Kurtis's Blog

Went to Verbier for the weekend. Bought a mountainbike yesterday and went and tried it. And got seriosuly sun burnt. Oh well. It was nice though. There is still snow higher up in some patches with shade.

Oh, and I was on TV from the finnish of the 8 leg of Tour de Suisse. I have seen my self on both Swiss TV and the BBC.

I also need to get Internet access to the apartment again. I keep having to go to an Internet café

I am currently at the IETF 64 in Vancouver. Travelled here from vacation in Asia. Jetlag is horrible but vacation was nice. Worked and trekked in Bhutan. First day of trekking I did 2000 altitude meters in 7hs. Camped at 4200m and almost got altitude sickness. It was -7 deg C and my sleeping bag can only do +10. It was cold...

For the last two days me, Pierre B and Helena has had a small climbing course with Pette, a friend of mine that is a Mountain Guide. I have tried climbing indoors once before but that was completely different to this.

On Monday we went to Val d'Ferret where there is a really nice beginners place. You climb from a small path located on a mountain shelf. There are around 10 bolted routes, graded from 4a to 5c. I managed to almost get to the top of the 5a. The 5b and 5c proved to difficult to me, and I only managed to go a bit over half-ways. I was also really tired. We ended the day with learning rapelling.

On Tuesday we went to a rock near Martigny. Here you had really long routes, in total probably 3-4 rope lengths. However there is a shelf after the first rope lenght so you could stop there. Pierre B got to try a 6a but according to himself he was to tired by then. We also practiced more rapelling, climb leading some more difficult climbs. A really good day!

I think I got a bit hooked on climbing with this, and will try and do as much of this as I can :-)

I spent the afternoon with Bij and Pierre B climbing at De Klimmuur. It was great fun. Turned out that there was an open day so entrance was free. I ended up buying clibming shoes, a Grigri belaying device and some carabiners.

There where some 20-30 ropes and around 150 routes. Pierre B managed to do a 21m high 5c in the end, I only managed to get perhaps 1/3 of that. We finnished with trying some bouldering, but by that time I was dead tired already. We are already planning to go back tomorrow :-)

So I am off to Scotland for what was anticipated to be a weekend aimed at some late season trekking .Weather forecast hower seems to indicate that won't happen. So we have made enough backup plans that includes Whisky :)

So I spent last week ski-touring in La Grave, France with two friends and a Mountain Guide. It was fantastic!

We started with two short tours on Monday including one up to a pass. On the other side of the pass was a colouir. I guess in reality it wasn't that steep but I thought the snow conditions there made it somewhat tricky. After that it was nice snow all the way down!

Tuesday had us skiing in the system at La Grave. There are no conventional pistes as such, but skiing was immensely fun! I was really surprised by the ski area, and that was with the lifts on the glacier closed!

Wednesday we went south of Briancon to a ski area called Put St-Vincent. The actual ski area have reds and blacks, but we walked along a ridge for a bit over an hour. The reason it took that long was mostly me. The ridge was somewhat steep and I wasn't all that comfortable all the time :-). After the walking we skied in dry cold snow. It was a fantastic run!

Thursday we woke up to 25cm of fresh snow. We hurried to the lift and skied until 14, several runs where we tracked it the surfaces. I think we skied up all the powder in the threes of Vallon by ourselves. It was a great day! After a lunch down in La Grave, we drove off east of Briancon and from there walked up in the snow fall at night to the Napoleon refuge. There we where the only guests and had a fantastic dinner and some really nice wines in the evening.

The next morning we walked up to the Pass de XXX. Our original plan was to walk up the ridge as high we could, but the characteristic sighing sound from the snowpack had our guide divert us. We skied down on the flat plains below and instead walked up another pass. This one 3300m high with a great view. Finally skiing down back to the car and then back to La Grave for a final night at the hotel with Champagne and a really nice bottle of 1999 Ch Brown from Pessac-Legonan. We tried to finish of the evening with a few beers at a local night club, hoping to do 'La Grave by night', but true to it's reputation, the people in La Grave are there for the skiing and not the the party. We found a handful of tourists in a bar took a beer and decided to follow the La Grave way and head to bed. Which turned out to be a good decision.

