Ice Ice Baby

Its been an amazing winter in western Norway, very cold for a sustained period of time, which means lots of ice in good condition. Last weekend I had some old friends across to visit with the main intention of climbing. Things at work have been horribly busy so I was very happy to take a day off and head to the hills.

The guys arrived on the late Gatwick flight on Thursday night so we sat around and drank beer until about 1.30. Friday morning we headed up to Voss to check out a 5 pitch route that Sandy had recommended. It has been a bit warm on the west coast in the last week so I thought it had probably melted. When we got there it was still looking ok, so after a fairly grim wade through thigh deep snow Dave and I picked it off. It was longer than it looked but a great start to the weekend.

Mike and Clair at Voss

Five pitches that were in better nick than they look here. Near Voss

Drove to Hemsedal and arrived very late, due to a fairly pointless road closure (klonnekkjøring). Next day we checked out a long grade 5 above Ulsåk which looked rotten and rather nasty so we headed to Haugfossen, one of Norway’s more popular ice locations. It’s popularity is totally justified, two really nice falls, sheltered from the wind, fat, great plastic ice and a blue sky day. Sandy cracked off a nice WI5 which I seconded, Dave did another on the same fall while Mike and Clair climbed a route on the left side of the main fall. I then led the long WI4+ pitch on the right side of the main fall. Ice climbing doesn’t get much better than that.

Sandy at the base of Indrehaugfossen - bigger and steeper than it looks here

Clair on Haugfossen

Dave looking realxed on steep ice - Indrehaugfossen

Yours truly on the RDS of Huegensfossen (pic by Dave)

That night we managed to drink a lot of wine (18 bottles between 8), some beer and half a bottle of jeager in the hot tub at the cabin. Not sure where all that booze went but it was a fun evening. Next day, we were all looking and feeling decidedly ropey. Sandy, Helen and Ceclie headed off to ski at the ski-centre and we opted to explore Lærdal. It has some amazing, large and very scary looking ice lines in it, which are way too hard for mere mortals like me, but I had got a guide off Jamie which suggested that buried in the side valleys were some more do-able routes.

We scouted a few before we hiked up a gorge to huge amphitheatre called Nausagrovi, with 4 distinct falls and numerous ice lines. The most obvious was a big fat fall that looked at two pitches of 3+ or 4.

Nausagrovi in Lærdal, 150m of WI4

Mike took pictures while I dispatched the first pitch. An unconformable, near-hanging belay brought Dave up who then dispatched the steep second pitch, pronouncing that he wasn’t going to make the top. By this time I had been on the belay for about an hour and a half, why one foot had serious pins and needles, I was cold, hungover and getting spooked by how quickly the ice screws were meting out. I seconded the pitch and lead through to another full rope length and the top. The angle eased off just in time as I ran out of energy and motivation and I reached an awesomely conformable belay at the top and brought Dave up. Some fairly hairy abs got us back down again and we walked back to the car in the dark. A fairly full on day, especially considering the hangover and the previous two days.

Dave on the second pitch of Nausagrovi

My rat is very well fed now, in fact I might have to put him on a diet! Great to see the guys, drink wine and climb quality ice! Now looking forward to spring.

Pretty good English for a Russian

It's 1994 and I am doing fieldwork in Utah. Based out of the town of Green River, population 973, famous for water melons, uranium mining and being home to a cold war missile base. It’s a one street town which is 70 miles from any other town, in any direction. It has some plus points, there is Ray’s Tavern a truck stop and a few ok diners. It sits in front of the Book Cliffs and as such is a gateway to some of the best geology in the World and it is my home from 3 months.

Its hard to believe but this is in the days before the internet, mobile phones or email. To communicate with the folks back home you wrote letters (how quaint) and every couple of days you went to the Post Office and collected your mail that was sent “general delivery”.

So one day I walk into the post office and see the smiling old lady. I buy some stamps and hand her my cards before asking for my mail.

Out of the blue she asks “Is the Ukraine still apart of Russia?”
Now that’s a curved ball question! But this is the time of the break up of the Soviet Union, so I figure that maybe she doesn’t know who else to ask.
I reply “Yes, I believe it is”
“You speak pretty good English for a Russian”
Getting more random by the minute...
“I am not Russian” I reply
“Oh” She looks confused but not put off she comes back with “Well you sure send a lot of cards and letters to Russia”
At this point I am totally lost and trying to work out if some cold war task force is going to appear and arrest me.
“I have no idea what you are talking about” I reply
“Look!” She exclaims. “All these cards going to the Ukraine”
She points at the UK at the bottom of the address and all is clear…
“No, that’s UK - United Kingdom, Britain, England…”
“Nope its definitely Ukraine” she insists and I give up arguing.

I leave hoping that a) the person in the main sorting office is more geographically aware and b) she didn’t see fit to add “raine” to all my UKs so a confused postman in the Ukraine is looking for a town called Llanwrst.

