

I found myself starting to feel queasy on this terrain. There was a huge cliff below, and I kept slipping on the tilted scree, grass and loose rock. I asked Uli to stick near me just for psychological reasons. I really didn't trust anything in here. It's funny, Uli and I talked later about the climb and we both had sections we really felt uncomfortable on. For him, it was the mostly unprotected pitches below the summit. For me it was this stuff, by far! After some initial down-climbing, we were blocked by cliffs. Uli found a just-doable way on the other side of a gully, then making short switchbacks on steep grass to finally reach the basin.

Lots of scree-skiing followed, often fun. But when the carpet of small rocks runs out, you get stranded on bare 40 degree dirt slopes with tiny embedded pebbles. We tried to link pockets of deeper scree, and eventually reached our pack at the base of the route. Well, Uli did. I started slipping uncontrollably about 30 meters away and gave up!

We hiked down, having a good laugh about a cliff that was polished white with water. We joked that local hardmen like Heinz Zak might solo climb it in the moonlight. The polish on the smooth wall would be so great you could see your face all the way up. The climb would be named "Spiegel, Spiegel, an der Wand..." (Mirror, mirror on the wall), and doubly frightening because you could see your face as you carefully ascended!

Sometimes imagining something ridiculous and laughing at it distracts you from your own ridiculous activities, no?

Thanks Uli for a safe climb and return.

More pictures here.

Family trip to the Frischmannhütte

2010-08-29T22:47:00.003+01:00

Kris, Rowan, Elijah and I headed to the mountains at 8 am Saturday morning. We had no traffic and got to the little town of Köfles on a mountainside in the Ötztal in 3 hours. The boys had packs this time, and as usual felt a bit tired in the first few hundred meters. In fact, Elijah said "Daddy, I'm tired" less than 10 seconds after we set out with great fanfare!

But it's almost always just a problem with boredom for these fellas. We came into a forest with boulders to hop on and he forgot he was tired. There was a monotonous ski slope that gave them some trouble, but as I've seen before, they got onto the steeper switchbacking trail above and had no problem maintaining motivation. Well, as long as the parents are creative! "No pooping on my red hat," said mommy. "No pooping under my blanket!" chuckled Rowan. "No p---" you get the idea. That was a joke that lasted for hours. Plus it got the boys some exercise on prepositions.

I'm a huge Jethro Tull fan...Rowan brought the flute!

Elijah points to the car, and Rowan to the hut

After a long time we reached a high pass called Schartle, then began a magical mostly traversing journey along an cute little irrigation canal, bringing glacial blue water down to some cows in the valley below. We stopped for lunch along the water, and looked to our hut, the Frischmannhütte, on the other side of the valley. We made a long traverse to the head of the valley, crossed a raging stream, then continued to the hut, getting there at about 5:30. Wow, that was a pretty big hike!

We would sleep in a common room with about 8 other people. That was a first for the boys, but they did great. Dinner was served early, like 6 or 6:30, and was very good. I had "Rahmschnitzel," fried pork with cream sauce and rice. The boys had spaghetti which always works.

Later, we put the boys to bed and went down into the "Stube" so I could get a beer and Kris some wine. I saw a guitar on the wall and decided to be sociable and join in the music-making. A whole group from northern Bavaria were there with a father and son with their own accordians. They happily accepted my strumming and we spent a couple of hours going through dozens of songs. They have amazing memories. I just played along by ear...some songs had two chords, some three...rarely four. Kris loved it, and we kept drinking, though we could never keep up with this group! We got some good German practice, and finally, after a encore rendition of "Kleine Harmonica Spieler" we went to bed. I was bragging I'd get up real early and climb the Blockkogel before anyone else finished breakfast. No one believed me, least of all me!

But I managed it. For some reason I was awake at 6:00, kissed Kris goodbye and stumbled out. I didn't feel I had time to even drink water, put on contact lenses or snatch my iPod. Normally those are the three essentials for a morning hike!

I scurried away, hiking to the back of the valley then steeply up a long scree cone, past some startled sheep, then onto a scenic ridge to meet the sun. Another 30 minutes and I was heading due south on the north ridge of the Blockkogel, really loving the variety of the route and the views. On the summit I looked down into the Pitztal, and across and out to many snowy peaks. The air was exceptionally clear. This was great, because it can sometimes be very hazy in good weather. It felt like summer was turning, and must be enjoyed before it slips away.

Goodbye hut...

The Blockkogel

Views to the west...

Back at the hut, Elijah was keen to explore some rocks across a stream. He led us further and further to my weak protests that mom was ready to go. The boys loved finding spider webs and destroying them with rocks. Rowan climbed down into a little cave once it had been sufficiently cleared of spider webs.

Fighting spider webs...

Sporting my injury from the Langkofeleck two weeks before...

The hike back was made interesting because cows were coming from the lower and upper pastures to the hut. We had to wait on the side of the trail for them to pass. After a while, this got annoying, but finally at the raging creek we were done with that. It seemed a long way down, especially in the steep rock and forest slope above Köfles. Kris and I were tired! But finally we made it, and had a nice drive home, fortified by McDonalds near Munich.

Traffic jam...

The Blockkogel and our hut on the right.

Beautiful mom and kids!

Bye Austria!

More photos here.

Family trip to the Westfallenhaus

2010-08-11T19:52:00.005+01:00

I'd threatened to take the family for an overnight trip to a hut for at least a year, and finally the stars lined up. Kris and I schemed to keep the cost down. Membership in the alpine club made lodging half price, but dinner and breakfast was still pretty expensive. In the end, by bringing our own breakfast we got in and out for about 60 euros. Not bad for a family of four for dinner, board and lunch the next day. We also had our own room. Next time we'll save more by sleeping in the common room, but the boys were so enchanted with their bunk beds!

There was a lot of traffic leaving the city, but eventually we were in Lüsens and making an early afternoon hike. The weather was beautiful, but a bit cold, and fresh snow decorated the peaks from about 2900 meters elevation.

The boys were good hikers, but prone to sudden bouts of extreme tiredness. It took something interesting to wake them up. Once I ate some berries and tried to get them to try them too. They were blueberries, and that got us through a steep section.

We found a good picnic place on a knoll and ate looking across at the waterfalls I'd climbed in previous winters. Kris made delicious salami sandwiches, and a tubular container of Pringles (TM) was a great idea. The boys played with their Lego men a bit. These are a great idea...if each kid is allowed to bring two Lego men, it is enough of a toy to satisfy them the whole weekend. The man can be placed in a natural environment of rock and heather, where he can experience alien attack, avalanche, menacing helicopters, and all manner of similar fun!

We rounded a corner then made a long pleasant traversing hike up to the Westfallenhaus, which looked impossibly distant. Sheep grazed the mountain above us. We arrived in late afternoon, and immediately booked a private room. The boys fell in love with the bunkbeds, and we all hung out in our beds for an hour or so. Kris invented a game where the boys had to leave the room, then come in and find where she'd hidden a Lego man. That was great fun.

We had dinner, then walked around the hut, where the boys found a dog to play with, and we all munched on cookies. As it got dark, we went in and went to bed, the boys so happy in their top bunks.

Early in the morning I woke up, put on contact lenses, grabbed my iPod and a candy bar, and snuck out to hike up the Schoentalspitze. I think it took 1.5 hours up, and there was snow on the summit block that had to be negotiated. A cold wind competed with the weak morning sun on top, and the view made me linger. Getting my fill, I hurried down, sometimes running thanks to some good loud music that fit the trail. Back at the hut we ate breakfast, and I took the kids for a nature hike while Kris relaxed in a sun chair. We found a big boulder and set up a space station on top, piling smaller rocks as places to hide. Then I napped in the meadow while the wars raged on between various factions of a broken alliance.

It was time to head down! At the hut I played guitar for a while, teaching a little girl how to play the all important "power chord." We hiked down, doling out treats of chocolate when things got boring. Kris invented the "no pooping on (a surprising object)" game, which still entertains us regularly!

We stopped in Garmisch for a couple hours of swimming on the way home. I jumped off the high-dive and landed funny, such that my teeth hurt for an hour! The boys loved the slides.

It was a great first-overnight hike!

Torre Comici "Casara" Route (IV+, 7 pitches) (attempt)

2010-08-05T10:01:00.002+01:00

In the morning it was raining. So much for one of the hard routes. It was also very cold. Finally, around 11 weather lightened up enough to make the hike back over the Col-de-Medo Pass for the Torre Comici. It was an easy climb, but at least a chance to get something done with my last day. We endured a long and tiring scree climb to reach the base. Jesse was pretty tired, and I definitely understood where he was coming from!

I had the first lead, up a IV+ dihedral and chimney. Near the end of the pitch, my fingers got really cold. With the wind whistling, me blowing on my fingers, and trying to negotiate the crux moves, things didn't look great for continuing. I reached the belay and Jesse said his motivation had just crumpled away. Realizing that we were looking at some only moderately-enjoyable hours of cold and mediocre climbing, I had no problem with leaving. I rapped and cleaned the gear, we zoomed down the scree and like that, my trip came to a close. Jesse would do some hiking and then continue a grand summer of climbing that is still going on.

Looking down on "Frozen Fingers Chimney"

The way beyond. Ech. Not very inspiring!

At least the anchor was good! (Yes, for the Dolomites, this is "bomber")

It had been great fun. I was really happy to meet and climb with Jesse. We had many great conversations and saw totally "eye to eye" on the meaning of and practice of the climbing game. I'm eager for him to come back. I'm positive we'll bite off some big chunks of our shared bigger goals. Including Saturday's Totenkirchl climb (described in another report), we'd climbed more than 70 pitches in 9 days.

Berg heil!

Paternkofel, Northwest Ridge (Bolte/Wolf), IV (7 pitches)

2010-08-05T09:54:00.002+01:00

We slept in Saturday, somehow unable to get up and do some harder climbing. We had either the "Kleine Cassin" on the Pruessturm on the agenda or the "Egger-Sauscheck" route on the Kleine Zinne in mind. But those were hard and we felt lazy. We decided against the Comici route on the Punta di Frida because of the way it goes halfway up then you walk off (unsatisfying).

Above is a picture of the "Kleine Cassin," with some people on it.

Ultimately, we just wanted something like a hike, and the Paternkofel fit the bill. Taking a single rope and a few pieces of gear, we hiked over to near the route. Jesse went a good way, and I chose a poor way to climb the scree slopes to the start. Basically he had to wait 30 minutes for me to arrive, a bit dirty and shattered! Another party of four was 3 pitches above.

Above, the Paternkofel as seen from the Drei Zinnen. Our route takes the left skyline to the summit, ignoring the towers further left, rather going straight up from scree.

After our day yesterday, we found this terrain so easy, it was like walking. We swarmed up the first two pitches in 10 minutes and caught the party as they worked on a grade IV chimney. I spied a better line right of the chimney, led up that, then continued into the next pitch so that we wouldn't crowd them at their belay. Jesse made a crux grade V move at an overhang (our topo says to go around far right...see...we don't pay as much attention to it anymore!), and then we enjoyed several very nice pitches on the ridge crest. A final scenic scramble got us to the summit. We'd done that route in 2 hours, actually beating a Dolomite guidebook time for the first time ever! (BTW, this route is not the North-Northwest Ridge in the Koehler and Memmel guide (III+), though they eventually join up.)

Typical tourists!

What a great view up here!

Another view...with years of climbing in it!

We descended the Sepp Innerkofler via ferrata that leads to the Rifugio Locatelli, then had a great spaghetti lunch. It was fun playing around in the war tunnels, and speeding down the via ferrata to the consternation of folks methodically clipping and unclipping carabiners. We saw some lakes in front of the Drei Zinnen and resolved to hike there for a swim. Jesse didn't want to descend too much, so he tried a different way. His heart wasn't in it though, and he eventually took the path of least resistence, going back to the Aronzo Hut for a rest. I could tell he was going to do that by his comments and the extreme aversion to hiking uphill he'd acquired since lunch!

I hiked down into a lovely basin with cows, then back up to a great plain of stone in front of the Drei Zinnen. Eventually I reached the lake, stripped and jumped in. Oh my god that's cold! But refreshing!

I got out and sat looking at the walls a while. I took a nice nap, and eventually figured it was time to head back. There was only one day left on the trip, we'd better see what we can do with it. I went back over the Col-de-Medo pass, ending up well pleased with our easy but spontaneous day.

Kleine Zinne, "Yellow Edge" (VI+, 14 pitches)

2010-08-05T09:42:00.003+01:00

We slept in the Trevisio Hut and hiked down in the morning. Suddenly it was Thursday. We were running out of time! We wanted to do something "big," and finally a more stable weather pattern was supposed to arrive, or already be here. We thought about a variety of objectives, but finally settled on the Grosse Zinne (Cima Grande), via the Comici North Face. Friday would be the best weather forecast so far. We drove north, having lunch along the way somewhere. At Lake Misurina I grew so tired of driving (or being in the car) that I had to get out and read a few hours. I'd passed up an opportunity for gas in Cortina, and now realized I really needed it. We had to drive up to Dobbiaco for a station, some water and another forecast check. Eventually we were settled in the Rifugio Aronzo, all set to wake up early and climb.