Our last morning we where again met with 10cm of fresh snow that had us head up the ski system above La Grave. We did several long runs all the way down to P1.

After an exhausting week it was back to Verbier. But I am sure I am coming back to La Grave. The area has so much to offer - and a variety that is guaranteed to have something for almost everyone except perhaps the very beginners.

This weekend saw the end of the ski season in Verbier :-( Now there will be 7 long months until the snow is back :-( Luckily I am going to Riksgränsen in the North of Sweden skiing in 10 days.

The end of the season otherwise was as always fun. This year they had moved the "water skiing" from the usual pool at Chalet Carlsberg to a natural pond next to Lac des Vaux. There was some spectacular stunts done including skiing across the pond carrying a child, going across with a pisteur sledge behind, telemark turns etc. At the end people seemed to have decided to get wet and started doing high jumps with various tricks and landing in the water.

All in all a really good weekend!

Me and some friends are this week off ski-touring in the north of Sweden with Riksgränsen as our base. So this weeks blogging will mostly be about skiing and food :)

Yesterday we toured up Sovande Drottning, just south of Narvik. We never made it to the summit due to bad weather moving in, but we got up to the to off the saddle ridge. On the way down we started in dry cold snow, on the steep face to the north, then slowly getting more and more spring snow that turned really heavy at the end. A great run all in all.

The touring continued today. We took the train from Riksgränsen to Katterat where we put on skins. The followed 4h of walking to the summit. The weather deteriorated somewhat as we closed in on the summit. At the summit we where met with the stunning view over the Råmbaksfjord to the west, the view towards Riksgränsen and Gorsatjokka to the east, Sovade Drottning to the south etc. Stunning!

After a nice but really windy and cloudy lunch, the skies cleared just as we skied down. Due to bad snow conditions on the ridge to the west, we took the large snow field to the south-east down, same way as up. This gave us a wonderful run down, 300 vertical meters of perfect spring snow. We made it back to the train on time and we finished the day with a nice dinner at Meterologen.

The day started with dark clouds. We and the design team fromHaglöfs outdoor sports wear got into two cars and headed for Spansdalen valley. Here two classical peaks are located, Spanstind and Melkejell. As we all had already been to them, our guide Jonathan decided to go for the third large mountain. After 2hs of skinning we reached a plateau to the right (west) of the large pass/couloir where you ski down. I wasn't feeling very well, so lunch was quick, at least for me. Due to really strong winds we then continued quickly up the south side, finishing on the small peak to the west of Stortind, some 10mins from the summit. As it started to snow, with pretty wet snow, we decided we didn't want to have the ski-run ruined by the snow transforming so we quickly packed up, went around the large cornich and skied the couloir down!

Again a great ski run! Tuesday night didn't bring us to Meterologen though as Peak Performance had booked it for their sponsor dinner. Instead we had ala-carte in the Lapplandia restaurant. This offered us the chance to have another great Bonny Doon wine, the Le Cigar Volante.

In really poor visibility and rain on and off, we took the car to Vassijaure trainstation. Here we started skinning up just east of the couloir on Vassi north in the hope to reach Vassi's middle summit. Unfortunately the weather was just to bad, so Jonathan decided to take us to the north peak instead.

As we reached the summit, visibility was 2-3 meters. We quickly packed up, and the followed Jonathan with his GPS doing snow-ploughs, as the sides of the peak otherwise offers some pretty exciting basejumping.... After perhaps 200m we started seeing contours on the sides and then could start skiing.

Once we reached the couloir, we skiied it half way down and then crossed it to keep high as we went around to be able to ski back to the train-station. The crossing turned interested as our skiing higher-up had started a slow moving slush avalange. While not particularly dangerous, it took some balancing to cross it as the force kept wanting to pull your skis down with it.

We came back early, had an irish coffee and then headed over to the main hotel after a shower to see the price ceremony as well as have the buffet dinner as part of the Nordic Championships in Extreme skiing. The night turned out quite late, but fun!

This morning started out as rainy in our heads as outside. It was pouring down. Jonathan had originally planned for us to go climbing in Narvik indoors, but of course this was May 17th, the Norweigan national day, so everything was closed. We still made an attempt to reach the summit of Kopparfjellet, the probably second most reached summit after Vassi north as it is quite easy. Today though, the heavy rain and really strong winds as we where 1000m from the summit made us turn back.