Wednesday Movie - Evolution

The theory of evolution as taught in your average American school

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NI__468yW0

"So there you go, you're the retarded offspring of 5 monkeys having butt sex with a fish squirrel "

Or you can check out Homer's version

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faRlFsYmkeY

New Adventures

Headed to Aberdeen for the weekend to celebrate Katharine’s birthday with an extra plan in mind. It was my first trip there since she left Bergen, I was a bit loathed to leave all this amazing fresh snow in Bergen but I was also looking forward to seeing her.

Arrived Friday evening and we had a curry with some of Katharine’s friends. I was feeling pretty tired after a long week and also a bit under the weather, but it was a pleasant evening. Saturday we headed out to the country for an evening at a very nice country hotel. After a fine dinner I realised it was now or never so I rather nervously asked her to step outside for some air. Once outside I popped the question and she said yes – or something that equated to yes in between a lot of blubbering. We then engaged a bottle of champagne to cap off the evening, Secretly, I think that she is just as excited about having a very large party as anything else, but that’s fine with me.

It’s a strange sensation, practically nothing will change, however maybe it’s the deeply buried traditionalist in me but it feels significant, which probably explains the nerves. I guess proposing is not that big a deal, most of my friends have managed to do this successfully, some have done it several time! But for us it’s a new adventure and sometimes its good to be certain before you dive in there.

And this is something I am certain about

Ninja Centipede

Whilst in South Africa I was attacked by a Centipede. Yes that is for real! I was standing by the track minding my own business, checking out the geology when I felt a sudden shooting pain in my foot. I looked down to see a 6 inch long, yellow and black Centipede sinking its fangs into my foot. I hurt like hell and quickly swelled up. One week later it is still slightly swollen and the area around the fang holes is hard and itchy.

Evil bastard ninja centipede

This unprovoked attack lead to an interesting discussion. It was clear that this thing was poisonous, my foot was swollen and growing. But how poisonous? Are we talking bee sting or death in 10 minutes? There are plenty of poisonous snakes and scorpions in the area but nobody knew anything about any killer ninja centipedes. My logic was that if it where deadly I would have heard about it, Andy was more concerned, which was ironic since it was my foot. But since we were at the end of the day and the hospital was on the way home we stopped in.

An elderly Afrikaans nurse was highly bemused and said she had never seen or heard of this before. She then proceeded to inject me in the arse, although I am not sure what with, probably with saline solution she keeps next to the band aids the stick on peoples foreheads to cure headaches. That’s now 3 trips to hospital in 4 field seasons!

So this weeks joke is about a centipede...

Rodents vs Insects – Football World Cup

A team of rodents were playing a team of insects in the finals of the very small football world cup. The rodents totally dominated the first half and at half-time were leading 6-nil.

At half-time the insects made a substitution and brought on the centipede. He was stunning, great ball control, very aggressive play and within 15 minutes had personally scored 7 goals and set up another 3. The insects went on to win the game 14-6. In the dressing room afterwards the captain of the rodents was chatting to the insect captain.
"That centipede of yours is terrific," the captain of the rodents said. "Why didn't you play him from the start?"
"We'd have liked to," replied the insect captain, "but it takes him 45 minutes to get his boots on."

Wednesday Movie - timelapse

This weeks Wednesday movie was made by me.
It's my first attempt at timelapse and represents about one week over the view from the living room window at the Lair. It is taken at one frame every 10 minutes and 60 frames per second using a basic webcam attached to an old laptop.

This is version two, there is a bug with the compilation software but I have fixed that now. Enjoy

Comments welcome as always

South Africa 2010

Was back in South Africa for a week doing some field work. The overnight trip down was with the Luftewaffe and was fairly grim, the plane was full and we were stuck at the back with virtually no leg room. Managed to get about 3 hours sleep and then just watched movies for the remaining 6 hours, “An Education” was the best, thoughtful insight into early 1960’s Britain. The pilot did at least treat us to a fly-by of Table Mountain, seeing Cape Town again brought back so many memories and all of them good, lots of good times from field work in the Karoo and the parties that inevitably followed the IAS in 1996 when Nige, Dougal and I drove from Namibia after 3 months in the desert, through to 2002 and 3 days of solid partying with Dougal and his south African mates when we someone metamorphosed into a band on tour and attracted a fan base of models and posh kids at Club La Med. I love Cape Town.

We arrived and met Andy from Liverpool at the airport and he, Andreas and I drove straight to Lainsburg, 4 hours through the Cape Fold belt, amazing scenery. Simon stayed behind to met the helimap folk. Next morning we headed down to Matjesfontain for breakfast. Entering Matjesfountain is like stepping back about 100 years in time. The town is a single drag along a wide dusty road lined with old colonial buildings. There is a strong Scottish theme with a pub complete with imported stags heads and a large collection of whisky. Breakfast was at the hotel which hasn’t changed very much since it was built. It sits in an ongoing state of dilapidation, steadfastly trying to resist both the erosion of the elements and changing social and political attitudes. The restaurant was busy. The people mirrored the buildings. Once good looking and majestic they retained their arrogance despite looking tired and haggard.

