Three days before we were set to leave for our winter Finland visit I received my climbing skins. I got them at the same time as new skis a week or two earlier but since at the time I didn’t have the bindings yet they were left sitting in the garage. When I finally got them all together I wisely decided I should do a short test run up and down Pohorje to see how it all worked together before doing any serious touring. I took all the stuff out of the car and was ready to start when I realized the skins don’t fit. I fought against the obvious until the lesson that it’s best to do this in the comfort of your own home sinked in.

Turned out the front attachment nut was made with the slightly thinner profile of the new ski model in mind. I bought the last years (at a substantial discount) so it was off by a millimeter. Could have been a centimeter for all I cared. It just wouldn’t work. I called up the factory shop where I got them, sent the package and they returned it in 3 days with a custom fix. Nice customer service. And this time I immediately tested the whole thing at home.

Now there were only 2 days before we left for a vacation and with perfect snow and weather conditions I wanted to make the most of it. Since it would be the first time on the new setup I needed something relatively short and easy so I went north to Weinebene and from there to Moschkogel in the direction of Koralpe. Half a meter of powder from the day before was great (where it wasn’t blown away) but the terrain sucked. Not a fan of touring on the flat and all I earned during the two hour sightseeing tour was a decent blister that wouldn’t go away for the entire time we were in Finland.

So when I got back to the car I took one look at Handalm across the road and went for it. I just left most of the stuff in the car…water, food, camera, shovel. Everything. It’s so short I didn’t even consider it beforehand. But after the depressing stroll I really needed a boost of a steep powder run, no matter how short. I fought the deep powder upwards for 30 minutes and skied down in about 30 seconds. But that was all I needed to save the day.

I just wished I’d done 10 laps of that in the first place…

The first time I probably heard of Sharm El Sheikh & Dahab was 10 years ago on the Lonely Planet Thorn Tree diving forum. Everyone was (and still is) constantly asking the same questions. Where should we dive? Who should we dive with? Where should we stay etc. ad nauseam. All the attention, even way back then, was putting me off the idea of ever going there. The aversion was further reinforced when I saw the first pictures of friends, relatives or others who went there (or Hurghada) and all I could see were hotels in the middle of nowhere and dozens of dive boats moored on the same dive site. Not my idea of fun.

It’s all on the opposite side of the scale from what I look for in a holiday and/or diving destination. Too many people, too many hotels & all very fake.

But then the revolution happened, every paranoid fool started avoiding Egypt and their tourism industry tanked. Suddenly there were no crowds in Sharm, suddenly the idea of coming to a dive site and being the only–or one of a few boats–became a reality. Even the boats left running were half full if that. Suddenly the idea of going diving in Egypt didn’t sound so bad. The same hotels and fake feel are still there but the prices are down and crowds are gone. So we seized the opportunity over x-mas and went diving.

Mind you, I was still feeling crowded with what was apparently only about 20% of normal capacity.

We took the easy way out and just got an all inclusive offer @ the Sheraton as the total price was lower than flights alone. Not that we actually took advantage of the “all inclusive” part as the only time we actually spent a substantial portion of the day at the hotel was our last day before the flight. We pretty much went diving straight off the evening flight there and more often than not our dive guide Ahmed picked us up around sunrise and dropped us off in time for dinner. In between we were either on the boat, underwater, in the desert or at Al Mawardi coffee shop.

Perhaps more memorable than the diving (quite nice, especially the Thistlegorm) was the night drive to Dahab and climbing around Wadi Gnai and Wadi Shahira at sunrise. I was always a sucker for the desert.

So was it worth it? Under the circumstances, most definitely. 3 years ago I wouldn’t even dream of it.

Sharm & Dahab underwater slideshow

Some photos copyright by Dejan Kovač, Janez Burkeljca
[[Show as slideshow]]

Sharm & Dahab above water slideshow

TV Mountain – Avalanche au Sautet (embedding not allowed)

It’s also natural that people, who get their first taste of rock climbing, might develop a curiosity to learn more. If nothing else, to understand how things work and make their new hobby safer. That said…

No video, sketch or photo can replace a proper course conducted by professionals. In other words… don’t trust your life to something you read on the internet or at the very least try things on the ground first. I practice hanging off an apple tree about 2m above ground. Other than falling on my dog barking like mad below there’s no danger if I mess things up completely but absolutely realistic in every other way.

So more as a bookmark and a reminder to myself than anything else, the resources below could serve as a refresher course. I certainly found them very useful the first time around.

Animated knots – climbing knots
UK Climbing – climbing skills articles
Chockstone – tech tips
Petzl – rope techniques for multi-pitch climbing
Petzl – multi-pitch tech tips 2010 (pdf)
Petzl – sport climbing tech tips 2010 (pdf)
Libby Peter – articles from Climber magazine
DMM Climbing – knowledge articles (gear failure testing is especially sobering)
Black Diamond QC Lab journal (more fascinating gear failure testing)

And some nice videos:

How to tie off a belay plate from Steve Long on Vimeo.