Once back in Riksgränsen we skied with Jonathan at some of the close of piste runs, but soon realised we where not wearing any dry clothes gave up.

In the evening we had invited Jonathan over for dinner at Meterologen and decided to make our own gala-dinner. 'Strumpan' supplied us with a small flight of wines for the starters, followed by 1995 Penfolds Grange for the main-course and then again two flights of wines for cheese and dessert.

The day turned out quite nice in the end!

The day started out in clear blue skies and sunshine. The morning revealed that the bad weather the day before had brought some 30cm of fresh powder snow.

The helicopter took of at 10 with us as the fourth group. We had tried to get our own helicopter and fly from Abisko south towards Kebnekaise but there where a shortage of helicopters. First peak was Vassi north again, unrecognisable from two days ago.

Second summit was small-Gorsa, from where we had one of my favourite powder runs. It's not steep, but steep enough that you will get good speed and the valley most be 1500-2000m wide so you have enormous surfaces to play on.

After a short break, the helicopter took us up on Gorsa, where we skied the couloir close to the summit out on the glacier face. At the end of the glacier, we waved good bye to the helicopter and put on skins. We then skinned up to the south Vassi summit. I thought this was pretty steep for skinning but we made. Unfortunately a cloud was hanging just on the south summit. We took of the skins and started the classical Vassi traverse moving across the wide ridge on large surfaces to towards the middle summit. Just before it, we again put on skins and walked up. At the middle summit, Jonathan decided that we where to ski the off-pist run called "Vassi technical" down. This is a run that goes ore or less straight west from the pass between the middle and north summits. The beginning of the run was easy and really good snow. The very last bit was a steep narrow couloir that took Jonathan a lot of persuading to get me down. I side-stepped all the way in the spring snow. But I got down! :)

We went down to the refuge at the bottom, had lunch and then skinned back to Riksgränsen. This was the end of 8hs on skis. A pretty long day....but beautiful!

Jonathan had breakfast with us, before heading for his train. We went up and spent the day skiing off-pist close to Riksgränsen. We did Nordalsfjäll as well as Hamres and and countless runs in Branten that had turned into perfect steep springsnow.

The last full day was again great! Unfortunately I can now see the workweek starting again - and it will be until November before I can ski again :(

The excellent web-site pistehors.com have a summary of the weather features for the last season across the alps.

It's hard to draw conclusions based on the material, but as I experienced the last winter as pretty poor except for the weeks I spent in La Grave in February and in Riksgränsen in May, it seems the data supports this. The data from Isere points to an average winter, and the data in general seems to say that the winter above 2000m altitude was average and that we have seen almost similar downturns before, but not as high temperatures.

I have no position on global warming as such (I generally think we should care about the environment but my although limited knowledge about statistics tells me the current sampling interval is to small to draw conclusions from) I do worry about my skiing. The data at pishehors.com seems to indicate that I have at least a few more ski seasons to look forward to!

Heading off for a three day session up at Cabane Orny with our guide Jonathan. We started with taking the lift up from Champex-Lac and then walking for two hours. Cabane Orny is beautifully situated above the Trient glacier. After lunch we climbed on the walls above the Cabane. The climbs where very varying from easy 4as towards a 5c that Jonathan and Pierre tried. The day finished with a bottle or Petit Arvine as after-climb and then a bottle of Diolinoir for dinner. Rounded off with homemade Genepi.

We got up for breakfast at 5am and left the Cabane at 5.45am. There was some rain until we got down to the glacier and started walking. As we got onto the glacier and walked for bout 15minutes with just our shoes we had daybreak. We stopped and put on the Crampons, and then about halfway up to Col du Trient the sky started clearing and we got a beautiful view of the Val de l'Escalade.

Soon we where walking in sunshine and once we reached the end of the glacier at the rocks just below the summit we had clear skies. This stayed with us for the rest of the morning on the walk down. From the col below the summit there is a beautiful view of the Chamonix valley as well as towards Martigny and Val de Bagnes.