We headed to the field and reccied the first sections, then in the evening we met up with Simon, our friends from helimap and the chopper pilot, an Aussie called Bronte. Bronte was, like most heli pilots I have met, an interesting character. Stories of flying in Angola during the civil war, hanging out with Mandela during the first elections and various other stuff, reminded me that no matter how cool you think your life is, there is always people who have a more interesting time of it…

One man and his machine

Next day Andy headed off to co-pilot the first flight and we headed to collect the supplementary field data. A good day was had by all, although Andy decided that chopper time was not for him. That evening we moved to Sutherland. This small town in the northern Cape has an impressive church and not much else. This always makes me wonder why so many crappy communities spend all their spare cash and more on a building that gets used once a week! Sutherland is also famous for being so far into the arse end of nowhere that there is no light pollution, and therefore it is a great place for star viewing. It is even the home of SALT, the South African Large Telescope which is actually a collection of telescopes on a hill. Unfortunately the weather was rapidly crapping-out so we did not get to see too many stars.

Heli in the Karoo - note the shitty weather in the distance

Apart from the telescope and a church there is not much else in Sutherland. Lots of bottle shops and the obligatory Woolworths, a single hotel and some shitty guest houses. The people in these parts of South Africa are fascinating. Its easy to dismiss the white South African and a bunch of arrogant, racists has beens. Spitting image summed up that stereo type nicely. But there is more to it than that. This is a tough place and these are tough people. They are racists and they are bigoted, they are conservative and they are small minded. But they are also kind and welcoming to outsiders (I guess as long as you are white). They are polite and friendly. Many, especially the younger ones you meet in the more cosmopolitan areas are also trying to move on from the past These are tough people who live in a tough environment. They bear the scares of hard outdoor lives. The women are as tough as the man. All those that we met in the Karoo are old, the young fled to the cites long ago, and you can see that they were once beautiful but the harsh environment has abraded their looks as cruelly as it has weathered the bedrock we come to study.

Volcanic plug intruding fluvial sediments

So we worked the next couple of days. The weather was not especially kind to us. It was either very hot, 40+ degrees c or it was stormy. Andreas and the helimap guys spent a very eventful day being buffeted and bounced around by storm force winds only to discover that the data were no good, I spent a long day as co-pilot collecting lots of data and eventually we got everything done within the time allotted and by Thursday evening we had finished.

The delights of Suderland

Good advice from the bottle shop, the sign above the door says "home of headache"

Thursday night was spent in Stellenbosch, which is on route back to Cape Town and so different to the Karoo that it might as well be another planet. The town has beautiful tree lined streets with great colonial architecture. We had an excellent vegetarian meal, taken with G&T and fine wine, sat outside a really lovely restaurant. The streets are filled with young people, it’s a student town, and while it is still conservative there is a real sense of optimism. I guess it’s the kind of optimism you get from being rich and privileged and I am sure that if you spent time there it would drive you crazy, but as an antidote to the harsh Karoo it is great.

Friday morning we headed back to Cape Town and spent the afternoon being tourists. Hit the beach at Camps Bay for the sunset, had a quick and bracing body surf before dinner in Club La Med.

Camps Bay

The tourist theme continued on Saturday when we drove down to Cape Point. I have been there several times but always in a rush, drive down, quick picture by the famous sign and then whiz off. This time we spent most of the day there including hiking around for several hours. It was windy and classic sunburn weather, but it was nice to get some fresh air and relax a bit. On the way back we stopped at a vineyard and did the wine tasting thing before buying a couple of crates to bring back. The day was capped off with dinner at the awesome Mama Africa followed by cocktails in Cape to Cuba.

Sunday we went up Table Mountain. There was much deliberation about walking or taking the cable car. The lonely planet said “there are no safe hiking trails on the mountain take a rope and be prepared to die”. I was pretty sure that this was bullshit and persuaded them to have a go. In the end the path was absolutely fine, although steep. It was about 600 m vertical of steps and it was bloody hot, but certainly not dangerous. It took me just under 2 hours while the youths did it in an hour and a quarter! Very impressive I am definitely feeling my age and the impact of my sedentary lifestyle.

Steep enough for a heart-attack but probably not a rope

On top

Quick shower, lunch and then the airport for another 12 hours encased in a very small German torture seat. The bitch at check-in wanted to charge us 400 euro for being 8 kg over weight but after some arguing she graciously said she would be nice and waive it. I hate these people so much…

Arrived in Frankfurt Monday morning and was back in work in the big B just after lunch. While we had been boiling at 40+, Bergen had got another half metre of fresh snow. Amazing!