Escaping the system from Steve Long on Vimeo.

Lowering a climber off the crag from Steve Long on Vimeo.

Abseiling past a knot from Steve Long on Vimeo.

Prusiking up a rope from Steve Long on Vimeo.

Assisted hoist from Steve Long on Vimeo.

While UKClimbing Logbook Crag Finder has served me well for locating climbing opportunities on a number of occasions, it is still a limited service (as are many online climbing resources, ClimbinBaška and SLOUPPI the very welcome exceptions to the rule). So I hope what you find below will be of some use to anyone who decides to go on vacation or a business trip to Tenerife, but also do some climbing when the opportunity presents itself.

When researching what to do on the island on the off days, I managed to discover there’s also a lot of climbing potential so we decided to take some gear with us. Might as well make the most of the opportunity. But however minimal the gear might be, it is still never lightweight, so we rationalized to include the following:

• 60m rope + bag
• 10 quick-draws
• 1 ATC
• 2 dyneema slings
• 3 carabiners
• 2 harnesses (used by 4 people)
• 3 pairs of shoes (again, used by all 4)
• chalk bag
• some tape

That in itself will fill a decent sized backpack and make the Ryanair gate agents happy to charge for extra weight so we divvied up and it worked. But that rope was still a pain to stuff…

Without any doubt UKClimbing is my favorite crag finder whenever venturing into the unknown. I love the geolocation based service but crag descriptions leave a lot to imagination. However, in some places just knowing the location might be good enough if you combine it with another location based service… Google Street View! It has helped me in Corsica and it worked in Tenerife. Well, at least partially. Park at a switchback 2.2km out of Cruz de Tea suddenly sounds much better if you can preview the description in Street View… when you have that much information available. If not then the only way is to find some road that gets you nearby the marked location and go from there. You can always ask… (not that it helped much as the grandpas we met couldn’t understand us and I barely understood them) :)

I was never hung up on route topos, grades, beta etc. so the location and the approximate number of routes available is really the only information I want to have. I climb whatever looks nice from below and that’s good enough. At least on vacation or a first visit. Obviously access notes and the aforementioned information is always welcome but not crucial for my choice. It’s fun to explore! :)

UKClimbing and Rockfax mention several times that the place to get climbing information is Tenerife Outdoor in Granadilla (and now also in La Laguna). As it turned out their opening times didn’t coincide with out timeline so we only managed to visit them on one of our final days on the island. But the visit was nevertheless very helpful as they let us take some photos of the guidebook and we were able to find and climb some previously unknown crags.

The best surprise was that the lovely La Martella canyon, one we somehow managed to find just by following parking information, isn’t mentioned in any of the guidebooks. The guys at TO will be more than happy to provide the unpublished topo of this secret gem.

Without venturing too much into guidebook publishing territory I thought I’d assemble some basic information for the areas visited (and some that we didn’t). It has to be said though that it’s probably best if you purchase or borrow a guidebook. It will save you some time and potential problems. But as we were just as happy to explore the canyons for several hours and finding just about nothing climbable with minimal gear it wasn’t a problem for us. It just added an element of surprise and pleasure of exploration. So for those like us, here’s a map to get you started:

And to end this, a slideshow…

I have absolutely no desire to move to G+ and as far as I can tell it doesn’t even offer the option of building a feed from the items I share. So for the time being, lacking a decent alternative or easy workaround, this is the last overview of interesting articles that came through my Google Reader subscriptions recently

• DIY satellite imagery
  from: kottke.org on October 31 2011
• Teacher logic
  from: Math Fail on October 31 2011
• Math class interpretation
  from: Math Fail on October 28 2011
• Type design game
  from: kottke.org on October 28 2011
• Have a popular Google Maps mashup? Prepare to pay » Nieman Journalism Lab
  from: www.niemanlab.org on October 28 2011
• Surprise Rocks
  from: Mountain Photographer on October 28 2011
• Viral Marketing Cheat Sheet – (by @baekdal)
  from: Baekdal.com on October 27 2011
• A Few Examples of Naturalism in Photography
  from: The Online Photographer on October 27 2011
• People are awesome 2011
  from: kottke.org on October 26 2011
• Axe Celebrates Halloween With ‘Hot Girl vs. Zombie’
  from: AdWeek: AdFreak on October 26 2011
• Ryan Gosling, Typographer
  from: Coudal Partners Blended Feed on October 25 2011
• The World Is Surprisingly Angry About the End of Google Reader
  from: The Atlantic Wire on October 25 2011
• Napovedi – 50/50
  from: Filmski kotiček on October 25 2011
• M thru F: And How I View all of these People who Make Charts: Bored
  from: Epic Fail Funny Videos and Funny Pictures on October 25 2011
• Buy The Right Tickets to Success – (by @baekdal)
  from: Baekdal.com on October 25 2011

Hardest route done?
Plezanje pika kom in Šoder graben, supposed to be 6a+, I’d give it 6c at least.
Second place goes to an attempt at first pitch of Schanigarten (VII) in Kugelstein that I mistakenly though it was the first pitch of Ameisenriss (IV). You would think I’d soon figure out something was wrong :) I did, but I still wanted to go all the way. Had to give up 2m from the anchor after a swinging fall.