After this we walked down towards Cabane Trient, and took the path next to the ice back to Cabane Orny. There we where met by Helena and had a quick lunch. After this we headed up to the rock walls again and started climbing some loner and more difficult routes. Around 16 I had spent 10hs in a harness and we where really tired. After climbing again with a bottle of Petit Arivne was followed by the same excellent Diolinoir for dinner, and again we rounded off with the home-made Genepi.

Last day we again got up at 5am for breakfast and where ready to leave by 6am. We where anxiously looking at the sky as the weather forecast was pretty bad. Once we where on the Trient galcier again and had started walking we got to the point to on the crampons. We again had daybreak, but the sky was filled with heavy dark clouds and we very soon had rain.

As we walked up Col du Trient and turn left the rain intensified. By the time we reached the face up to the col towards the Chamonix valley the wind picked up and we soon had very heavy hail. 10m from the actual Col, Jonathan stopped and decided to turn back, without any opposition from us. It was pretty vet.

A bit over an hour later we where back at the Cabane and after a quick coffee we started the wet walk down to the lift again. Once we where down in Champex-Lac the rain had stopped and as we where back up in Verbier we had sunshine. A bath was pretty nice after having trekked, climbed and slept in the same cloths.

After SANOG10 in Delhi I took two weeks of and with some friends went to Katmandu, Nepal in order to go trekking. This explains my 'sudden' disappearance from the net...

Our original plan was to go up the Kumjung valley next to Mt Everest. However, this year the Monsoon was late and wisdom then apparently says the Monsoon will go on longer. And so it has. Having spent two days from 06.00 to 13.00 waiting fro the mountain flight to the village of Lukla we gave up. We just didn't have the buffer time to wait. So we decided to change our minds on the second day and with our guide headed to Pokhara, the third largest city in Nepal. This also meant that we weren't going camping, but instead we where going for what is called a tea-house trek. Something that I guess could be compared to trekking between the Cabane's in Europe.

We spent the night in a Lakeside hotel and after an early morning out-door breakfast we headed to the start of our trek. After around 40 mins in a car we came to Nayapul. Here we left the car and started the trek. First on a fairly flat stretch past Birethanti, and then a gentle uphill until we reached Thikedhungga. Here we spent the night in one of the tea-houses. We where lucky as we walked in sunshine all day, and just as we had checked in the rain started. We had a splendid dinner and went to bed early as the next the day where going to be a long one. Just as we where going to bed, there was a massive noise. The next day this was explained. On the fairly deforested slope on the other side of the Bhurangdi Khola river there had been a large land-slide. Only 3 years earlier a similar land-slide had taken out a small village, which led to a lot of causalities, among them an entire family.

The next morning we had an early rise with the sun. We crossed the river and started the long climb up the 3280 stone steps to Ulleri, and onwards to Banthani. All in all, some 800 very steep vertical meters. Here we stopped for lunch and then we went on uphill to Ghorepani. Here we stayed the night and enjoyed a fantastic dinner. Our guide and Gaurab invited us to join them and the owner family in the Kitchen. Here we got local Rum as well as the local rice wine, Raksi. We where not the only ones keeping to the local spirits though. A large group young americans kept at it until midnight, keeping the rest of us awake.

At 5am we woke up and headed for Poon Hill, a summit on a ridge overlooking Ghorepani. When we reached the summit it was covered in fog. The american group after 10 minutes decided to go back to breakfast, we waited another 15 minutes and once it cleared we got a stunning view of Dhaulgari, Anapurna south, Anapurna North and Macchapucchre. After this we headed down to breakfast as well. After breakfast we headed up to the 3300m high Deurali pass. From there we went on down into the jungle past Ban Thanti to Liui Kharka where we stopped for lunch. After this we walked down the gorge to Tadapani where we stopped for the night.

During the night we had very heavy thunderstorms and rainfall. The next morning when we set off our guide told us to expect lots of leaches in the forrest. And right he was. We kept on taking off leaches for more or less the coming days. We headed off down towards the Kimrong Khola river, crossed it and started the walk up towards Ghurjung and Romi where we stopped for lunch. After this we headed to Chomrong, passing several large land-slides. In Chomrong we had dinner and our guide had then invited some of the other guides that we had seen on the trek over and we spent the evening chatting and drinking Raksi.