In the morning everything went smoothly. We made the approach, and in the last few minutes two parties came running up behind us. One of them did another climb, but the other was pleased to set his foot at the base of the route a few seconds before me, feeling that he'd "claimed his place." Looking up, we saw the route was already crowded. This kind of sucked. Rather mad, I soloed the first pitch (easy, loose terrain) and brought Jesse up, ignoring this smug running fellow (turns out he's the "lead guide," Jesse saw his picture in the Aronzo hut). Later the running man threaded his rope through another party on the second pitch, pulling on their rope and tugging on the protection! (it was a nut that could easily fall out with such activity).

Jesse and I sat at our place in line at the top of the first pitch, realizing it would be at least 2 hours before we could move. Starting at pitch 3, the route is grade VII- for many pitches. So it's a very slow single file affair. There were even people hidden on a ledge above that we hadn't seen. And we were the last in line. We waited about 45 minutes, then climbed down, unwilling to sit there the whole morning.

Somewhat disgusted with the whole situation, and maybe ourselves for not having foreseen this particular difficulty, we stomped away and formed a new plan. I'd run back to the car and get the topo for "The Yellow Edge," then we'd climb that. I slipped twice on steep scree and cut my wrist enough to cover my hand and helmet in blood. An alarmed Jesse gave me some tape to wrap it up. No way I'm not climbing cuza that!

A strange fog rolled in, making my jog to the car and back monotonous. We humped up to the base of the route, really happy to see that there was only one party 3 pitches above.

Jesse got the first pitch (30 m), rather intimidating for it's V+ or VI- grade because the holds are small and polished. I continued for pitch 2, a VI or VI- crack with a brief but exciting overhanging section. The main problem there was feeling like your feet might blast off of a polished slope like ice. I felt every microscopic movement and torqued hard on the jams. Happily, polish doesn't disturb a good hand jam too much.

We were happy to be done with those pitches, often described as the real crux despite some VI+ moves higher up that are without polish. Now we followed four long pitches right of the crest, mostly on easy terrain with several lines available. We slavishly followed our topo, not wanting to miss the spot where we make a hard left traverse to reach the edge (doesn't make sense to call it a ridge...it's totally vertical the whole way). This short traverse was easy but thrillingly exposed. I led a very enjoyable face climb (V+) past some pitons right on the edge to a nice stance below the crux pitch.

I moved the belay from the one suggested on the topo so I could watch Jesse climb the pitch. He did a great job, passing a lower VI- section that had a short vertical wall but good hands in a crack. Then the real meat of the pitch came, in an overhanging yellow corner with good handholds but outrageous exposure (VI+). He beefed up the 3-piton belay with a cam and a sling, understandably nervous hanging way out in space, nothing but air around, and people with binoculars watching him from the Lavaredo Hut. This was a joyous pitch to climb. It felt very well protected (if you trust pitons :)), and the moves were athletic but secure. Between this and the next pitch, another thrilling traverse followed by 20 meters of steep face climbing (V+), this route became elevated to something mythic. Two more pitches of incredibly exposed face climbing had us laughing and continuously amazed at the greatness of this climb.

A final "ordinary" pitch, because it was somewhat sheltered from the exposure we'd grown to love, and then we stood at the top of the "edge." I was so impressed with the climb, I didn't even think about going on to the true summit of the Kleine Zinne (not hard), only now I wish I had. But if there is one climb to repeat in a lifetime, it's this one, for sure.

We scrambled ledges to a point above the notch between the Kleine and Grosse Zinne. We made two double rope rappels then several single rope rappels to reach the notch, then descended unpleasant hard, dirty snow for quite a while. Eventually, very muddy and with frozen fingers (and me with some blood from my wound), we escaped the gully and retrieved our pack at the base of the climb.

We'd salvaged the day really well. Holy cow, that was fun!

Funny story with the photo above. We'd dropped this carabiner on pitch 10, and found it laying on the trail right below the wall. Woo hoo! Aluminum doesn't have a hairline crack problem, so we think it's okay to use again.

Goodbye Yellow Edge. I think I'll climb you again in this life!

Pala del Rifugio, Northwest Ridge "Castiglioni/Destassis" Route (V, 15 pitches)

2010-08-05T09:32:00.003+01:00

We decided to head down to the Pala Dolomites. We had time because Tuesday was predicted to be bad weather everywhere. Actually it wasn't bad until evening, then there was a massive thunderstorm like we'd never seen. The rain started as we made the short hike from the car to the Rifugio Treviso, which is right at the base of the climb. It didn't let up for hours, and eventually tiny harmless streams on the mountainside turned into frightening torrents with rolling boulders. Later, we met an American couple who were stranded by one of these torrents (certain death to try and cross), and forced to reclimb to a bivouac box 2000 feet above! I'd never seen anything like it.

Our plan was to climb this route then continue along the West Ridge of Sasso d'Ortiga for a really grand day. But several things happened to derail that. First, the hut warden may have been concerned about too many parties trying to do the same route. He suggested we climb to the summit of Pala del Rifugio via another route, a bit shorter but harder. He also pooh-poohed our request to get up really early, saying that the normal breakfast time should be good enough. Perhaps feeling like we were behaving over-cautiously we agreed to these changes.

We set off in the morning with others, noting that vegetation and rock were still soaked from the night before. After a tough 45 minutes we stood below the alternate route, not liking our chances at all. Above was a black, dripping chimney, supposedly the crux of the route at grade V+. Now I've been in grade IV chimneys that scared me to death when soaked, and I lost my desire to do battle with this thing very quickly. Jesse felt likewise. I was upset that our "monster" day might be taken from us due to bad advice (that I truly felt like ignoring before anyway, but didn't say anything). The weather was beautiful...should we wait for the rock to dry? Should we ignore the lower 16 pitches in favor of just doing the upper 9? I wanted to do neither, and immediately set off to speed down and get on our original route in hopes of salvaging the day.

We did this, but I'd become kind of sour and uncommunicative as I mulled over all these factors. Jesse wanted to stop and talk it over a few minutes but I wasn't hearing him. I'd gotten the idea that it was "my job" to "save the day," and didn't see the use. My foolishness on this point cast a pall over the first hours of our climbing, and it was only after a long discussion later that we could finally understand each other. I was abashed at having been disrespectful, and admired Jesse's forbearance and patience with me. I'm always nervous until we are properly on the climb (my other friends can attest to this too!), and really have to learn to take early setbacks in stride. The day is long...the chances for success are many...

So anyway, we eventually made it to the other side of the mountain and the Northwest Ridge. An Austrian (Styrian) party of four was getting ready to climb. Along with them, we scrambled the first two easy pitches, made a little sketchy due to wet grass and rocks. They were very kind and offered for us to go first. Two or three pitches of mediocre climbing led to a ledge right of the ridge and an obvious chimney that must be one of the grade V cruxes. I led this, very happy that it was dry! Another long pitch with some simul-climbing, slightly easier, got to the First Shoulder.

Spirits lifting a bit, we simul-climbed easy terrain up to where the buttress steepened again. Here, I made a route-finding error that had us climbing a rather unpleasant variation for a few pitches. My topo said "climb gully left of the arete" and showed a broad, deep "gully," that could only be the enormous gully right above us. I saw a face climb that could (if you squint just right) be characterized as a very shallow gully. It looked better. I should have taken it. But I was a slave to (a poor interpretation of) the topo!

So I led us into the dark gully, eventually a dark, dripping gully. While the Styrians watched far below, telegraphing their opinion of my route choice, I stemmed up to the crux: an 10-inch slot with smooth walls. In a moment of unexpected (later) hilarity, Jesse was making small talk and I blurted out "CANTTALKRIGHTNOW!" surprising myself at the ragged edge of fear in my voice. I had one foot pasted on a sloping wall and was pawing unsuccessfully for anything positive above the slot that awkwardly held part of my body. I was too far above protection to prevent crashing onto a ledge. Slow down and breathe. Eventually, micromovements that brought my foot a couple of inches higher got me something I could use. I built a gear belay and breathed the tension out, straining to see what we had above us. Would overhangs choke us off?

Jesse came up and wished me luck. Happily, fears were overblown and we entered a realm of quality climbing again. After traversing a short vertical wall the sight of a piton cheered me up. A fun face climb with another piton allowed me to climb out of our "massive gully" and join the regular route. Jesse came up and we looked sadly down what appeared to be nice climbing to the right of our gully. We don't recommend our three pitch "adventure variant!"

Soon we stood on the Second Shoulder, and it's only here, for the last 4-5 pitches of the route that it becomes a wonderful Dolomiti climb. Swapping leads, we enjoyed steep terrain marked by enormous holds and lots of incredible, bomber natural protection (natural columns in the rock called Sanduhr, which you can wrap a sling securely around).

These pitches were amazing and we could smile now after all the hemming and hawing and difficulties below. On the summit we had an amazing vision of the Sasso d'Ortiga behind us, looming like a smooth South American buttress. I quite wanted to continue, but eventually it became clear that we'd miss dinner and stumble back pretty late. Now...I wish we had just done it...but at the time the thought of dinner did have a strong hold on us!

We descended carefully, having to negotiate some extremely exposed 4th and low 5th class in tennis shoes. We would think "man, this is a tough traverse!" and suddenly see a piton in front of our faces. "I guess people belay this?" But with care, we made it through to the notch where the Sasso d'Ortiga route begins. Firmly in descent mode, we bade it a reluctant farewell.

On the way down we talked with another party who had done the climb we gave up on. Indeed, it had been tough in the lower part. We continued down to a good dinner and a reunion with the Styrian party. They had been very reticent, looking at us funny when we'd say something (like "hello"). But now they were different. Jesse described how we won them over in such a hilarious way: just relentless cheerfulness from both of us. Ignoring the cold or blank stares...offering advice about where to belay, etc. By the end, they were smiling too!

So this climb has some minor flaws. But I think it was good for us to have some friction with each other because it was an opportunity to see how we deal with conflict. We want to do bigger climbs together in the future, and having seen each other in a bad mood is already helpful for that (well...Jesse saw ME in a bad mood. I don't think he's ever been in a bad mood...that's a compliment people sometimes give me...but I've met my master in that regard!).

Tofana di Rozes, First Pillar V+, 14 pitches

2010-08-05T09:14:00.002+01:00

The morning after our big adventure in the Wilder Kaiser we were tired and dehydrated. It looked like the day would be another scorcher in Austria so we decided to abandon plans of another big climb there and head on down to the Dolomites. A rest day was essential! We hiked down to the car, then took a bath in the freezing cold Kaisertalbach. I only did it because Jesse did. Painful...but eventually quite refreshing. On the way down to Cortina we hydrated and got a pizza lunch in a deserted Bressanone. Gelato too, of course.

In Cortina we found a pension on the road heading north, about 10 minutes walk from downtown. I think it was 30 euros a night. During our stay we piggybacked wifi off some neighbors. This was extremely handy as we tried to figure out some rather unsettled weather. It was raining when we arrived.

On the whole, our weather forecasts for the week were not great. Usually the day would start out clear but rain or thundershowers would always come later. This left us unwilling to hop on anything really big. The next day (Monday) was forecast to be clear until mid or late afternoon. We figured that would give us enough time to knock off the classic First Pillar of Tofana di Rozes. "Klein aber fein," is the German expression for this route (small but nice): 14 pitches to grade V+ (about 5.8 on the Yosemite scale). The year before I had climbed the ridge of the bigger Second Pillar, but this was on the todo list for a long time.

We got some take out pizza and watched the soccer final on tv. Jesse succeeded in pushing our start time back to 5 am. I, a picture of paranoia, wanted to get started an hour earlier. Without risk of spoiling the story, I can say it worked out exactly perfect. We fell asleep before the overtime minutes were done (ha!).

The hike in the morning just took at hour. We had double ropes and a moderate sized rack with us. Jesse started up the rather dark and dubious looking first pitch. By the next pitch, amorphous features harded into a dihedral that offered nice and sustained climbing. Pitch three was the supposed crux at V+, and it was fairly stout. Jesse crabbed up to an overhang in the dihedral and scooted around with some lieback and hand jamming moves. A raft of dubious pitons protected the moves, but I believe he got a good #2.5 Friend in somewhere in there. Two more unremarkable pitches got us to the crest, then exposed easy moves right on the crest led to a horizontal traverse onto the east face. The views from this point became incredible, enhanced by sun and blue sky.

Some more traversing and moderate climbing on the east side of the ridge crest got us to a rubble-strewn terrace. On the second pitch we had seen a guide and a client come up and get started on the first pitch. Now we realized they had definitely bailed. A few clouds were gathering.

The next pitch was fairly exciting, being quite polished for some reason. I had to negotiate a kind of stalactite hanging down over the crack I followed. It pushed me out into some lieback moves until I could squeeze back into the now-wider crack...kind of a chimney at this point. I enjoyed that pitch!

Some more pitches followed, though our attention was consumed by deteriorating weather. Jesse had an interesting pitch near the end when the clouds descended and the wind picked up. While he negotiated a short overhang with big holds and slabs above, I felt a few raindrops. He felt them too, and was in a hurry! Another long pitch got us to the end of the route, right below the summit of the massive buttress. Happily, the weather improved again, with the sun coming back out.

