Kitzbuhel

The blur on the course going about 100 mph is actually a human....

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Chamonix

Jackson Hole is often called the "Chamonix of America," a comparison that, in my mind, doesn't do Cham justice. People have been climbing large mountains here since cotton was considered a shell layer. The first American extreme skiing movies - I don't mean Warren Miller (1) - were filmed here, back when American ski resorts would clip your pass hucking cliffs, ducking ropes, or just about anything else worth doing.

Mont Blanc, Continental Europe's highest mountain, looms over Chamonix:
It's refreshing to be in a ski town where the mountains take center stage. In a week and a half here, I've seen two art galleries, roughly 33 less than I saw in Jackson, Wyoming. That said, I have seen a fur covered lamp for sale (which is so egregious it should count for two art galleries) and a bar with people drinking only umbrella-drinks (in a ski town?!), but that still leaves Chamonix with a comfortable 30ish lead in the art gallery index (2).

Looking down Chamonix valley in the afternoon. Mont Blanc is on the left.

The famous Compangnie des guides de Chamonix, arguably the world's oldest mountain establishment of mountain guides:

The French are very eco-minded: they don't allow heli-skiing and recycled materials are used prodigiously enough to give San Francisco city-envy. Somehow they square that with a desire to string trams to the tops of peaks. This is looking down the tram from the 3,842m Aiguille de Midi into Chamonix valley:
The Aiguille to Midi tram - or "telephrique," in its native tongue - accesses some of the most famous mountaineering and backcountry ski descents in the world (3). This picture is looking down the Vallee Blanche, a 20km ski route that descends 9,200 feet over glaciers to end in Chamonix valley.
I had hoped to ski the Vallee Blanche, but it was still in bad condition in the early season. I rode up the telephrique anyway to take a look around but worried that being up there and not being able to climb or ski would be frustrating. As I stepped out on the observation platform, my aspiring-alpinist voice said predictable things like, "Ohhh... Look at the line on that face." But then another little voice piped in, "Damn, it's cold up here. Why don't you go into the snack bar and have a hot chocolate?" And so I did.

Your man drinking hot chocolate in places other people go to climb hard things,
Jay

Notes:
1 This was back when people who wore one-pieces weren't joking and The North Face still made respectable technical gear. The late-80s "Blizzard of Aaahhs," starring Glen Plake and Scott Smidt in outrageous neon outfits, is the go-to of the genre: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJdyPZPcRYU
2 There's something else here that's found in most places in Europe worth visiting: the Brits. This works out pretty well for me. Not only do I like the Brits, but their omnipresence creates an acceptance of English and an appreciation for butchered French. Which is pretty much my sweet spot.
3 This accessibility leads to an unusual combination of people crammed tightly into a tram car - from hardcore alpinists carrying axes, ropes, and crampons to elderly tourists wielding canes and lipstick. The smell is a mixture of tourists' perfume and wet skiers. The fact that I was able to capture this picture - a sign warning climbers to take off crampons and properly store ice axes juxtaposed with this hat - is another negative point for Chamonix in the art gallery index.

Himalayas Photos

The embedded slideshow below will play on its own, but it may take a while to load. Turn on the captions using the button in the lower left corner.

Alternatively, you can go directly to the online album by double clicking the slideshow or by following this link: http://picasaweb.google.com/jay.a.schneider/HimalayasFall2009#. I recommend going to the online Picasa album as you'll get larger, better quality pictures, and it also gives you the option of seeing where the photos were taken through Google Maps.

Himalayas Pt. 1: Welcome to India

Hi All -

It's been a while, but I'm back to civilization, with all fingers and toes accounted for. I'm going to try to get the past few months in the Himalayas up on the blog over the next week or so in several sections.