Next morning the clouds that had been lying low in the valley the night before lifted and we stood at the foot of Annapurna south. With it's approx 7500m it's not one the 14 8000m peaks, but it is still certainly very impressive. It occurred to me that just the glacier was approx 3500m high and therefor higher than the highest mountain in the Verbier ski system. The difference in altitude between me and the summit was higher than the highest mountain in western Europe. These mountains are impressive.... We left Chomrong and backtracked our path from the previous day. We realized that during the night there had been 4 large new land-slies that had taken the path out on a few places and forced you to climb the cone of the land-slide. When we came to a point overlooking the Kimrong Khola river that we had to cross in order to reach Ghandruk, we realized the normal bridge was washed away. Our porter had spotted another bridge further down-stream so we went there instead. Just as we crossed and started the 600m uphill to Kimrongdanda pass, it started to rain. This not only brought out the leaches again, but also made us walk faster. In the end me and the porter was almost running up to the pass. After lunch the rain had stopped and we arrived in Ghandruk in sunshine. The teahouse in Ghandruk was luxury compared to the others with a shower and a flushing toilet in every room! That night we decided to indulge in the menu and had snacks/starters as well as apple cake for dessert!

After an early start we headed down to the Modi Khola river again, and then started the 1000m ascent on the other side up to Landruk and then to Pothana where we stopped for the last night. During the night we had the full force of the monsoon over us. It sounded like a waterfall hitting the roof for the entire night. Lightning kept striking near us and the bed shock on and off from the strikes. The rain stopped as morning approached and we got up for the last breakfast. We headed off for the last down-hill bit to Naudana where we where picked up by car for transport to Pokhara and the flight back to Katmandu.

While the trek didn't exactly take me where I had thought I was going, it was certainly impressive and I enjoyed greatly. Our guide started to try and persuade me to come back in November next year and do one of the "trekking peaks", like Island Peak. While the name makes these peaks sound trivial, it merely refers to the type of permit needed. The Island Peak is 6200m and the glacial face to the summit ridge is 100m vertical of 45 degrees. Let's see. It's certainly interesting :)

Yesterday I did what I assume was the last outdoor climbing for the season in Dorenaz. Today we went skiing on the glacier in Saas-Fee. It was a beautiful day, but with some wind. Conditions was ok, it had snowed a few days ago and we actually found some fresh snow, that was a bit wind packed - but hey - its the first ski day of the season!

Now I just can't wait for the 'real thing'...

Yesterday I did the first skiing in Verbier for this season. Conditions are exceptionally good this early! Everything above Ruinettes is open and there is a good ground base. We even got some powder turns from the Creblet ridge down towards Lac des Vaux.

Basically - it was great! If it goes on like this we will have a superb season! But, I am a bit afraid to say that already as we are only in November...

It's been pretty quiet here for a while. I was pretty busy in the weeks leading up to the Christmas holidays. At Netnod we announced another 20% price cut, and this triggered quite a number of new customer orders. We are now gearing up to provision these and are also working on some other more news for the first quarter.

For Christmas and New Years I was in Verbier, where we have a great start of the season. For a week I did more off-pist skiing on Mt Gele than I think I have done all winters previously (Mt Gele is normally closed due to lack of snow or avalange danger). I also did a ski tour with Pette. We walked 2.5hs up the east ridge to Mt Rougneux from Bruson and then had a great cold snow run down the east side. It was well worth it!

As for New Year, I picked up a bottle of 1999 Pommard 1er Cru that was fantastic! I always like it when I find these small things in the wine cellar. Especially when I know there are 3 bottles left..:)

Happy New Year!

It's been pretty quiet here for a while. Reason is that I have been off-line skiing for two weeks. It was quite nice. One week with a mountain guide in La Grave and one week at the ISP-Ski week in Verbier.

Yesterday and today I have attended the IAOC retreat in Helsinki. No earth shaking decisions but good discussion of which some I hope we will see some public results later in year!

Today we got 47cm of snow in Verbier...I went skiing with a friend on mine to Bruson. The sun and following hard under-layer with 47cm of fresh snow meant that the upper layer didn't really bind. And visibility was poor. So we took the cabins down to Le Chable and then the bus up to Bruson. Here we skied in the forest. I have long heard about how magic this forest can be after a heavy snowfall, but to be honest - I had never skied there before. But it was amazing. In fact - it was one of those magic days you will just remember....