We enjoyed the walk down, admiring the ruins of an old hut and various war ammo dumps and gun emplacements. It started to rain as we approached the car, and suddenly let loose with a fury as we entered the Dibona Hut for some lunch. We'd timed everything perfectly! A big plate of spaghetti and some beer cheered us up. It was still early afternoon, and we were happy to have made it down in time! The guide and his client spoke to us, I guess they bailed because of worries over the weather. Jesse had me in stitches because he noticed that the guide's van had a massive full color photo of himself climbing photogenically on it...long hair wafting in the breeze.

I've got more pictures in my Flickr gallery here.

Got an iPod Touch...

2010-06-03T22:48:00.002+01:00

For Father's Day, Kris got me an iPod Touch. It's great fun! I've loaded all kinds of neat apps onto it, and am planning to write some of my own. It's a really nice platform for clean, simple, useful applications. I find myself trying to avoid using the browser.

The first "Killer App" for me was Doodle Jump, which my boss introduced me too a few weeks ago. A good German dictionary and Evernote are next. After that is probably Brushes, which I installed today but am already having lots of fun with. Here are my first drawings...

Burschlwand climbing with Stephan

2010-05-01T22:17:00.002+01:00

On the spur of the moment, Stephan and I were able to get out for a day. Friday was expected to be nice until the late afternoon, then the weekend rains would start! I convinced him to make the long drive to the Burschlwand, which Adrian and I had really enjoyed a few weeks before. I liked the climbs there so much, I was at least as interested in repeating routes we'd done as doing new ones. Adrian and I did the last pitches of "Mon Cheri" (VII-) last time, and a good start seemed to be to do that whole line. At 8:45 am, Stephan was leading up the first pitch, nicely climbing through some crux (7-) moves on small holds. "This is really pumpy!" he said a couple of times. After running through the short pitch 2 as well, Stephan sent me off for pitch 3, which seemed to get harder as it went up. A vertical wall, I found the holds getting smaller and smaller until finally a committing leftward hand traverse escapes to the belay. What a steller pitch!

Like my previous trip to the Burschlwand, I found myself replaying the pitch in my mind. Despite the rather lackluster appearance of the cliff, almost every pitch offers creative moves.

Stephan lead pitch 4, graciously using the optional belay station mid-pitch to allow me to lead the top part. These two 30 meter pitches are often combined, but last time I enjoyed it so much on follow that I wanted a chance to lead some of it. It offered continually interesting face climbing, sometimes made easier by being able to grab a prominent edge on the left. Stephan took pitch 6 via a nice face climb that reached the top of the wall.

We came down and hung out in the shade near the car for a while drinking water and eating chocolate, which had already melted in the heat of the day. We'd taken about 3 hours for 6 pitches. "That's pretty pathetic!" said Stephan. "I didn't know we were racing," I replied. My thought was that these were all tough pitches, it was our first climb together outside, and well...the day is long! Still, we resolved to see if we could speed up a bit.

Next we hiked back up to climb "Stenico," again grade VII-. I got the easy first pitch, then Stephan climbed a surprisingly tough buttress that looked easy from below. "You should skip clips!" I said, or something to that affect. But once up there I was amazed how terrain that appeared lackluster from below turned into bulgy overhangs and vertical walls. "Good lead!" I said, then combined pitches 3 and 4. I ran out of steam at the crux moves on pitch 4 and had to rest a moment.

I'd tried to pass a slabby section to the left of protection, only to get into trouble trying to go up and traverse right on small features. After a rest I made it work, but watching Stephan later it appeared the better way was to avoid getting so far left as I had. This was a good pitch. Stephan continued up the slabby buttress to a belay below an overhang. Gulp!

Interesting moves sent me right below the overhang, then back left. I thought I should climb it on the left, but that didn't work. After a rest I finally figured out that there is a decent incut hold right in the heart of the overhang that would allow me to reach high for a slabby palm with my left hand. That cracked it, then I wended my way slightly right and up on the crest of an outside corner, deciding to keep going through pitch 7 to the top. Stephan came up and we talked with some guys who'd been climbing HeSi on the right. What's more they had established that route and others here! We thought about calling it a day, but with blue sky and hours of daylight left we couldn't justify leaving work early! Besides, we'd climbed faster...that was 7 pitches in 2.5 hours.

Another scamper back to the base of the wall followed, and this time we drove into town for a sandwich. We hung out at the chapel fountain some more, eating, drinking and talking with some other climbers. Even though Adrian and I already climbed "Donna Delores" (6+), I wanted to do it again. Stephan agreed, and at 4:45 pm he was leading the first pitch. I was worried about pitch 2, which I found really hard a few weeks ago. Nervously asking Stephan to watch me closely, I took a big leftward step out from the belay to the highly chalked foothold that provides access to the wall. I went up and right to a hopeless rotten overhang, then tentatively traversed back left on slabby pinches until I could make the second clip. "Not out of the woods yet," I thought. Straight up from here on small holds got the third clip, then I could relax a bit. I traversed right, then used a shallow seam to aid upward progress until finally the route exits to a belay on the left. Whew!

Now, Stephan would get the joy of leading my favorite pitch on the wall so far. Rated 6, it is nonetheless sustained and long, with several puzzles to solve as it climbs up and left on a broad wall. He did this very well, and was already raving about the quality as he reached the belay. I could only respond "I know, yeah?!" having fallen in love with the pitch a few weeks ago with Adrian. I had marred the lead by traversing too far left to another line that day, then engaging in a series of traverses and hijinks to get back on the line. Stephan made no such mistake, and even got some nice pictures of me showing the climbing sequence on different sections. The last pitch of the route proper was for me, and I had a great time slinking up the wall to an appointment with a yellow rotted-looking overhang that is escaped via a slabby jug on the left. Despite getting a hand on the jug, there is nothing helpful for feet, and it makes for an exciting end to an already-strenuous pitch. Stephan got pitch 5, an easy ridge that dovetails with the "Mon Cheri" route.

Sore, tender feet and fingers aside, it was an excellent climbing day. Thanks Stephan!

Pitch counts:
MC: 7-,5+,7-,6+,6 (we did 5 pitches in 4: 7-, 7-, 6+, 6)
S: 5,7-,1,7-,6-,7-,6- (we did 7 pitches in 5: 5, 7-, 7-, 6-, 7-)
DD: 6+,6+,6,6,5+ (we did as marked)

in YDS (helpful for my own comparisons. Difficult to translate the rating, I've added my own subjective thoughts):
MC: 5.10c, 5.8, 5.10c, 5.10b, 5.9
S: 5.7, 5.10b, 3rd class, 5,10c, 5.9, 5.10b, 5.9
DD: 5.10a, 5.10b, 5.10a, 5.9, 5.8

Lüsenser Spitze and hiking

2010-04-26T21:40:00.002+01:00

I had a day free but no partners. After much hemming and hawing to myself, I decided on the Lüsenser Fernerkogel, which dominates the view above Gries in the Sellrain Valley. I skied up, getting a kind of late start (7:30 am). Pretty ice slopes down low were tricky sometimes. I even saw people using ski crampons! I'd lost mine over the years...

Enjoying myself, I skied up and up and up, finally reach the glacial plateau. A low angle but somehow punishing slope followed, to reach the point where you skin steeply up on a rocky slope to gain a glacier below the summit. A fellow was above me, having lots of trouble without ski crampons. Hmm...

I decided to take the easy way out and go for the lesser summit of Lüsenser Spitze. It is 100 meters lower, but you can ski right to the top without the icy difficulties. Next time I'll bag the Fernerkogel!

The view on top was amazing. I talked to the other three people hanging around there, then skied down. It had been a long 1600 meter climb, but the descent was so fast, at least until halfway when I caught a ski in an icy rut. The fall was rather painful as my bindings didn't really release...but I eventually kind of twisted out of the skis...at some cost to 1 ankle and 1 knee. Ouch! Oh well. I slowed down a bit. I got a bit lost on the lower slope which steepens into a set of cliffs and gullies. I ended up making some awkward traverses across avalanche debris, then skiing ungracefully to the road. Whew!

Back at the car, it was only 1 pm. I ate some lunch and decided to spend the afternoon hiking. I drove to Innsbruck, trying to park my car at the Hungerburg lift station, but a bike race threw a monkey wrench into that plan. After a long walk in city streets and a bus ride, I eventually started hiking up the steep, dusty slope beneath the Seegrube lift. I started out tired and stayed that way all the way to the top, 1100 meters above! But I was happy...I'd given myself a 2700 meter day uphill, with 1600 meters skiing down. Now I'd reward myself with a beer and pie, and a great sunny view to the town and mountains around. Then take the lift down, who hoo! :-)

Buchstein Climbing

2010-04-26T21:31:00.002+01:00

March 20, 2010.

Alexander and I spent the day snowshoeing up to the Buchstein and doing some nice rock climbs. We did "Südwandschmannkerl" (VI-) first. Fun, easy climbing, with the best pitch being the crux VI- corner, involving stemming and a crack. We rappelled the route, then climbed "Sähnestückchen" (VII-), a neighboring climb with an amazing first pitch of grade VI.

Improbable moves on a slab characterized it. The second pitch was the crux, which I failed to master. It's at the third bolt, and was just a mystery how to step up to a shallow ledge above a vertical wall without a positive handhold. The pitch above was very nice too. Alexander led out for a long (V?) pitch with varied moves. Another long pitch led to an improvised belay in a slippery snow gully. Trying to top out from here was difficult, with various comical shinanigans. Eventually we grimaced and kicked steps in the snow in our rock shoes so as to enjoy the summit for a few minutes. We soaked in the view then rappelled down, connecting with Südwandschmannkerl because there were a few belays without rap rings on Sähnestückchen.

To close out the day I led the first pitch of Sähnestückchen, as watching Alexander lead it before was inspiring.

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2010-04-26T20:45:00.001+01:00

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"Power Sledding"

2010-01-31T16:20:00.003+01:00

Yesterday Kris, the boys and I got up fairly early and went to the Blomberg ski/sledding area, about a good hours drive away. It's been snowing a lot, and we've never really gone sledding since we moved here. Time to remedy that!

We rented two sleds and paid our fee to be lifted up the mountain. The lift seemed to take forever and we got cold, especially because it started snowing, heavier and heavier as we climbed. At the top we got off and took shelter in a little three-sided shack. One more glove/hat/zipper check, and we were off. Kris and Elijah on one sled, me and Rowan on the other. We were a bit apprehensive. What if it's icy and too fast, and we hate it? We just committed for a three mile trip down! But the first short run was great fun. We had to walk a while (along the way we saw this neat piece of outdoor art, it is only visible when you stand at a certain spot), then it turned into more or less continuous sledding down the mountain for miles.

This was super fun! I wish we'd done it last year. We learned to crudely steer by dropping one leg in the snow. Once Kris and Elijah fell turning a corner, this was very memorable and fun! Rowan seemed to like bumps a lot, but 3 times he got a spray of powder in his face that wasn't much fun.

An hour after we got there we were down. We would have gone one more time, but we didn't have enough cash with us (I thought they would take a credit card...it's obvious I've been in the U.S. for a while!).

Then today, we borrowed Riki and Arne's sled and walked over to the Monoptorus, a little hill in the English Garden. Wow, super fun again! It was just me and the boys this time. Usually the two kids went down together, but sometimes I could cram onto the sled too. The kids also had fun climbing a steep and icy hill, pulling on brambles and sometimes falling down the icy slope.

Time to get our own sleds, this is going to become a decent chunk of our winter lives!

The Deliberative Body

2009-12-16T18:17:00.002+01:00

Awakening from a dream in an unscheduled hotel stay due to a flight cancellation I had the idea below, sprung "full form" from my sleepy brain.

This is packaged as a "game," though it is not a game. You submit your name and your town. The body meets at regular intervals. Your name is read aloud. Members of the deliberating body may or may not ask for more information about you. Deliberation commences. It will likely be very short, as there are many names to hear.

Several rules circumscribe the operations of this body:

The body most be composed of real people.

These people must physically meet at a known location.

The names must be read aloud by a foreman or forewoman, who is also a real person.

The foreman or forewoman may be a member of the deliberating body.

Aside from a printout of the names to hear, and from the necessarily electronic RENDERING of the findings, the process is not electronic or automatized in any way.

What does the body do with each name heard? It returns a written response. Depending on the respondents point of view, this response may appear whimsical, tautological, or even deadly serious. The respondent may do what he or she wishes with the written response. It may be taken seriously or not at all. After delivery of the response, the deliberative body's assigned task is completed.

The body may or may not keep records, though it is encouraged that they do. Any such records are NOT to be made public. They exist purely for the heightened administrative capabilities of the body itself. Often, one member of the body is assigned to take minutes of names heard and responses given.

There is nothing sinister or untoward about the deliberating body. The only thing that separates the operation of it from the operation of any other banal, benign, functional or dysfunctional organization is that it is conducted according to the rules already given. To wit, when a RESPONDENT submits his name, the name will be READ ALOUD by a living person, DELIBERATION will commence on that name by living members of the body, and a RESPONSE will be provided. All of the preceding is entirely free of automated reasoning, "batch processing," randomization algorithms or any other "algorithm" which can be undertaken by a computer's central processing unit.

SUBMISSION

More than one Deliberative Body may exist in the universe. A Respondent may submit his or her name to none, any, or all of them. It is discouraged to submit a name more than once to a given body. The body reserves the right to sort the list of names and remove duplicate names before printing the list for deliberation. Names or patterns of submission which seem to be in jest may be removed from the list before printing. A well-administered deliberative body will apply appropriate safeguards to ensure that little times is wasted with "crank" submissions.

