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!