We are off to Chamonix for starting the Haute Route tomorrow...I am excited! It will also be nice with some time off, although with the current work load I have to admit that I probably would be better off staying at home...:-(

We woke up early to be at the Aiguille de Midi cable car station at 7. Our guide hade booked us for the 7.30 cable car and soon we where on our way up. I have never been up here before, but the view was stunning. The scenery from the top is amazing over the Chamonix valley.

We then walked down the ridge that takes you from the summit station to the head of the glacier. It's reputed to be somewhat scary, with a 1000m drop down to the middle station on the left and a pretty steep drop on the right. However, the snow conditions are good and so a foot path is dug out with ropes to secure you on both sides. I do have some vertigo, but roped up with the guide and walking with crampons I felt completely relaxed. Our guide told us though, that the walk is worse in the summer as there is no snow and no ropes - just the glacier ice.

Skiing down the easy glacial fields to the right in new snow and clear and sunny weather was fantastic. We then got to roughly the first third of Mer de Glace where we stopped, and put on our skins. This was just above the Helbronner lift (well, we where on the ice below..), and from there we skinned up to the Hellbronner pass.

Once at the top we started skiing down towards the Courmayeur valley and the Mont Frety lift. The snow was by now quite heavy and with my fairly narrow touring skis, going down was tiring. Coming down to La Palud and having a Foccacia was really nice!

We then took the bus up the Val Ferret and last skinned up to Refuge Bonatti, with Grand Jurasses on our left with avalanches roaring down in the afternoon sun. This has to be one of the nicest Cabans I ever stayed in with hot water showers and a great Italian dinner.

First day was great!

We started around 7 in the morning, skinning up to the pass high above. We skinned for around 3 hours in exceedingly heavy snow fall. Once at the pass we stopped for lunch hoping for it to clear so that our guide could asses the avalange danger. However after 40 minutes it was snowing more than ever and we where getting pretty cold. Our guide decided that it was to dangerous to actually ski the field and instead we should go down from the pass next to a rock formation. This was steeper than the field but with far less snow, and more stable snow. We more or less sidestepped down next to the rock one by one. Once down we started skiing, spread out and one by one. Visibility was really poor by now. Our guide skiing first, was finding his way with GPS and throwing a rope on the snow in front of him to try and detect any sudden small features of the ground.

After traversing like this for around 40 minutes we again started skinning up. We came to a pass high above the entrance to the tunnel Grand St Bernhard. Once there we had fantastic skiing in 20cm of fresh snow down to the summer road up to the Hospice. Once down we started the last bit of skinning up to the Gd St Bernhard pass and the Hospice. We made it up in really strong winds and heavy snow fall, just in time for dinner. We had been out for 10 hours in poor weather conditions, but it was great fun!

Last day. After breakfast we headed off to the bus stop and took the bus up to Bourg St Bernhard. From here we skinned up to the Hospice. The good and sunny weather down in Bourg St Pierre turned out to be a full blizzard once we started skinning. Up at the Hospice we stopped for lunch. Afterwards we continued down the summer road towards Italy and then turn off and up towards Col Ferret. The idea was to ski down to La Fouly. One up at the pass we had gail force winds. We packed and tried to start skiing, but after one turn the guide stopped us. The snow was really loaded, and of the oddest consistency I have ever seen. We turned back and in no visibility made our way back to the Hospice and from there down to the road. Once back at Bourg St Bernhard we took the bus down to Orsiere and from there the train back down to Martigny.

Although we didn't reach Zermatt it was certainly an experience, and one I enjoyed every minute of. And I wouldn't mind trying to do it all over again!

We woke up early, had breakfast and where soon on our way before sunrise. We skied down next to the Cab on to the moraine and then started skinning up towards Cab Valsorey. Our guide soon noted that we could not see any other groups doing the traverse high up and under Grand Combin. We took this as a bad sign. Some 20 minutes away from Cab Valsoray we met the groups that had stayed there for the night. They told us that they had aborted at the bottom of the gully you have to crampon up as the snow field above looked to unstable. We decided to move on to Cab Valsoray and take a look.