RESPONSE TIME

A deliberative body may publish a statement which gives the submitter an idea of how long it may be before a response is delivered. For example, "The body meets twice monthly for a two hour session. Most respondents receive a reply within a month." It may be difficult to say more than this, as the caseload for each body may fluctuate wildely, particularly as advertisements describing the opening of a new deliberative body can reach large audiences via electronic networks. If a deliberative body ceases to function, it is not obliged to notify those who've submitted names, but it must publicly post that it has closed. An generally worded public mass apology to those who've submitted names but will not receive a response would be a minimum courtesy, and is expected.

WHATS IN IT FOR ME?

Very little. Only one small thing. As a submitter, you receive the courtesy of having your name read aloud, and a response formulated in a process free from automized processes. As written above, you can see the response as a judgment, a verdict, a "joke" or take no notice of it at all. Rest assured that the members of the deliberative body will treat your name and location with respect and seriousness. The deliberative process is serious. Nothing is to be published about the course of events during deliberation, but disagreement and occasional strife is to be expected in determining the response to a well-intentioned submitter. In this way, the submitter is accorded a measure of respect beyond what she may receive at the hands of other, possibly automated deliberative processes. This is merely conjecture, however. There is no guarantee that the submitter will not ultimately regret submitting her name to deliberation.

FOLLOW UP QUESTIONS

There is no facility for this sort of thing, as it would impose the strictest demands on record keeping. You could try, but a successful answer would require your question to get through, and for a member of the body to recall the last time you were considered. A deliberative body who choses to advertise this capability does so at it's peril. A careful thinking through the problem reveals many pitfalls, not least an encroaching automation that destroys the basic premise of a strong, organic deliberative body.

The Boys Birthday

2009-11-27T13:20:00.002+01:00

It's their birthday! We read this little story (but in German) at school about their life so far. They walked around the earth, once per year, and showed some photos to the other kids. Kris made "Monster Cupcakes," out of chocolate cake with amazing cream cheese icing. Each monster had fearsome eyes and teeth!

Rowan and Elijah were born on November 27, 2004 in Redmond, Washington, in the USA. We were so happy to welcome them to our family. They were born six weeks early, and they were very small!

When they were one year old, we all moved to our apartment down the street, here in Germany. It was very cold that winter! We never saw snow on the ground so long. The boys saw the Dolomites for the first time and they learned to walk.

Rowan and Elijah turned two years old and they went to Texas and then Hawaii for a month of sun at Christmastime. All year they played together and rode their Bobby Cars in the sun.

When they turned three they came here to the Villa Kunterbund. Suddenly they had a teacher and lots of friends to play with. They only knew two words of German: Hallo and Danke. That year we went to see the Matterhorn and stayed in a vacation apartment that we called our "Mountain Home." Michael liked to take the boys on walks, even if it was raining! As usual, Hawaii and also Texas were the place to be for Christmas. Rowan and Elijah's grandmother in Texas and grandparents in Hawaii love them very much, and miss them because they can't see them every day!

Rowan and Elijah turned 4, and the Family Stanton discovered hiking and camping together. We went to Gardasee 4 times this year, and other places too! The boys love sleeping in a tent. They went rock climbing with a rope. And they got to eat lots of ice cream in Italy this year.

Now they are 5. Even though they don't speak German very well they are always learning. Mostly they learn from you. All of you are their teachers. Rowan and Elijah and their Mommy and Daddy all want to say thank you for being such good friends. Never stop playing!

Happy birthday Rowan! Happy Birthday Elijah!

A song for Rowan

2009-10-10T22:35:00.002+01:00

A few weeks ago Rowan came home with a drawing of a butterfly. I was playing the piano when he showed it to me, trying to grok the chord progressions of Wintersun, my current favorite band. I made this little song from that dual inspiration. Check it out here. If you can't understand the lyrics, here they are:

A butterfly from the northlands
Came down on tired wings
Bearing tidings of woe and pain.

Trolls from the eastern hills,
Surprised our host.
One hero held them off,
Rowan was his name.

Rowan cared for the Old Ones,
Kind and open-hearted,
Calming the fears of the younglings
As the host arrived.

With ring of steel and battle cry,
His men stood firm.
Ever nearer pressed the Host,
They breached the Outer Wall.

Though their Age has ended,
Signs of truth remain:
When you see a butterfly,
Rowan was his name.

Rowan was his name.

Rowan likes it a lot and is always playing the piano version. We'll see if he can stand my horrible singing! :-)

Jackson-Shaver

2009-09-20T16:52:00.002+01:00

A little walk down memory lane...

Aside from a year in Houston, my Mom and I lived in Huntsville during my elementary school years. She was trying to earn her degree as a teacher, and raise me at the same time as a single Mom. She already had three (mostly) grown children, and so aside from some periods where my sister Tamara came to stay for a while it was mostly just us. The way Mom found to make a living brought a lot of fun and excitement to my life and that's what I'd like to share today.

Mom became the manager of a girls dormitory at Sam Houston State University, where she also went to school. It was called Jackson-Shaver, and it was a huge brick building, L-shaped and 5 stories high including a big basement/boiler room. The building is still there, but changed somewhat, and now it's a co-ed dorm. Our apartment was spacious and had it's own entrance on the ground floor, about 15 feet away from the Sam Houston Museum. I don't remember how many years we were there, but it was at least two.

That was a magical time for me. I was lost in a fantasy world with my Star Wars toys a LOT. If I wasn't playing with them, I was feverishly scanning the Sears Roebuck Christmas Catalog for pictures of strange new playsets. Sometimes this led to disappointment. I stared at a picture of the Hoth Action Playset so long, memorizing the marketing blurbs about the snow cave, the elevator into the AT-AT, and all the other features, that when I eventually got it I couldn't believe that they'd just taken the Tatoine Desert Playset, dyed it white instead of brown, and pretended it was snow. And the AT-AT was cardboard. Sigh. The anticipation was much more fun.

But I would take these toys all over the place. There was a little jungle beside the Sam Houston Museum. I found a vine I could swing on. And roots in the steep hillside provided homes for R2-D2 and deserting Stormtroopers.

I also took the toys into the dorm. This place was huge, long hallways with red carpet smelling of fresh paint. There were two major staircases. In the summer all the rooms would be empty for at least several weeks. The doors to the rooms were open, exposing sturdy bunk beds with hospital-blue mattresses. Lots of light would spill into the hallways, and I would tear down the halls alone with an X-Wing Fighter, pleased that I could play in any room I wanted.

I liked to go to the furthest corner of the building, 4 floors up and at the other end of the "L." I also knew the boiler room, with the smell of powdered industrial chemicals. The cleaning staff weren't really around at these times. But their ghosts seemed to haunt the place: they were old, tired grandpas and grandmas, black, with a language and demeanor that made me think of the 1940s. The boiler room seemed to be their home, with scattered chairs and rags indicating impromptu gatherings.

I made a friend named Kenneth. He lived in a house where someone had hung themselves on the front porch years ago. You know that house in Forest Gump that the female lead throws mud at? Yeah, that was his house. But Kenneth was my best friend, and we would tear through the park or the dormitory halls in a frenzy.

I remember deciding that there was one girl in the world who maybe wasn't gross and that was Brooke Shields. I had a copy of Time Magazine with her picture on the cover. Kenneth and I spent a hot summer evening fighting like dogs for that picture, jumping down the stairwells 4 steps at a time trying to keep it safe. Eventually, on the hillside in front of the dorm it was tragically ripped in two. We mourned.

Every now and then Kenneth could stay overnight. We loved "The Twilight Zone" and Mom would let us watch it with a bowl of popcorn soaked in butter. One episode was called "Green Thumb," about an old woman whose hands turned horribly into roots from her constant rooting in the soil. We had dared each other to sleep in one of the dorm rooms that night. Padding down the dark hallways, we reached our room, climbed to our bunks with our Star Wars sleeping bags, and turned off the light.

I don't know when the screaming started, but we turned into single-celled animals with one goal: GET TO THE LIGHT OF HOME. Running down dark halls at midnight in a building like The Shining is the way I experienced going insane and coming back again.

There was "the Noonday Terror" as well. It was very possible to hear a strange sound, and then no matter how much light is filtering in through the windows, the very air became pregnant with danger. As I ran, once again, for safety, I would always see something unusual out of the corner of my eye on that long journey, the only sound being the blood in my ears, the swish of courdoury and socks pumping lightly on the carpet. I knew I had to hold the scream in until reaching the last hallway with our door, sanctuary, at the end.

Scaring myself silly became a way of life! I kind of miss it now...

Once there was a hurricane in Houston, and the rooms were full of civilians flooded out of their homes. I remember Mom marching down the hall being helpful but strict. "Some of these people have chickens in their rooms!" she said. I tried walking by just to peek in the rooms, and sure enough: I saw three chickens and a pig.

One story I never told Mom at the time, because I was afraid it would get me banned from my visits throughout the dorm, was the time when a high school cheerleading convention took place at the University. The ground floor was full of high school girls for several days. My reliable partner, Kenneth, and I were playing with a big cardbox box in a hallway. I threw the box at him, but it hit a door. To our surprise a girl came out and stood in the middle of the hall, completely undressed! "Theresa?" she said. She say two 11-year old boys sitting at her feet looking up at her with I can only imagine what expressions. She screamed and ran in slamming the door.

Looking back in all seriousness, and with some dismay, I'm sure there was no event in at least 5 years in past or future that caused such strong laughter. I laughed from the depths of my soul. Kenneth and I were rolling and crying and hurting with laughter for at least 10 minutes. It was, of course, funny, but it was like a gift from God too because we, completely undeserving, got to see a "naked lady" as part of the bargain. And to share that experience! It's like, not only was it funny, but it said that, in life, we were going to Do OK. The loose dust bunnies of insecurity that had begun to cling to us even at that age were blown away so completely that I'm tempted to divide time into Before and After.

How many evenings as the summer wore on would we share a Dr. Pepper and remember that day? So, so many.

The girl recovered, and re-emerged with a mission for us. She led us into the bathroom quietly where her roommate was taking a shower. She PULLED back the shower curtain with predictable results. Were we performers or observers? That's the beauty of it, we were both! By this point, I was laughing more by thinking from the point of view of the girl in the shower: how strange to see two slack-eyed little boys standing incongruously in the steamy bathroom! After that the fun was over and they sent us packing.

Sometimes, I guess in the younger years, I was a little mascot. Girls would pick me up and spin me around. I remember them being all Juicy Fruit, earrings, makeup and feathered hair. I would make a few bucks by feeding fish while they were on winter break.

Other memories of those years are my cat Dorshka, who I bonded with strongly. He slept on my bed every night, reliably rolling onto his back so I could rub his stomach to loud purrs. Also playing the violin. I read my first adult book at that time, something science fiction that was really hard to read but I forced it down because of the skepticism in my Moms eyes. "Are you sure you can read that?"

I would visit my dad some weekends, often taking the bus to Houston, spending a lot of time among those little black and white televisions bolted onto waiting room seats. I would come home from those visits kind of a wreck, stomach tied in knots from stress, legs cramping from too much walking at some kind of Astrodome Winnebago convention.

I remember Mom studying, making spaghetti, sitting on the couch she'd reupholstered in blue. I think she was really smart in the job she chose. I really don't remember her "working," though there were stories of having to rescue one girl or another from the bar across the street. Once a girl got drunk on shampoo. But these were always nocturnal events, when I was safely in bed with Dorshka.

Next time I'll write about Malone Apartments, where Mom managed a "married student housing" row of cinderblock dwellings. This was a very different experience, but it had a full share of fun as well.

What's a happenin'

2009-05-28T12:27:00.003+01:00

Been really busy, away on vacation, etc. But the big story 'round here is Kris and her running. She has been really amazing. Check out her story of what is going on lately as well as how she got started running:

But mostly, I’ve been focusing my energies into running. I am kind of going through a mid-life crisis of sorts and decided I need to get off my lazy butt and exercise. I started back in November, kind of casually - about 2 or so times a week. I am ashamed to admit that I couldn’t go more than a block or two without getting winded. Then I became more serious whenever I went to Hawaii in December, upping it to 3 miles/3x a week. When we came back to Munich, I continued on, through the rain, snow and cold.

Back to the Martinswand

2009-04-28T08:32:00.003+01:00

Uli, Dan and I had a plan to climb the Gerberkreuz above Mittenwald. We worried about snow on the approach, but the rock looked dry and ready to climb. However, when we got out at the parking lot it was damn cold! And it seemed like it might rain. We really wanted to be in "the alpine," but the risk of hiking 2 hours just to get rained out led us to drive south to the Martinswand.

Pretty much the last rock climb I did last year was when Dan and I climbed the first 4 pitches of the Auckenthaler Riss on the Martinswand. We had started late in the day after the Ostriss (VI) and "Flying Grass (VII-)," and just ran out of daylight. So it was funny to go back there now, intent on the same goal. But this time we were starting in the morning!

The Auckenthaler Riss is an old classic, and features VII- crack climbing. It's also quite polished. On the other hand, it's been completely bolted, so the fear evens out!

We scrambled up the rather serious approach. Uli took the first block of three pitches, first climbing a chimney with a cruxy move (V) at the start of the second pitch. Then one more pitch led to the start of the Auckenthaler crack proper. Now I led a block. The first pitch had a dicey face move or two, then offered some jams in the crack. This was as high as Dan and I got last year.

