Google – my best friend!

How did we live without it…? For the last year I have registered more than 1800 searches divided by days and hours:


I will not draw any conclusions, but the connection with my previous post is obvious…

Today...

Copied from Harold's Planet – a page with funny drawings that I saw for the first time as greeting cards.

That is a link to a short clip from an “extreme” movie. The musical background is not bad as well. I have watched it at least 6 times for the last 12 hours.

We have already booked accommodation in Havana for the first few days of our trip. One of the most recommended houses in the city! The interior is supposed to be very interesting, as well as the people who live there. I do not expect that I will be able to post pictures before we are back, but I will certainly try to continue with the blog to keep you updated :-)

Calgary climbing team

Everything what I do in my free time is somehow related with three guys who appear on most of my pictures. Let me introduce them to you. Please meet the climbing team:

Nicholas aka Nick Doc or Dieter	Kim aka Crazy
Janice	Ivo aka Evo Doc

Banff weekend

Two picture from a very cool weekend. We spent it in Banff, the local equivalent of Dobriniste. There is everything – ski slopes, pubs (not exactly as those in Dobriniste), beautiful mountains, and hot springs. After we had been hiking in the mountain at -20 degrees, in the evening we warmed up in an open-air swimming pool with mineral water at +40 degrees. Very interesting experience bearing in mind the difference in the temperature of the water and the air, the amazing mountain views around and the freezing hair {:-)

New places to visit

Maybe it has already become clear that Calgary is a wonderful place for someone who wants to practise seriously all types of climbing and alpinism. Usually I am going to some of the artificial climbing walls at least twice pre week. For the coming winter months I am planning to do ice climbing almost every weekend hoping that I will make serious progress. This will open up some very interesting and beautiful opportunities… From yesterday the list with tours that I want to do contains 2 new candidates of the most spectacular classic alpine tours in the North America - Ham and Eggs on the Moose's Tooth, and Mini-Moonflower. Both of them are in Alaska, steep regions (up to 80 degrees), mainly ice climbing, unstable weather and perhaps the most amazing views apart from these in the Himalayas. So the (incomplete) list follows:

Europe:
Stetind
Matterhorn
Petit Dru
Ushba
Piz Badile

N. America:
The Bugaboos
Mt. Athabasca
Mt. Assiniboine
Mt. Robson
Mini-Moonflower
Moose's Tooth
Denali

S. America:
Aconcagua
Alpamayo

Asia:
Klyuchevskaya sopka
Karakoram (it does not matter which peak from the whole mountain range)

Now I should find time and money for this ambitious list. I am accepting donations during the coming December ;-)

Quotes of the day - Carl Sagan

"It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned English -- up to fifty words used in correct context -- no human being has been reported to have learned dolphinese."

"If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe."

"In science it often happens that scientists say, "You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken," and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion."

Cool wallpapers!!!

http://www.vladstudio.com/wallpapers/

Quotes of the day - Warren Buffet

"There are three kinds of people in the world: those who can count, and those who can't."

"It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to lose it."

"It gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or someplace. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it. It has no utility. Anyone watching from Mars would be scratching their head" - Warren Buffet on gold

"Can you really explain to a fish what it's like to walk on land? One day on land is worth a thousand years of talking about it, and one day running a business has exactly the same kind of value."

Warren Buffet is one of the biggest investors in the World. He holds assets worth $46 milliards and only Bill Gates has more. Recently, he has decided to give 85% of his companies shares to the Gates Foundation. This man has his oddities as well as a strange sense of humour. He lives in his old house in the middle of the Nebraska prairie and he pays himself a salary of $100k per year – very modestly for a man who can buy a random country.

Calgary

Quote of the day

"It's better to have a big heart than a big ass" - Franco Glavina while playing Hearts

The Grim adventures of Billy and Mandy

Grim: How was your day Mandy?
Mandy: Same old, same old, spiritually and emotionally fulfilling in every way.
Grim: Oh, that's too bad!

Random

* Despite everything it is still autumn and it is sunny. After Halloween next week it can snow.

* Someone ******** has stolen my bicycle yesterday. Again!

* On Sunday I am invited for pancakes with maple syrup and the 3rd climbing this week.

* I am proud to announce that on the first day for nominations for the best pictures in Calgary Outdoor Club 2007 there are 2 of my shots.

* On Friday I am having another 2nd interview. All of you, keep your fingers crossed!

* Fernando Alonso is again the champion of Formula 1!!!

* I have done so little today that I feel guilty.

* Obviously, my Internet connection has not worked for the last few days… 4 e-mails sent to close people – 0 replays received

* currently playing: Helpless - Faith No More

The State of the World slideshows

http://www.stateoftheworld.reuters.com/index.php?n=1

New 7 wonders

Someone has decided that the World needs new 7 wonders. Maybe this is reasonable since the Egypt Pyramids are the only wonder of the ancient world still in existence. On the web page, after registration one could vote and the choice is limited to 21 places around the World. They claimed that more than 20 millions have already voted. The result will be announced on 07-07-07, so you have enough time to take part. I voted, because I did not want as a World wonder to be declared something like the Eiffel Tower or the Statue of Liberty …

"I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it." - Terry Pratchett

Test results

Now it is proved – I still belong to the “normal” people :-)

You Are 55% Normal

While some of your behavior is quite normal... Other things you do are downright strange You've got a little of your freak going on But you mostly keep your weirdness to yourself

How Normal Are You?