At the Cabane our guide looked up the slopes and did agree that the field higher up looked to unstable. The summit and the plateau we would have to pass was also hidden in snow drift, hinting that winds at above 3000m must we strong, and further that the snow cover one the steeper face on the other side of the Grand Combin ridge might not be stable either. Our guide then decided we had to abort the tour towards Zermatt. Not much to do. Against weather and nature we are pretty powerless.

Our guide instead took us past a rock field just below the Cabanne and from there we had a wide snow field with powder snow, all to ourselves. Skiing 800 vertical meters in fresh snow beat skiing down the pretty bad snow we had skinned up and the other groups had skied down. Once down and over the moraine ridge, our guide stopped and suggested we go back up towards Col Mr Velon from the other side. As it was clear blue skies and only 10.30 in the morning, no-one complained.

We skinned up to just under the Col where we had lunch. Afterwards we skied all the way down to Bourg St Pierre. After around 1200 vertical meters of additional powder we had forgotten all about not making it to Zermatt.

Once down in the village, we checked into one of the local hotels and headed for fondue at a local restaurant. Turned out to be a nice evening!

We started with breakfast at 8 and then where soon out at the Col in strong winds and poor visibility again. We skied down the gentle slopes to the Bourg St Bernhard parking lot. Here we looked up towards Col Mt Velon, but visibility and snow conditions didn't look good. Instead we decided to hitch-hike down to Bourg Saint-Pierre and from there skin up to Cab Velon. Not much skiing, but we arrived early and had a nice dinner.

So I have finished reading "The Climb" after having read "Into thin air" last fall. The two accounts (or rather the account in "Into thin air") of the same tragedy of 1996 on Everest has been the source of great controversy of the years, especially shortly afterwards. For those of us who where not on the mountain those days in May 1996, what really happened will never be clear. From the accounts it's also obvious that altitude and fatigue made even some of the people that where the unsure of what was happening.

It's always bordering to silliness to have someone who wasn't involved try and analyze events and motives, but after reading the two books I am left somewhat puzzled on the more general issues around the controversy. Jon Krakauer, in "Into thin air" and in other fora, seems to have been accusing Anatoli Boukreev of neglect as he descended ahed of his clients - a fact that Krakauer attributes to the fact that Boukarev would have been poorly dressed and climbing without oxygen. The first assumption is in "The climb" refuted with proof of the photos from the summit. That Krakauer to my knowledge never explained to admitted the error seems dubious to start with. But let's ignore that and concentrate on the main point of Krakauers criticism. That Boukreev descended early, and did not wait for his clients. Boukreev says in the taped hearings directly after the tragedy that while on the summit he felt the wind start to pick up and became worried about the weather. So did others.

One must assume that Krakauer views that a better action would have been for Boukreev to stay on the mountain, with the very spread-out group and assist them. We are now heading for speculation but one must assume that Boukreev would then have used the extra oxygen that Scott Fisher had organized as backup for Boukreev. O2 that was now used by the clients instead, that needed it as the slow ascent had lead to them using a lot more of their own O2 than what had been planned for. Instead, with Boukreev descending he got to lower altitude, got rest. All of which I assume would help him to get the strength later on to go out in the storm and find, and bring back the others. So in that regard, as just the reader of the books, I have to assume that less clients would have made it safely down had not Boukreev descended.

However, there is of course the argument that had Boukreev stayed on the mountain, he could have helped them find camp faster. I however doubt that. The party was very spread out, at extremely high altitude. It would have meant that he would have had more strength and some over natural ability to navigate in the whiteout - that non of the other guides had.

However, again - it's hard to speculate. Both books are well written, and give their accounts of what happened on the mountain.

Today I went to Val Ferret and had the first outdoor climbing day!

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Unfortunately you can't really see the rock between the trees. It's basically next to the dam. We kept it easy to make sure that everyone enjoyed it. The weatherforecast was a bit unstable but in the end we had a beautiful day with stunning scenery. The climbing there is not that challenging but I just love the view!

Time to dust off writing again after way too much travel and work.

First post on non-Internet related issues. Today I for the first time climbed 6a outdoors. Actually I even climbed two of them. Not bad for the third day of the season and without any pre-season training. Now let's see how much climbing I can get it this season.