From this point the route is absolutely vertical for the next several pitches. Some grade VI climbing led straight up with crack and face moves. When Uli came up, there was some excitement because he tested a little column of rock on the right to see if he could use it. But it exploded into pieces! Thankfully it all flew away and didn't hit Dan, who was climbing up about 10 meters below. Also, we saw another party had begun the route below, and happily because the route leans leftward for a long ways, they were also safe. Whew!

For my last lead I started up a vertical crack, then knew I was in the crux VII- section because of my shaking "elvis leg!" I remember one good hand jam, although too low to reach up. Then a dime-edged face hold above that. I had one foot jammed in the crack, and the other floating in space. Some kind of forgotten magic of swapping hands and smearing saw me through. "Whoo!" I yawped.

Dan and Uli came up, finding it pretty exciting. Uli is new to crack climbing, so it was especially "evil." :D.

Now Dan led a block of three pitches, the first two continued the "absolutely vertical" theme. The second of those had a set of very delicate crux VII- moves. Dan used a point of aid, as a piton with a fixed sling hung temptingly in the way. When following, I was able to avoid it, but just barely. It was more of a face climb for a few moves, then there was a poor hand-jam, just slightly too high to power up on. You had to be patient and get your feet a bit higher before you could yard on the jam. All the while, the Inn River and highway pull at you from below. I think this part overhung slightly.

Another easier pitch, then we were done! But Uli's book mentioned a 3 pitch grade V variation exit. "Go for it, Uli, it's your block!" So he took off, combining the first two pitches. It was certainly a more fun way to exit the route than the ocean of dirty rock that makes up the normal way off to the left. The route tried to find a way up the most solid rock. Eventually, we reached a little "rescue station" where the alpine rescue team has stashed some gear and some strong anchors for rappelling down along the Auckenthaler Riss. Here we unroped and hiked down in very strong wind.

After the long hike, I still had energy, so we went to the OeAV Klettergarten. We climbed two fantastic pitches as one 50 meter lead. The route was grade V, but felt harder, probably due to the terrible polish on the first slab pitch. But these two pitches had a lot of variety: slab, pockets, cracks, even an overhang. That Klettergarten is quite large, we'll have to go back to it.

On a funny note, I ate "Goo" all day, having recently re-read Mark Twight's "Extreme Alpinism," and thinking I need to pay more attention to how I eat in the mountains. It worked really well. I was so up, and could have kept climbing 2-3 more hours until dark. But the city called us home. Dan was wasted from a transatlantic flight and Uli had dinner with Anna. I got in just in time for dinner with the family too. A great day out!

Fun times in Riva

2009-04-14T18:42:00.003+01:00

Kris, the boys and I packed up early Friday morning and drove down to Riva del Garda, a great little town on the north end of the Garda Lake in Italy. It's a good four hour drive, but the trade off is that you get to a place where it's usually warm and sunny. Although I can't complain, the weather in Germany had been great for more than a week.

It was my first week of working at home. Wow, it's too early to break out the champagne of course, but I have to say I really am enjoying it. The boys were home all week because of spring break, but they were very good and never bothered me when my office door was closed. I would start work around 10 am, take a lunch break at 12 or 1, then come back and work until 7 or so. I had no trouble concentrating, and in fact the day flew by each time because the work was so interesting. It's great to be learning about the .NET world again! Lots has changed, and lots is still the same.

The lunch breaks were really fun because Kris, the boys and I would go eat a sandwich outside in a park area.

But anyway, back to the story. As we started to leave Munich Kris saved us by asking me if I had both tents...I didn't! Whew...easily fixed. Then, at the lake we were worried that the campsites would all be full, but we found a spot. It is "high season" there, full of Germans, who seem to outnumber the Italians by 2 or 3 to 1. We made friends with some of our campground neighbors, meeting a nice couple from Munich with a son that Rowan and Elijah really loved playing with. There was a playground just 50 feet away from our tent, and we would let the boys run over there and play furiously.

We also brought climbing gear, as I hoped to gently introduce Rowan and Elijah to rock climbing. This area is one of the world famous climbing destinations, generally named for the town 3 miles north called "Arco." There are thousands of rock climbs on the walls above the lake and further north. We found a very easy area on low-angle slabs, and after an adventure of squeezing our car through a very narrow alleyway, we walked up a short steep trail to reach the rock. I climbed up, clipping several bolts while Kris belayed, then lowered down so the boys could try the 30 meter long slab climb. The key is that there is nothing for your hands to grab onto, you just have to trust the friction of your shoes.

Elijah and Rowan both climbed it so easily! They just have no fear. Kris climbed it too, but her feet haven't been in rock shoes for so long they it was kind of grim duty! Then I climbed up and belayed the boys from the top. Here are some pictures. Of course I was a proud dad!

Elijah at the top

Elijah climbing up

Rowan at the top

Afterwards, they obligingly posed for a portrait:

Camping was good fun. Our Thermarest pads seem to be kind of leaky. Kris woke up groaning every day, and I was always nonplussed to see how much air had left my Thermarest. Hmpf! But tent life was fun. Here, we are watching "The Incredibles" after another very full day:

One day we went up to the castle above Arco. The boys and I had been there once, but it was great to show their Mommy. We had a nice picnic and lazed about. Elijah was keen to make sure we got this picture of him with his mouth full of M&Ms:

Here is what Arco looks like. Really beautiful, IMHO!

Later, during nap time, I went on a hike of my own, climbing up 3700 feet, sometimes via long vertical ladders on the "Way of Friendship" special route above Riva. At the top, I found ankle deep snow, which slowed my return trip on the steepest "trail" I ever saw. It was so steep and narrow that one mis-step could be a disaster. In my opinion, the more technical "ladders" were much easier than the seemingly benign return trail down the north side of the mountain. Here is a scene looking down on Riva and the lake from the top of the last ladder:

On Sunday evening we did some more climbing, enduring a rather nerve-wracking walk through a car tunnel with no sidewalk to reach the area. But it was right on the water, and the light was just perfect:

Elijah climbs the crack!

There was a great finger crack to aid progress up a somewhat smoother and steeper slab than before. Elijah and Rowan both had fun again. Here you can see the angle of the slab:

Later I climbed the route that the person above is standing on, it was about 5.8 YDS, a pretty fun slab with a few tricky moves! The boys climb was about 5.6, I think.

Finally Monday came around and it was time to go home. I made us stop for a picnic near Scharnitz, Austria because the sun was so nice. We got these pictures of happy kids:

Kris made a delicious pasta dinner with Olive Oil from the fields around Arco. It was incredible. Somewhat lighter than normal, but very flavorful.

Thanks to Kris and the boys for an amazing little trip! Can't wait for the next one. For all the pictures see my Flickr set here.

A trip to Belgium

2009-04-05T09:00:00.003+01:00

So I just had my first week of work at my new company, Advanced Medical Diagnostics. I flew up to Brussels early Monday morning, and came home Friday night. I was lucky that there was a training on use of the HistoScanning device Monday, and then a great dinner at a local restaurant that night which gave me more insight into the company.

In between asking lots of questions to set up my machines, get passwords, etc., I even managed to help out with some .NET memory management questions and SOS/Windbg debugging. Maybe one of the bigger accomplishments of the week was refreshing my brain on the whole gamut of minutiae involved in that work from the CLR days. It's cool to be a customer of .NET technology now!

The weather in Belgium was amazing. The office is in Waterloo, a suburb of Brussels and the site of Napoleon's famous defeat 200 years ago. I went for a jog one evening, cutting across fields just outside of town on bike trails. The land slopes gently at times. There was a great sunset, surprisingly late. I couldn't be sure, but it looked like clouds were coming back in as I left Friday night, after 5 days of blue skies.

The people at the company are really friendly folks too, I'm looking forward to getting to know them. Oh yeah, Wolfgang and I went to a climbing gym Thursday night. The grades were French, so I didn't really know what I was climbing. The hardest were a couple of 6a climbs. Enjoyed lots of great food too: an Ethiopian food place and an Indian food restaurant in Wolfgang's neighborhood were the best. Wolfgang also took me on an evening tour of the city, including the famous Manneken Pis. I bought some chocolate, but not the best...too sweet.

This next week will be working from home. I've already got a handful of projects, but so much more to learn too.

Next time: gotta try Belgian Waffles!

Ray Jardine

2009-03-23T18:47:00.002+01:00

Here is a quote from Ray Jardine that really struck me today:

Highway 90 led through a few small towns. Now in the afternoon, the headwinds grew stronger, laying the grasses over and of course slowing our progress further. I remembered something the last bicyclist we had met had said, when she described that first day of wind which had been so strong. She said it was "brutal" and that her whole day had been a battle. Ultimately, she could not reach her destination, so her husband picked her up in his van. That same day we had peddled nearly 90 miles, into the same wind. The difference was in attitude. What you focus on becomes your master, and it can and will defeat you. The past week we have experienced these strong headwinds, but have not battled them, nor tried to change them. We are not here to change anything; we are here to experience. And we are here to learn what nature has to teach us, and what the journey has to teach us. This difference in attitude is like night and day. When I mention the wind, I am making an observation, not a judgment. Most people tend to judge everything when they go into nature. Judging means comparing it to what they think it should be. And when you do that, you give it your strength and your power. We punch through this wind because we do not give it our strength. For us it is not brutal because we are not in battle.

This is from a 2004 bicycle trip he and his wife made across America. This couple have done so many amazing things I won't bother trying to even list them here. Probably the best thing he did for me, personally, was to get me thinking about traveling as light as possible in the mountains, indeed everywhere. Here is the link to his story about the bike ride.

The Sound of Music

2009-03-17T15:06:00.002+01:00

I grew up watching this movie, it was a favorite of my mom's. To this day, if you catch me whistling, it'll be a song from the musical. Okay, in my darker moods it'll be "The Imperial March Theme" from The Empire Strikes Back, but otherwise it'll be something from the Sound of Music.

Kris and I were puzzled at how few Germans know this musical, and of that set how few like it (we found no one). Usually people make a funny face and object using the word "kitsch." "But it's a good movie," I'll protest to no avail.

I stumbled across this article about a showing of the musical in Vienna. The story took place at a painful time in Austrian history, and folks there found it easier to forget that many Austrians were happy about the Anschluss with Nazi Germany. But now time has passed and maybe people in Austria can see why the rest of the world loves the story so much (including the Lederhosen and other kitschy elements).

The Sound Of Music is one of the world's favourite musicals, but it has hardly ever been seen in Austria because a lot of it takes place during a very painful time in the country's history when it was annexed to Hitler's Germany. But now a new stage version is playing to packed houses in Vienna.

Read the full article here.

Another article illuminates the painful choice the family made to leave Austria:

When the Nazis annexed Austria in 1938, the von Trapps realized that they were on thin ice with a regime they abhorred. Georg not only refused to fly the Nazi flag on their house, but he also declined a naval command and a request to sing at Hitler's birthday party. They were also becoming aware of the Nazis' anti-religious propaganda and policies, the pervasive fear that those around them could be acting as spies for the Nazis, and the brainwashing of children against their parents. They weighed staying in Austria and taking advantage of the enticements the Nazis were offering—greater fame as a singing group, a medical doctor's position for Rupert, and a renewed naval career for Georg—against leaving behind everything they knew—their friends, family, estate, and all their possessions. They decided that they could not compromise their principles and left.

Climbing "tribes"

2009-03-13T10:36:00.002+01:00

Somehow I missed this funny article a few years ago in the NYT. The author, Will Gadd, is a really amazing ice and mixed ice/rock climber. Here is a segment on "my tribe:"

The Trad tribe (short for traditional climber) believes that the bolts common to sport climbing are sacrilegious. A common trad bumper sticker reads, "Sport climbing is NEITHER!" Trad climbers use only removable or "clean" safety equipment. Beards, wool, third-hand clothing and Volkswagen vans are still common among the most holy of the Trads, but these climbers are not to be confused with mere hippies, although the priests of Trad climbing use the term "climbing bum" as an honorific. The Trads are the most evangelical and fundamentalist with their beliefs, which are well-documented in frequent ranting letters to the editors of the climbing magazines.

Check out the whole article here.

Neko Case

2009-03-10T15:02:00.002+01:00

I'm really liking "Middle Cyclone," the new album by Neko Case. I think my sister in Oklahoma would really like it. Here is a review from the New Yorker. Also the song Challengers from the New Pornographers is great, she sings on that. Finally, for all things Neko Case you should also check out this music sampler from the New York Times, and the fascinating article that goes with it. I hope she'll tour to Munich sometime. Oohh, a double feature with Neko Case and the Handsome Family would be an amazing show!

Sacred cow: the mortgage deduction

2009-02-26T10:39:00.002+01:00

In Germany we don't get to deduct interest on a mortgage from taxes. It does make it a bit less attractive to buy a home. This article exposes an interesting debate on how that deduction might distort housing cost and even land use:

...
Problem #1: Subsidizing interest payments encourages people to leverage themselves to the hilt to bet on housing markets. The size of the tax benefit is proportional to your debt. The deduction essentially encourages us to make leveraged bets on the swings of the housing market. That leverage means that housing price swings can easily wipe people out. We are currently experiencing the consequences of subsidizing gambles on housing.