The journey to get to the mountains was a pilgrimage in its own right. After 24 hours on planes, we took a 12 hour bus ride, driven by a highly-skilled psychopath we'd later dub “the Magic Man” for his stunning ability to pilot an awfully large automobile at alarming but impressive speeds through tight mountain roads and over-inhabited village streets. Highway travel in India was thrilling as always: the brightly colored buses passing by; the on-road menageries of monkeys, donkeys, dogs and sacred cows; and the sense that vehicle size and driver courage/aggression/recklessness trump supposed traffic laws. Being well endowed in both vehicle size and these requisite qualities, riding with the Magic Man was like watching an avalanche from too close: simultaneously trying to appreciate power and grace while being viscerally afraid for lifeforms, both your own and others in your path. Most people chose to avoid this emotional vs. intellectual incongruity by popping Dramamine (1) and passing out for most of the jolting ride.

After the road petered out to smaller than the width of the bus, we switched to jeeps. This was like an amusement park ride, with the jeeps in tight caravan careening at high speed through driving rain and kicking gravel off the road and down truly terrifying precipices.
We arrived at Song, the trailhead town, in the same downpour, shouldered our packs and headed 1,000 feet up a continuously vertical trail to the rest house. I spent the night dehydrated - a rookie move - with nausea and a splitting headache. It was a tough night, and I awoke in the morning to more rain and a stray dog sniffing my sleeping bag. Welcome to India.

Your man in the monsoon,
Jay

Notes:
1 A strong anti-motion sickness drug with the (in this case fortunate) side effect of drowsiness

An Alpine Start Defined, Sort Of

Several of you have asked what an alpine start actually is. Technically speaking, it has to do with getting up at miserably early hours in the miserable cold to attempt hare-brained stunts, generally involving mountains. But that's just semantics.

When I think of an alpine start - and the excitement, nerves, challenge, and yearning tied up in the idea - I think of this passage from the great French alpinist Gaston Rebuffat:

This evening, as I write these lines, the desire seizes me to breathe the night air for a few minutes. It is winter, and cold. Hemmed in between two black masses of houses, fringed by the roofs of my narrow street, the stars seem to be moving slowing as I advance. "It's cold," I say to myself, "that's a good sign. The snow will be hard."

How stupid of me! Am I not in Paris, in the Rue des Grands-Augustins? But my street leads on to the quays where the Seine, with its sentinel trees, and the quiet night combine to recall nature, even in the heart of this great city. It is both early and late. It is the hour when mountaineers go out on to the hut terrace to scan the sky, test the wind and the snow. It is cold, and cold nights mean fine days. It is the time to light the lantern and start out....

Here in Paris I dream of high hills.

- Gaston Rebuffat, Paris, 1953

It's nearly 2AM here in Seattle, and I'm off to the Himalayas tomorrow morning. I'll be off the grid for the better part of the next two months: I won't be posting to this blog or replying to your emails/texts/facebook pokes until late October. Catch you on the flip side.

Here in Seattle I dream of high hills.

Jay

Guest Blog: Up a River Without a Paddle

Eight people cling to a thin blue rope – the only thing keeping them from being swept away from the boat and each other – as they are tossed through whirlpools and rapids. Only their blue, bobbing helmets and orange life preservers are visible. No, this is not another of Jay’s Woofer scenarios, this is a part of our trip down the Thompson River.

Jay and I arrived at Kumsheen Rafting Resort, outside of Lytton BC, on Friday night to enjoy two days of rafting. Not only did we have an awesome tent cabin (complete with propane lamp) and a great view of the trains coming and going on either side of the Thompson (which have a surprising habit of ending up in the river), but we also found that the resort had a short disc golf course (1). Our first day was spent paddle rafting down the Thompson River, which includes rapids such as Devil’s Gorge, Jaws of Death, and Devil’s Kitchen (see a pattern?) (2).

While no one was tossed out of the boat, there was plenty of swimming (including a section, described in the opening paragraph, where everyone except the guide hops out of the raft and pulls it through the rapids). The only mishap we had was when Jay dropped his paddle into the river (3). The Thompson River was also great for wildlife viewing, and we saw four very cute black bears (including a mama and two young cubs), ospreys, and bald eagles.