Sun in a bottle

These days the colleagues-scientists in Canada are trying to spread widely the information how important this is for everybody to take vitamin D during the winter. Vitamin D is normally synthesised when one is exposed on the sun. However during the winter, especially in Canada and other northern countries the sun does not appear quite often. This is why it is very important to take additional vitamin D. As they said "a little bit of sun in a bottle" could help for a vast number of problems – from tiredness to cancer... So next time when you pass by a pharmacy buy vitamin D (usually comes together with calcium for strong bones). I will certainly do it. Today we officially have got the first snow in Calgary. Congratulations!

Chicks on rocks

Climbing in Bulgaria and the chicks there!

http://highballclimbing.com/picture%20galery/chiksonrock/index.html

And a picture from the last weekend – at last the clouds cleared away and the sun broke through to reveal a marvellous wall

Alternative history of an autumn sunset

Sunset September 27th

"Autumn is a second spring where every leaf is a flower" - A. Camus

Canadian Sun

Well...it was a very good Sun. After a whole week freezing and on some places snow, it was a nice shiny weekend - like 25 degrees.That of course was absolutely great for my mountaineering plans and not so good for my red burned skin on my face.

Saturday - Vermillion peak (2622 m)
Indecently early morning wake-up 5:30 a.m.... and only 30 min later we are flying on the trans-Canadian highway, connecting the Atlantic's with the Pacific cost. Comfortably passing through Calgary and directly crossing some parts of the most interesting mountains - national parks Banff and Yoho. As we were getting into the main massifs when the sunrise caught us and we became wetnesses of that splendid view. Soon the climbing started on a steepen avalanche gully, happily without any snow. Almost close to the top my slope was close to 45-50 degrees on a smooth surface. I've tried to climb on it but the crumbling rock and my sliding boots made me change my mind... Traverse, than on the top where the rest of the guys were climbing. The fantastic panoramic view of course. Nearly an hour on the top, pictures, sign in in the register, we decided to get down. We've made some change on the way back just for a bit of variety. That's how we found a huge forest, that has been burned 3 years ago. The place was quite strange but the company was in a high spirit. Some good pictures were made. Surprisingly 3p.m. but we were down with the cars. Tried some thoughts on another quick peak but anyway the idea of a beer and some food became more nice.


Sunday - Mist mountain (3140 m)
We suggested a lot of snow and a very slow and exhausting 1300 meters that was about to climb up. But the trip started with searching for a path. As such has not been found, we decided to cross the forest. Not a very clever choice knowing the fact that some number of bears are living in that region but do we have any other choice left... After the forest we reach a beautiful grassy valley, which remined me Pirin *. Going up, passing the saddle, entered in a new valley. Totally different from the previous one! Rocky with lots of screes and snow. Winter was already there. We chose a path with less difficulties. During the rests we've made a decent snowman. The top looked huge and unreachable knowing that in fact it was only a short ridge - the real peak was hiding somewhere behind it. After the exhausting climbing on the slope we reached a ridge leading to a covered snowy peak. One of the guys decided to dig for the register... Over a meter snow! As the English guy Phil says, 'the view is spectacular!' The getting down was a real fun. Pretty much snow for a snow slide down through the valley. A serious range of rates for a few minutes 500 meters below. 45 years old men all like a kids, laughing to tears. A perfect end of a pretty interesting weekend!
* Pirin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirin

Cuba - things to do!

Havana

• El Vedado, Malecon – the coastline, Museo de la Revolucion
• Mojitas in the old city - La Habana Vieja

San Fransisco de Paula – Hemingway’s villa Finca Vigia
Trinidad - UNESCOs World Heritage site, unique colonial architecture
Viñales – climbing, perhaps we will reach caves with underground rivers and lakes
Maria la Gorda / Cayo Levisa - scuba diving – coral reefs, barracudas, enormous beeches with white sand

Picture of the day

Weekend September 23-24th

The closeness of Calgary to an exceptional variety of mountains, which are, I am not afraid to say, some of the most interesting not only in Canada, but in the both the North and South American continents, starts to make me physically exhausted. Up till now I kept up a fast paced life and usually I am hiking both Saturday and Sunday on the weekends. I have been very lucky to find some enthusiasts like myself to hang around with. The local outdoor club contacted me with “the psycho-group” as I call them (group of “crazy” people, who are not ordinary and do dangerous and unexpected things) – for this group of 10 people, things are not impossible and places are not impossible to reach. All of them are very different, but they share a love for mountains and the desire for more adrenaline. I was with them for the first time last week... It was tiring, but entertaining – 400 vertical meters bush-whacking through bushy pine forests, lots of fresh snow, scree, loose/bad rock and a few passages 4-5 grate…















Obviously, I liked it since for the coming weekend I have signed up for 9-10-hour climb of Mount Bell with 1500m elevation gain as well as for Mist mountain - 9h and 1300m. I will not be able to move on Monday, but I will think about it then :-)

On a side note, there is a discussion going on about the Christmas/New Year holiday. After an unsuccessful attempt to organise a climbing trip to Aconcagua and an identical failure for a trek in Patagonia, Ilka (from Toronto) and myself have pitched on another option - a trip to Cuba. The country is exceptionally beautiful and there are two additional things of interest - rock climbing and diving. Rope, carabineers, belay devices, experience-everything necessary is available. However, the under water experience will be something new, especially for me. I know it sounds odd, but I still cannot claim that I swim.
We do not have a plan or bookings-only what we have read at 2-3 web sites. It is going to be an interesting trip :-) And because we are not using our official holidays, this summer we can still organise a real climbing trip in the Alps to an unsaid, but very popular and beautiful mountain. To be continued!

First Post

Hello World, this is the first post in a very new initiative for me. After a long consideration, I decided to put up this blog. As expected I will write, and put up links, pictures and drawings, that are interesting and that I would like to share with you. I will mostly tell you about trips, climbing, the mountains, or just post interesting pictures from my favourite canon - only things that are very important. Wish me luck and enjoy!