Problem #2: The deduction pushes up prices in places where the supply of new homes is constrained, as it is in many coastal markets....

Read the rest here.

Tamara besucht uns!

2009-02-22T22:46:00.003+01:00

That means, Tamara came to visit!

Tamara found a last minute ticket deal that allowed her to come for two weeks of fun. She cooked us an amazing meal, she brought us mustard direct from Paris, she went to Venice with me, and other sundry fun items!

I have a Flickr photo set with all the pictures here. Click here to go straight to a slideshow view of the pictures. A few teaser pics are below:

The boys in the horse buggy at the Partnachklamm in Garmisch, Germany.

The fabled city of canals: Venice.

Michael and Tamara in the clock tower of Saint Mark's Square.

Kris and our neighbor in an exciting venue: our Lehel Farmer's Market!

Summitpost Bulk Uploader

2009-02-11T13:28:00.003+01:00

Last night I burned the midnight oil to finish a code project I've been working on since Christmas. It's a bulk uploader for Summitpost.org, a beloved site for many mountain climbers and hikers around the globe. Despite a snazzy "Web 2.0" interface, there is still no possibility to bulk upload pictures. Therefore, creating a content page on your favorite mountain or climbing route can become an exercise in manual drudgery once you upload more than 10 pictures or so.

First I wrote the tool on the Mac in Python with wxWidgets for the GUI. But deployment was a real pain, and I didn't feel I had sufficient control over the UI. So I re-wrote it in C++, also with wxWidgets. Right now I have a Windows version, but it shouldn't be too hard to port it to the Mac in the future.

Documentation and download information is here. There is a discussion page over at Summitpost already getting some interesting responses.

It's been a fun hobby project. Especially because I believe a lot of people will want to use it. That is very motivating!

Bike fall #4

2009-01-29T09:18:00.003+01:00

I've noticed that this blog chronicles all falls on my bike since moving to Munich. So I have to keep it up. I left work Monday in a good mood. After I got my bike I realized I forgot my gloves inside. Not a good idea in freezing Munich! So I rode around to the front of the building, just to step inside and get them. WHAM! Suddenly I was on the ground, slamming chest-first on the pavement, my bike skittering away into the street. Luckily no cars were coming. A passerby got my bike and another helped me up. Very embarrassing. I sat for a while rocking back and forth to work off the pain in my knee. A crowd gathered around me, telling me to get up. I said I was okay and just needed to sit a moment more. Everybody left but one guy stayed to lecture me for a long time about being careful, how it's dark, how you should get right up after you fall, etc. I didn't have the bandwidth to listen to him, I was just too confused as to how it happened so quickly.

So hopefully that is the (only) fall for this year!

Oh, the front plastic fender of the bike is a causality. Sigh. There goes 30 euros.

2009-01-29T09:15:00.002+01:00

I loved this comment from Steven Johnson's discussion about Lost:

Steven said:

"Lost" has the unique opportunity of proving you can build a narrative of mesmerizing implausibility that ultimately turns out to be entirely plausible simply by changing one elemental rule of the universe--and then not telling your audience about the rule change until the third act.

Then the commenter, TDAWWG, said:

Err, that's called a deus ex machina and is generally considered one of the worst storytelling faults, the quackiest canard, if you will, in the arsenal of terrible narrative humbuggery. It's not literally Father Zeus dropping out of the clouds to make everything all right at the end, but it's a similar kind of unfair trick, a fake plausibility: even worse when it's used, not out of desperation in ending an unwieldy plot, but from the beginning, as a ticking narratological time-bomb that will explode to the delight of the credulous.

Dunno, Twin Peaks proved there was a vital market for "one-damn-thing-after-another" storytelling, false portentiousness, etc.: why is Lost so special? Really, I'm curious, despite the snark....

Haha! I like Lost, but he makes a good point.

Made it just in time!

2008-12-14T22:08:00.002+01:00

I made it back from the architecture conference in Boston to play guitar at the kindergarten Christmas concert. It was really important because I took a book the kids really like, "Itsy Bitsy House" and made sheet music to it. The tune is really simple, but what was really amazing was the effort the teachers at school put into it. There are four animals in the story, and each one was played by a child in a great costume (a mouse, a dog, a cat and a billygoat). There was a house, there was "lightning" and many other props. Rowan played the Old Man who invites the cold animals into the house. I guess it's kind of a Christmas story in a way, too. Rowan was so cute in his beard and lederhosen! Kris took many pictures but tragically, because of a bug in the USB card reader software, they were all deleted!! Maybe we'll get some from some other parents later.

I used LilyPond to write the music up, and you can see my work here.

Good night Rowan

2008-12-10T22:44:00.002+01:00

I'm in Boston for the week, but Kris just sent the cutest thing. Here is Rowan's good night catechism:


i love you mommy
and i love my feet
and i love my hair
and i love my teeth
and i love my eyes
and i love my "Nase" (german for nose)
and i love my eyebrows
and i love my chocolate
and i love my chocolate ice cream
and i love my eggs
and i love my school
and i love my gray car
and i love my grandma from texas
and i love my grandma grandpa
and i love my cookies
and i love my Kalea
and i love my house
and i love my sponge bob square pants
and i love my people
and i love my daddy
and i love my brother elijah

NYT Article about South Tyrol

2008-12-04T16:53:00.002+01:00

South Tyrol (Südtirol in German, or Alto Adige in Italian) is the region south of us that encompasses some of the best Dolomite Mountains, along with the town of Bolzano and other wonders. The New York Times made a photo essay about the area with nice historical notes. I haven't read it all yet, but it seems to do a good job describing this region, my favorite region in Europe:

Every traveler has a landscape that, for him, contains the wonder and mystery behind all travel. It could be the beach, or a cathedral square, or the rain forest, or a volcanic island — for me, it is the mountain pass...

Read the article here.

BTW, the Times may require registration to view the page. It is free.

Cute cartoon

2008-11-20T13:05:00.002+01:00

I'll try this line with the kids if they complain! :D

It was inline in an article about foreclosure in the New Yorker.

St. Martin's Day

2008-11-11T23:45:00.002+01:00

Today was St. Martin's Day. Kids all over Germany make paper lanterns and go out in the night. At our Kindergarten they re-enacted the story of St. Martin. A poor, sick man was by the side of the road, very cold. St. Martin was a knight on a powerful horse, with armor and a beautiful red cape. The man asked him for help. In response, he tore his cape in half, and gave half to the sick man. That is the story of St. Martin.

I played guitar and sang with the kids in the morning, and so I didn't go in the evening. Only after seeing the pictures and hearing about the little play they put on did I realize I made a big mistake! I'm sad to have missed it. But Kris has pictures here.

Frank Rich does it again

2008-11-10T10:19:00.001+01:00

Great post by Frank Rich in today's NYT:

For eight years, we’ve been told by those in power that we are small, bigoted and stupid — easily divided and easily frightened. This was the toxic catechism of Bush-Rove politics. It was the soiled banner picked up by the sad McCain campaign, and it was often abetted by an amen corner in the dominant news media. We heard this slander of America so often that we all started to believe it, liberals most certainly included. ...

So let’s be blunt. Almost every assumption about America that was taken as a given by our political culture on Tuesday morning was proved wrong by Tuesday night.

Read the whole thing here.

Two hikes with the boys

2008-11-09T22:59:00.003+01:00

In the last week I went on two great hikes with the boys. First was on Breitenstein, with Angie, Josef, Felix, Helga and Evelyn. We were a big group! But the boys felt right at home, holding Josef's hand, or Helga's or Evelyn's at different times.

The hike up got a little boring for the kids. But with everyone helping we always found something, like roots or mushrooms or water. I have such a hard time hiking up a dirt road, I really have to sympathize with the kiddos! Finally, after about 1000 feet of hiking and another 300 more ahead I was getting worried about the overall size of the effort. Along came a jeep with an older couple who offered a ride to the kids...angels! I got in with the boys and we bounced up the steep narrow road, passing Josef, Angie and friends who looked bemused. The kids giggled at every bump in the road. What a treat! They were very nice. They let us off at a pass that marked our hut (I forgot the name of it).

Angie and the others arrived, and the boys did their best to eat all the cake they brought. They continued on to the summit but me and the fellas went to the hut for long-promised cake and ice cream (this is how I get kids to hike!). I have a picture of them waiting impatiently at the table.

We finally started down on a long journey. But as long as the boys got chances to stop and play with rocks, water or toy trains (preferably all at once), they were happy. I hoped this would be the first of many special trips with dad.

Next, after a week of pestering me to go hiking again, we hiked up the Kranzhorn. Well, we didn't tag the summit, but we reached the hut/playground just a bit below the summit. Again we had beautiful weather, and made a wise choice to hike up on a steep trail that had warm southern exposure. The views of the Inn River Valley (or Inntal as they say here) were amazing. I think this is one of the best view peaks around. The elevation gain was around 1000 feet. The boys definitely got tired at the end, though it was hard to tell if it was boredom or worn-out legs. Rowan actually has a cold, and seemed to have learned how to cough theatrically in the last few days. He's like an old Pennsylvania coal-miner! At one point he adopted another family, running up and holding hands with the mother. How awkward I felt! Oh well, I hiked with them for a while, then improvised an "Apple Juice Stop" that allowed them to go their own way.

The hut was a real treat. There was a slide and a petting zoo, but it was the last day it would be open this year and the rabbits and goats were already stowed away somewhere warm. Too bad! But the slide and other playground equipment were amusing. I had a delicious Weissbier and Kaiserschmarmm, though Elijah ate almost all the applesauce. The kids had Apfelstruedel and cream. It was very good!

We played this game where they would go into a little house, and I'd go on a hill across the way. They'd try to lure me over. Only when they got far enough out of the house would I come running down the hill to get them. They'd scream bloody murder and race for the house! They'd usually beat me. I was a little drunk so I put extra acting into the "monster" bit running down the hill.

Though I had "summit fever" I judged it was wiser to be prudent and preserve the store of laughing and fun we'd had rather than spend limited energy on the final climb. So we finally left, going down the easy way on a dirt road. But Rowan fell down after a few minutes and kind of mumble-cried for a long time! Poor fella, he was really tired. The kids got me to stop and let them play with their trains at a couple of culverts along the way. We also explored an abandoned bulldozer. "So viele Wildnis hier und sie wollen nur mit eine Maschine spielen!" I said to an older couple who laughed, forgetting that Maschine means jet airplane, not just any old machine.

10 minutes in the car with the heater on and I was the only one awake.

Alps versus Cascades

2008-11-07T09:19:00.002+01:00

Recently on a Summitpost forum we were talking about the Alps and the Cascades. I spent a few minutes outlining my thoughts...

jordansahls wrote:

Nice climb, thanks for the link MVS. Also, as a former Cascade Knight, and now a current Alps extraordinaire, how would you compare the two? I know, I know, you cant REALLY compare them, but for the progression of conversation, what would you have to say? I have never climbed in the Alps, but I picture them as being a much larger, more easily accessible form of the cascades, with better rock of course. It seems like over here in the North Cascades, we have more of the "adventure " deal with long bushwacks and a lack of huts. Not to mention the many miles people will put on to climb a few pitches of rock or ice.

Good question Jordan, and one I could wax on about forever. The Cascades will always be my "home range," the one I compare everything to. That said, I'll spend a few minutes focused on the alps...

What is so great about the Alps: I am in the Eastern Alps, which are almost all limestone. The amount of alpine rock climbing here is incredible. You would never, ever run out. From the mountains outside of Munich straight south through the Dolomites the riches are immense. You almost can't compare the Cascades, because there are so many more such climbs. Also wintertime access is much better. And huts open all winter deep in the mountains mean you can get to areas that would be completely "sealed off" in the Cascades. The amount of backcountry skiing terrain is enormous.

What surprised me about the alps: much less crowded than I thought. Especially if you climb adventure/"old school" routes. You'll see between 0 and 2 parties, just like in the Cascades. Also, I walked the famous "Chamonix to Zermatt" Haute Route, and saw only 3-6 people per day in amazing country. That was a big surprise.

What is disappointing about the Alps: of course they are bigger, badder, and have so much wonderful infrastructure. But I found a few sad things. One, the weather in the summer is unstable. August can be extremely rainy, I think it's the worst summer month during the three years I've been here. Two, it can be hard to find folks who understand the desire for adventure/"no bolt" climbing. I think I've frightened many europeans with my idea of a great weekend of climbing! (4 am start, use the whole day until dark, so what if there are no bolts, yes we are only two on a glacier, etc.) Smile

Still learning: It takes a long time to discover the weather patterns, the unexpectedly nice areas you overlooked before, the like-minded friends. My first few years in the Cascades were very unproductive because I didn't understand the weather. I've been going through that here and am getting better. I also learned how to backcountry ski here and that's added a great new dimension to my year (made winter more fun).

I've been here 3 years now and my feelings about living here are very positive, but complicated too. It's hard to know when/if we will go back or not. One thing for sure, if we do go back it'll be to the Old Home...the Cascades!

Thanks for the opportunity to jawbone...

The Martinswand

2008-10-22T22:24:00.003+01:00

Dan P. and I had the day to climb. With recent snowfall, we needed to stay at lower elevations, preferably south facing. I chose the Martinswand. I'd been there once before to climb a via ferrata which was kind of "blech." Sorry, but it's just not a mountain experience when you are endlessly pulling yourself up metal cables, not touching rock at all!