The second day was spent power rafting (which allowed us to run bigger rapids and run them more than once) on the Fraser River, home of Hell’s Gate, the highest volume commercially run rapid in North America. While paddle rafting was a fun and exciting ride, power rafting was great if you like to be crushed and battered by massive walls of water. If you’re thinking of 15 feet high waves cresting (and smashing) over the bow of our raft, you have a good idea of what running the Fraser Rapids was like. Fortunately, for power rafting we were all given water proof coats and pants. The effectiveness of these additional layers was, however, brought into question when, after being spat out at the end of the Sailor Bar rapid, Jay emptied a quart of water out from the interior of each of his pant legs.

After surviving our two days of whitewater, seeing two gold pans that claim to be the largest in the world (one in Alaska and one in BC), and making a very damp drive back to Seattle, Jay leaves for his NOLS course tomorrow morning, where I hope that he is able to obtain photographic evidence of a yeti.

The sister of your man without a paddle,

Carrie

Notes:
1 Sadly, we appear to have been the only ones appreciative of the disc golf course, as we were the only ones to sign up for the tournament on Saturday night. On the upside, Jay came in 1st place and I came in 2nd.
2 Jay and I don’t have pictures from rafting as both of us actually like our cameras. These pictures, courtesy of the World Wide Web, should give you some idea of our experience.
3 He claims he did this in the course of saving someone else from being tossed overboard on a rapid. That's not exactly what I thought I saw, but who am I to say?

North North America

I spent the last week and a half in the great Alaskan unknown driving back down to Seattle with my sister after she finished her summer internship in Anchorage. The highway from Anchorage to Haines, AK (750 miles) took two days; the largest city we passed through was Tok, AK, a handful of roadside motels and a few gas stations. Things to do in Tok:

The weather, as it often is in Alaska, was inclement, and, as a result, we took few pictures during the drive. We were happy to reach Haines and found the town charming and the people consistently friendly(1). We had the better part of a day free, and I made a quick hike up a nearby mountain, Mt. Ripinski. Rain and mist were constant companions, but it was a good day out. Looking up towards the summit from the ridge:

Looking down on the town of Haines through the clouds:

I didn’t see anyone during the hike, and I was (justly) worried about stumbling upon a bear. Every few minutes I’d make noise and clap to make my presence known. As I was descending I started clapping as I rounded a corner… and found myself face to snout with a moose. This thing was huge: roughly six feet high at the shoulder and more massive than a horse of the same size. We had a few how’s-this-going-to-go-down seconds looking at each other before I slowly backed up around the corner. The moose trotted up the hill, and that was that (2). The gravest threats to life and limb came during the walk back from the base of the mountain through the outskirts of Haines in several encounters with unleashed “dogs” (3). Apparently the thing to do if you’re a dog in Haines is lie in wait for a lower-48er to come along and then sneak up behind him. Then, when you’re a few feet away and your presence is realized, bark and snarl like you haven’t been fed in days. This happened three times.

From Haines we caught an overnight ferry to Prince Rupert in British Columbia. We camped on the deck...

... and the views were spectacular:

The ferry’s bar was the icing on the cake. If I'd been of age in the 1973, I hope I'd have been drinking in places like this:

We were on the ferry for a total of two and a half days. It was a great experience I'd recommend to anyone with a few days to kill in that corner of the continent.

Your (usually dog-loving) man in AK,

Jay

Notes:
1 Close to a polar opposite from my visit last winter to Valdez
2 In combination with the Wyoming Moose Incident, I think this means "I Got Moose in Different Area Codes"
3 Term used loosely here. Cross-breeding with wolves was clearly evident; additional breeding with other large land mammals (e.g., bison, bear, hippo) not unlikely