Here is the wall:

First we did a 5 pitch route called "Flying Grass." Rated VII- (5.10b/c), it's completely bolted. There were some interesting moves, though the VII- crux was too hard for us! We could pull past it, and enjoy several VI/VI+ pitches in better style.

Above this route, we scrambled a ways to the west to reach the start of the Ostriss, rated VI (5.9). This is a 4-5 pitch vertical crack climb. The first pitch was a little scruffy, but had a nice character all the same. The second pitch had the first real crack climbing. This being limestone, there were only a few good jams, but I loved the steepness. At the top of this pitch was an airy semi-hanging belay. Dan took off for another steep pitch while I admired the Inn River far below, and the noisy autobahn. Across the valley the snow on the Stubai Alps was melting visibly. I combined the last two pitches, which had a slab, then another steep corner pitch.

We hiked down to the car, then moved west to climb the Auckenthaler Riss (Auckenthaler Crack), rated VII-. It took quite a while to find the start of this route, and unfortunately we ran out of time to finish it. We climbed 4 interesting pitches. The last one, at grade VI-, gave a foretaste of the consistently hard pitches that would follow. Alas, we'd have to wait for another day. With our single 50 meter rope we had to be adventurous in our rappels to the base. A long downclimb back to the car ensued.

All of these routes are either completely bolted, or just need a small selection of small/medium cams to protect. The Auckenthaler Riss is 9 pitches, climbing almost the entire wall. Not bad for a "climbing garden" right beside the road!

Lago di Garda

2008-10-22T20:28:00.004+01:00

We went to Gardasee for 3 days, for our first camping trip with the boys. It was great! We stayed at a campground right on the beach in Riva di Garda (click on the link to visit a map to show you where this is exactly). The Lago di Garda is a huge lake on the edge of the Alps. It's far enough south, and low enough that it has a warmer climate, which is perfect for fall and spring when the northern alps are wet. The drive is about 3.5 hours from Munich.

We thought the boys would be scared to sleep in their own tent but they loved it. Every night we'd walk along the beach in the moonlight. In the day we'd get gelato, which is this amazing Italian version of ice cream. We'd ride a ferry to another town, or go for a drive up the mountain. The boys loved climbing up the town tower, or one day, when we went to Arco, they walked steeply uphill with me for 20 minutes to the castle above the town. I'm really impressed with them!

Later we visited our friend Daniel and his family in Bolzano. They took us out for Pizza, and we had a great time catching up with them. I'm amazed by Daniel's bike racing schedule. He has raced up the steepest passes in the Alps.

I did one unusual thing, climbing the Via Ferrata d'Amicizia in the moonlight one evening. It was fantastic climbing ladders up vertical cliffs with the lake and town far below, all bathed in blue moonlight. I reached the summit at midnight, and came down a different way that led me to a sort of shrine in the middle of the cliff face. The townspeople built this chapel to the virgin sometime in the 40s or 50s.

We got climbing harness for Elijah and Rowan too. Climbing and camping, here we come!

Good ol' Tom Toles

2008-09-26T11:31:00.001+01:00

He is a genius:

The Wallbergbahn

2008-09-19T21:37:00.003+01:00

On the first weekend Mom came, I took her and the boys to Tegernsee, where we rode the Wallbergbahn up that mountain to a restaurant. It was Sunday morning, and there is a beautiful little chapel up there:

There was a church service going on! Somber horns were playing, and the priest and all the listeners were standing outside. We went up close to listen a while. Both boys were very quiet. It was a neat place. We sat and looked out at the Tegernsee and the neat plains of green stretching away to the north. Here are some more pictures:

All of the pictures from Mom's trip can also be seen easily here.

Bad Hindelang

2008-09-19T21:09:00.004+01:00

Mom, Kris, the boys and I stayed in Bad Hindelang for 5 days. This is in the Allgäu Mountains of Germany/Austria. We were just on the German side. They are not very high, and in our area were mostly forested peaks with outcroppings of limestone. But nearby they get pretty exciting. It's a beautiful area where, especially in winter, you can find real solitude (despite what everyone says, yes it's true, even in Germany!). I've been there a few times for climbing or snowshoeing. Here is my account of a snowshoeing trip there alone last January. And here is my trip report describing a couple of days of rock climbing a year ago. Here is a nice page on Summitpost about the range along with a map.

We rented a "Ferienwohnung" or "vacation apartment." This is very popular in Europe. This way you have a kitchen and can cook your own dinners, because eating out is expensive. You get to become a regular resident of the town for a while.

We stayed right in the center of Bad Hindelang. There was an excellent grocery store in walking distance, along with a bakery and some gift shops. Not much else! Though Mom and I had a really interesting walk through the cemetary behind the church. The gravestones were very beautiful. There seemed to be plenty of tragedies, especially one set of linked graves where three teenage boys died, probably in a car accident.

There was also an amazing greek restaurant. We had our favorite meal there, and Mom used the leftovers for days! Once we got pizza from next door, otherwise, we just let dinners come together in an ad hoc way at the last minute, with varying, but mostly good results.

Almost every night around 6 pm the cows would be driven through town from pastures on the valley floor into barns scattered around. That was very interesting! Here is Mom remarking on that:

Here was the view on our balcony:

And here was the general look of the countryside:

Mom took this picture of me and the boys playing in a cow pasture. They were very good and running but dodging cow manure:

One day we headed south to a mountain with a ski lift and a kind of sled you can ride down on tracks:

Afterwards we had an expensive but delicious lunch on the mountain. Mom got something with pfefferlingen mushrooms, and I got a steak. I don't remember what Kris got, but darn it, the poor girl doesn't usually find something she likes :-(. Elijah loves his train called "Diesel," and made me take pictures of it!

On the last day we went to another mountain summer-sled, which promised to be the longest in Germany. It was so much fun we did it twice. It was really, really, really fun! We tried to get Mom to try, but she told us how much she enjoys observing.

This was also the first time the boys rode a real ski lift, the kind they could jump out of if they went crazy. Happily they didn't go crazy :-).

The Breittachklamm

2008-09-19T20:57:00.004+01:00

During our 5 day stay in Bad Hindelang, one day was pretty cloudy. Nearby, the Breittachklamm advertised itself as being perfect for a rainy day. In the car, family!

After 30 minutes we were there. Deep river canyon formations seem to happen a lot in the Northern Limestone Alps (a chain roughly from Salzburg in the east to the Swiss border in the west). They are called "klamms" in German, and for 100 years or so many of them have been developed for tourism. Tunnels and walkways lead through the canyon, bringing you very close to rushing white water or ducking under rock overhangs. In the winter, dramatic ice cliffs form in there. The mountain town of Garmisch, for example, has two famous "klamms."

So we thought this would be fun, but we'd have to make sure the kids held our hands for the areas where there are big drop offs. There is a guard rail, but it's just kind of an advisory rail.

We enjoyed it a lot. We had a little problem when Elijah put his foot down and didn't want to hold hands. But he came to see reason, and we could continue. We didn't go all the way through, but I think we saw all the spectacularly steep and dramatic parts of the canyon. Mom has been doing more walking here than in a month of Sundays, and this day was no exception!

Here are some pictures:

The rest are here.

Mom and I visit the Dolomites (briefly!)

2008-09-19T20:43:00.003+01:00

On the way home from Florence, the weather was too good to miss a driving trip to the Dolomites. Just north of Bolzano we turned east and rapidly climbed up into the mountains. We were hungry for quite a while, but also in a hurry to make it to the Pordoi Pass in order to take a lift up to the Pordoi Spitze. This peak has an amazing 360 degree view of surrounding mountains. Finally we found a little fast food stand (there are surprisingly few of these, in fact the area seemed kind of deserted), and got a hamburger and a Panini sandwich.

After a drive through a pretty valley we started the first of 35 180 degree switchbacks that would get us up to the pass. Mom did really well...I've made people sick with my driving on these things! But I'm a very mild driver compared to the Italians, and especially to the motorcycles, trust me!

We got to the pass and it was freezing cold. We grabbed what jackets we could find and bought our tickets. The lift took us up several thousand feet in just 5 minutes. I was really happy to be able to show Mom the area. The Dolomites are really my favorite place in the Alps. The relief between summit and valley is very great, and very steep too. There is only one glacier in the whole range, but the many sheer cliffs make up for that. And the meadows are so peaceful and friendly, making a great contrast with the spiky peaks.

Later we sat in a meadow below the Sella Pass. We had the massive Langkofel peaks on our left, and Piz Boe with it's dozen or so subsidiary peaks on the right. Here are some pictures:

The rest of the pictures are here.

Tom the Dancing Bug

2008-09-18T08:48:00.002+01:00

Today's cartoon was hilarious! McCain's "maverick" meme unmasked!.

Florence with Mom

2008-09-07T20:49:00.006+01:00

Updated to include pictures too. To see all the pictures from the trip just visit here.

Wow, there is a lot to write about, including the week in the Allgaeu Mountains with Kris, Mom and the boys. And as for Florence I'm just getting started. I'm at an Internet cafe a few doors down from our pension, Mom is upstairs reading. I won't be able to upload photos until I get home.

But we took two tours today, a walking tour first then a tour of the Uffizi gallery. They were both great, and Mom and I learned so much. I'm going to just write down a stream o' consciousness here for now, then edit later with picture, etc.

Our guide's name was Heather, she was really personable and started by giving an overview of the transition to the renaissance, preceded by a quick history of the city.

It was founded by J. Caeser when he traveled north on some occasion. It was spring, and the flowers were blooming. The city was named after Flora, goddess of flowers. So we call it Florence in English. It's Firenze in Italian.

We visited the square with an original column left by the old Romans. The roads exit the square north, east, south and west. This square was the Florence market for hundreds of years. Eventually, in the 18th or 19th century, the new emporer of Italy revamped the square and disbanded the old market. He cleared it away, leaving only the old column, and a new building on the north side with words to the effect of "where once was squalor, now is truth/light/etc."

During the Middle Ages, Florence became very wealthy because of wool. The Arno River was shallow near the city, and good for carting and dyeing wool. Then bankers appeared, like the Medici family. They charged ~25% interest to use their banks, and this was the sin of usury at the time. So they had to plow many profits into the church. A patron economy for the arts sprang up from that, and a very competitive, very productive period began that would last for hundreds of years. Florence was THE place for art, and money too. It was bigger than Paris and London in those days.

We next moved to an old building, maybe it was the Medici family home in the 12th century. It was a great tall building, oriented for defense. You could shoot arrows out of slit windows or drop boiling oil. There was no attention paid to symmetry, or clean facades or design at all. But it's indicative of the way Florence was in those days. You were fighting with far away nations like Spain or France, who would send armies. You fought with the other city-states in the area like Pisa and Venice. Finally you had intense rivalries with other families in the city.

On this building we saw the curious Medici family crest, with 6 balls glommed onto a shield. No one knows what the balls mean, even the Medicis forgot. We saw curious missing stones in the wall, this was for masonry scaffolding. They left the holes in case they needed to do maintenance later. On another tower we saw embedded stones sticking out of the wall at intervals. These stones have slots on the top so you could sort of "attach" a balcony. You would do that so you could have a garden. In fact, it would be foolish to have a garden on the ground: remember all those city states and families trying to kill you? So you'd attach your garden balcony one or two floors up.

Anyway, back to the old Medici family house. Eventually they moved out and the building was sold to the Wool guild. They embedded a picture of a sheep in the wall. But the Medici family wanted to "keep an eye on them," because any large concerns needed to be watched. So they built two flanking buildings with Medici bank offices on each side.

We saw another house, built by a wealthy competitor to the Medicis for absolute power. By this time the ideas of the renaissance were coming into vogue. These were notions like symmetry, perfection of form, Roman columns. Many of these ideas were being unearthed in Roman ruins and old Roman texts at the time. So this building is not oriented for defense. Instead it has corinthian columns, incredible stone masonry on the (completely without function) roof cornice. It has symmetrical, rigorously placed windows. Still, he saved some money by skimping on the side that faced no street!

Here is a "hole in the wall" bar where great families would sell extra wine to people on the street. You pass in some money, and get back a bottle. You could also get a cup of wine too. People would stand around and drink:

Apparently there are a few of these still in existence, though not in Firenze. What a great idea! Anyway, it's nice to know where the term "hole in the wall" came from.

Here are Mom and I at our well-deserved lunch break:

Argh, I've gotta go now. Future topics:

* Family chapels within churches
* Crypts, the "stinking rich"
* Buried alive, and first legal divorce
* Flood of 1968, "Mud angels," the Gothic church built from the Roman bathhouse.
* The Duomo dome, dramatic story.
* The conspiracy against two Medici brothers, one killed.
* The meat market on the bridge over the Arno. The private walkway for the family head.
* The hated statue of Hercules, the "sack of potatoes."
* The influential statue of St. George, done for the armor guild.

And more, I know I'm missing a lot, and I haven't even touched on the Uffizi gallery tour!

German tabloid papers

2008-07-15T09:53:00.002+01:00

The tabloids are a big part of life in Germany. They colorfully decorate sidewalk corners with big screaming headlines. "PRICE SHOCK! ICE CREAM NOW 2 EUROS!" (yes that was real). They are kind of fun to read though. Lots of bold text, and schadenfreude.

Another "curious" aspect of these papers is that they always have a nude girl at the bottom of the front page. Usually one or two more inside (okay, yes, I looked!). Apologies to sensitive viewers for the nudity, but I had to share one of these for the SHOCK! value:

The text that goes along with the picture is creepier than the picture itself. For this one:

Valerie's dream became true!

For a long time temp worker Valerie (20) from Freiburg wanted to pose for erotic photos. Now her dream has become true - in a fairy tale scene at a historical park, between colorful flowers and trees. Valerie (who is 1.70 meters tall) said: "My boyfriend Torston thought the photos were cool!" Today, Valerie has to go back to work in order to pay the 400 euro a month rent for her 40 square meter apartment.

Valerie (Hobby: swimming) lives alone in her 40 square meter apartment.

Why so much about her apartment? Weird...

A couple other boys and trains

2008-07-03T20:18:00.001+01:00

Our kids love trains. So this story by an illustrator for the New York Times really hit home. His pre-school boys are really obsessed by trains. It's funny and sweet, check it out.

Munich half-marathon

2008-07-01T03:18:00.002+01:00

With some folks from work, I ran in the half-marathon Sunday. Dreading the occasion a little bit, because I've slacked off on any running for the last month or so. The combination of hot weather and visit from Kris's parents gave me a lot of excuses! So I knew it would hurt a bit.

There were 17,000 runners. I was hoping to come in somewhere around 2 hours total time. It was definitely interesting running in a huge crowd. We headed north from the start at Marienplatz into the English Garden. The bulk of the run took place there, going up and down along different trails. I drank water a few times at way-stations. I also gave myself 3 one minute walk breaks. Somewhere after the half-way mark, my legs were running out of gas. Oh well, just have to crank through! I looked at my watch and got excited to maybe beat 2 hours, and that kept my pace up until the end. In the last minute I "sprinted" though my legs were so slow you probably couldn't tell the difference!

It paid off though...I came in with a time of 1:59. One minute under 2 hours!

Afterwards there was free, cold, alcohol-free beer. Only in Munich, eh?

Thanks to Assaf at work for organizing our participation!

Trains home from Zermatt

2008-06-23T21:20:00.002+01:00

Kris made a neat map of the many trains we took home from Zermatt last Friday. Check it out here.

Sunday morning at home

2008-06-22T21:34:00.001+01:00

Sunday morning at home
Originally uploaded by ripsaw ridge

Just a nice morning, happy to be back home after vacation. I'm gonna miss spending all day with the kids. Their abilities are growing so fast...

Great time in Zermatt

2008-06-22T21:24:00.002+01:00

We had an awesome trip! We stayed in the Haus Ascott, had a nice apartment where, shocked by the high prices in Switzerland, we resolved to cook every meal. This turned out to be one of the most fun things. Kris invented a dish with chicken wrapped in bacon. Mmm. Lots of red peppers and onions too. Man it was good. Had many adventures with the boys, including a long hike down a mountain ('bout 500 feet elevation descent, not too shabby for 3 year olds I think).

I've got a Flickr slideshow here. Kris will also have pictures, and I'll add the link soon.

In Zermatt

2008-06-15T08:49:00.002+01:00

We are in Zermatt for the week with an amazing view of the Matterhorn out our window. But today it's clouded over, and the family is huddling under blankets. Brr! We need the sun! We are staying right across the street from the 400 year old house/barns of the old town center. The houses seem to huddle together for warmth. I couldn't imagine living here in the 17th century!

Once we learned to buy groceries and not go out for exorbitant meals we started having fun :-). The Glacier Express train was really nice (and really expensive). We spent Thursday night in Chur, and it was kind of a shock. From the train station we walked to our hotel which was in the middle of the "red light district." Oh. The web site made it look like a charming Swiss villa! But there were strip clubs and "sex cabins," and noisy bars with people watching the soccer game. I never expected that in Switzerland! Rowan slept with Kris and I, thought I should put "slept" in quotes. He was so excited to sleep with us that he beamed and grinned and squealed for at least an hour. Then he tossed and turned violently. Apparently Elijah slept like a log with Kris's parents.

The boys traveled really well on the trains. One thing kind of funny, is the way Elijah says "hello" to everyone. He just boldly starts saying hello until they finally answer. People try to ignore him but he doesn't let them. Then he says "bye." Our Elijah, forcing the world to be more civil! I think maybe he does that to relieve the anxiety of being among lots of strangers: turn them into friends.

Kris is knitting me socks from yarn that she spun herself. One sock is done and it's awesome.

Gas tops $4/gallon on average in U.S.

2008-06-09T13:50:00.001+01:00

The gasoline crunch is really hurting in rural areas of the U.S.:

Here in the Mississippi Delta, some farm workers are borrowing money from their bosses so they can fill their tanks and get to work. Some are switching jobs for shorter commutes.

People are giving up meat so they can buy fuel. Gasoline theft is rising. And drivers are running out of gas more often, leaving their cars by the side of the road until they can scrape together gas money.

Read the article here.

Incredible article on average height data

2008-06-05T17:28:00.003+01:00

Dr. John Komlos, a professor here at the University of Munich has published fascinating data on average heights. Americans used to be the tallest people in the world, but around 1955 Europeans grew taller while Americans even lost some height. Fast food? Growing inequality? It's not immigration.

Anyway, here is the article, worth the long read:
The Height Gap.

Cute topos

2008-05-30T11:26:00.002+01:00

This guy makes cute drawings of classic climbs around here. Check 'em out at DolomitesMountainGuide.com.

Happy Mother's Day!

2008-05-11T10:37:00.002+01:00

Me and the boys made some brownies. Then we all got to eat most of them hot. Then the boys gave their mom the present they'd been working on for her at school. Wooden spoons that masquerade as flowers!

We planted them where they'll get some good sun. Elijah made the red one...

And Rowan made the yellow one. He has a lot of personality...

Happy Mother's Day sweetie! Us boys love you so much!

Munich rules

2008-05-08T09:23:00.002+01:00

Lately, Elijah has been asking me to take him to work with me. So on Saturday both boys hopped in the stroller and we rode towards work. We stopped for some breakfast pastries, and then lay down a picnic blanket on the amazing new park right behind the Rathaus (City Hall). It's just a nice green lawn with some trees and sunny places in the middle of the city. We ran around, and then there was a little tourism event for the Tirol region in Austria. Each boy got a green soccer ball, some sausage, some water and bread. Oh and a cute flag to wave.

We went to work and they enjoyed running down the spacious hallway. We played Mike's guitar, plugging it into the amp and turning it up, I hope we didn't disturb anyone! Sure was nice to hear a loud, overdriven guitar though. :-)

Then it was a nice big playground on the way home from work. Rowan boldly climbed a 15 foot high ladder to a tower, and Elijah overcame a fear about crossing a thick rope bridge. I'm trying to get them to learn to push themselves on the swings, but no luck so far.

I stopped at the climbing book store, but it was too hard to get the boys to stand still. Rowan knocked over a 215 Euro globe! Happily it was ok. Let's get out of here!

Then we went into the beautiful yellow church at Odeonsplatz. The boys were very quiet and respectful, just whispering about the cherubs high on the walls. We called them "babys."

Rowan kept saying "go in yellow house!" Then I looked. There was a "prevent diabetes" fair on the Odeonsplatz, and sure enough there was a blow-up yellow castle for kids to jump in. We had to take that in, and the boys were laughing up a storm for 30 minutes as they bounced and fell in the house. It was time to go, but they did not want to leave! In fact the attendant was pulling them out because he decided they'd been in too long ("we have to alternate big and small children," he said). Oh the crying! Lots of looks of either sympathy or alarm, I never have the time to find out which is which. I carried one back to the stroller and the other just walked and cried. Too bad!

But then at home they got to watch a movie for 10 minutes before taking a nap, and they were pretty tired so it was okay.

The day before we'd all (including Kris) rented a boat after I got off work and pedaled around on a lake in the Englisch Garten. We all loved that.

Anyway, I'm just really impressed with Munich as a kid-friendly city, I'm discovering new attractions every weekend.

Interesting article about "America's Dad"

2008-05-08T09:14:00.002+01:00

Bill Cosby's activism is profiled in the Atlantic Monthly:

His anger and frustration erupted into public view during an NAACP awards ceremony in Washington in 2004 commemorating the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education...
That night, Cosby was one of the last honorees to take the podium. He began by noting that although civil-rights activists had opened the door for black America, young people today, instead of stepping through, were stepping backward. “No longer is a person embarrassed because they’re pregnant without a husband,” he told the crowd. “No longer is a boy considered an embarrassment if he tries to run away from being the father of the unmarried child.”

Great article, read it here. The liberal storyline about the failure of black communities centers on external influences, like pervasive racism, predatory lending, lack of education, lack of role models. But it's solutions don't have the bracing and energizing appeal that a prophet of personal responsibility can provide. Also, there is raw emotion and anger in the people that can't be addressed by say, a new community center. Anyway, this is Cosby's take on the problem.

Ski touring is fun

2008-04-22T13:24:00.001+01:00

pizbuin-11
Originally uploaded by ripsaw ridge

I'm happy to report that finally, after two years of effort, ski touring has entered my blood. I can ski well enough now that I hardly ever fall down in a tangle of arms and legs. I do my share of "kick turning," which means my descents aren't as joyful as those of a real skier. But I've found a sweet spot with it. There are just so many places to ski tour here, an endless supply of mountains. And I get to see so much more of the Winter Alps than I ever saw of the Winter Cascades. Adding up the ski tours (and occasional snowshoe tour, which I still like), I have been able to do considerably more "hiking" in the winter here than back in the U.S..

Ski touring is way, way more rewarding than going to a lift area. The few times I went this year were marred by snow-making machinery and icy slopes.

This is a picture I took from the Silvrettahorn, in the Rätikon Alps on the Swiss/Austrian border. I love the party of 5 people traveling on the ridge top. And I love the steep, pointy mountain across the valley.

Fun day at Starnberg

2008-04-21T16:22:00.002+01:00

Kris, the boys and I had a great day at the Starnberg Lake. The weather was warm and sunny. The boys took their bikes, and we went to lay on the grass near the water. The boys had a great time running around. We pigged out on raisins and croissants too. There was some sadness because Rowan fell into a creek (he was jumping across it again and again), so he had to take his pants off and wander around in a diaper for a while. Then on the way back his bike tire deflated. We finished the 5 hour visit with apfelstruedel at a restaurant by the lake. The kids got a great workout, and we enjoyed the sun.

Looking forward to more days like that coming up!

People don't go outside...

2008-04-10T09:21:00.002+01:00

A short essay on declining National Park visitation...

Overall, the number of people who visit national park sites has been on a steady decline for almost 20 years — with a handful of exceptions. For years, the complaint about parks was a variation of that old Yogi Berra line: nobody goes there anymore because they’re too crowded. But now the treasures of original and scenic America have the opposite problem.

The rest here.

Stephen King's take on ice tools

2008-04-06T17:26:00.001+01:00

This was pretty funny:

What I really feel when I hold this in my hand isn't so much the possibility of murder as the gravity of mortal things. It speaks to me of the vulnerability of human flesh, but also of the resilience and determination of the human mind: Lying on my desk, it whispers, "If you need me, I'll be there. If you need to hang all 215 pounds of you off me, I won't let go--if, that is, you plant me deep."

The rest is here.

First day of spring

2008-04-01T06:38:00.002+01:00

Sunday was the first day of spring. I went for a morning ski up the Pleisenspitze, almost 5000 feet of skiing up and down, and the views were great. In the afternoon, Kris went out with some knitting friends and I took the boys to Hauptbahnhof to get nacho supplies. We ate ice cream on the train platform and watched trains come and go. Then we went to the English Garden, sat on a hillside near the Monopteros and listened to the drummers down by the river. We ate a butterbrezen, and enjoyed running around in t-shirts with no jackets.

Something I really like here is that because it doesn't rain as much the grass is usually dry. In Seattle you can't lie down on the grass until June, it seems like! Anyway, this is one of my favorite things to do, I can really spend hours on a picnic out there. There was some kind of improvised swing on a tree, it looked like a set of aid climbing etriers (fabric step-ladders). We all climbed up on it.

Just a fun day...

Sad story

2008-03-26T07:33:00.003+01:00

An article at the NYT about a kid who gets bullied repeatedly here. I was a subject of bullying in the 6th through 9th grade. The memories are painful. I really feel for this kid. It's a very isolating feeling, and a vicious circle. If you "tell," then you are a tattle-tale, and fair game for worse treatment. Also, it's surprising how often (most of the time) you get no help from school authorities. What I came away with was the feeling that they were afraid of the bullies too.

For me, learning to play guitar helped get me out of that lowest social class: awkward misfits who could always be taunted as "faggots." Being in that box and looking out at things like the pretty girls feels like being on the moon. It's easy to hate everyone, because it seems like everyone is complicit in what's happening to you. Now that I'm older I know they were just unaware.

Anyway...not so good times.

Kris made me a sweater!

2008-03-24T14:57:00.002+01:00

Look, Kris made me this amazing sweater, in just 9 days of constant knitting!

I really like it. It's going to be cold this week so I should get to wear it a lot. I've also got a great scarf, many pairs of socks, a hat and some mittens from Kris. I just need knitted pants and underwear and I'm completely swaddled in wool!