Longest?
Steber in Vipava, IV+/III, 160m

Most enjoyable?
Impossible to say. I’m somehow partial to easygoing multi pitch routes but there were quite a few nice 6a/b overhangs in Trenta, Martianez and Vistamar that I liked.

A map:

View Climbing 2011 in a larger map

And a slideshow

Ikaria and Corsica share many things (if not the popularity) and it would be hard to decide which one is better. One thing is undisputed though… Corsica has some pretty terrible tasting honey and that alone knocks off many points on my scale. We went shopping and got 4 different honeys and so far 2 have proven to be almost inedibly bitter. 1 was OK (miel de miellat) and 1 is yet unopened. Since then I found both of the horrible ones online but I won’t single out the producers. I have too much respect and admiration for beekeepers and their products. I presume it’s the maquis flowers in the specific area where bees were collecting since the taste is horrible. I know some honeys have a very strong, distinctive taste, some are quite bitter, but these two are in their own league. All I will share is that one is a spring, the other an autumn honey (miel de maquis de printemps and miel de maquis d’automne) with no specific source plant identified. It definitely wasn’t sage, lavender or rosemary (which can result in some awesome honey).

One common “problem” of Mediterranean spring time, so familiar from Ikaria, that I hoped we’d manage to avoid this time around, was rain. And lots of it. Simply put we were there 2 weeks too early. Our last days were the first days of summer. Which ruled out many ideas of running around in the mountains. We were only allowed a few brief glimpses at the alpine, snow covered playground. It would have been fine if we had a decent alternative for grey days such as surfing or kayaking.

Just as well I guess… after an ankle injury on day 4 or 5 I couldn’t rock climb worth a damn, but I also couldn’t scuba dive any more. At least I squeezed in two dives at Calvi & Porto before the injury. Both sides of Scandola nature reserve proved marine reserves can do wonders for neighboring areas with marine life spreading out and benefiting everyone. It was the first time I saw groupers and they were everywhere. The topography was nice as well, add a decent wreck or two and it would have been perfect.

We did pull off a few climbs though. We spent two days in Foret de Bonifatu close to Calvi, climbing on bolted granite (or some similar rock) routes of secteur Figarella which is conveniently located an easy 10min walk and a jump across the river from the spacious parking lot.

As we were already a bit late we did first two pitches on Passe à l’ombre (4+, 5), then decided we have some more time so we went for the first three pitches of Les Oignons Grognons (5+, 4, 5+). At this point we really did run out of light so we crossed on a ledge back towards Passe à l’ombre believing we were on the exit ledge (see topo). You can buy Falaises de Corse topo guide, but the updates are online for free. Anyway, it turned out we were just below the correct ledge and eventually couldn’t go forward any more. We then abseiled one pitch on a bolt of Passe à l’ombre leaving a carabiner behind.

We liked the rock and the general area so we decided to come back the next day after diving and clean the route. But we were late again so we left the last 6a pitch for some other time and came down on the real exit ledge after 5 pitches (4+, 5, 6a+/A0, 6a, 3). At first we were a bit concerned about the grades but after practically walking up the first two pitches it was clear the grades are a bit inflated compared to what we’re used to. At least if you’re comfortable trusting your shoes have enough grip. There’s hardly anything to hold but you don’t really need it as long as you do the correct footwork. The 6a+/A0 pitch had one crux move where pulling on the quickdraw was the only solution we could come up with but was otherwise very easy. As was the next 6a. So all in all I’d say that particular sector could easily drop one grade.

Corsica is a great destination, if you time it right and have some alternatives, as the weather can change dramatically around different parts of the island. But that’s just what makes it so interesting.

Nothing much happened after the summer road trip to Portugal. At least not worth talking about… Eventually we had a Finnish Xmas in Tampere and a wedding on new years eve near Lahti.

some more in a slideshow…
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Afterwards we had ourselves a quick summer in the middle winter ski trip to Austria. Tauplitz, Saalbach-Hinterglemm-Leogang, Zell am See-Kaprun and Zauchensee on an extremely warm prolonged weekend. No powder to be found anywhere… just the hard packed reality of a lousy winter. We based ourselves at a small bio bauernhof. Nicely priced, convenient location with lots of great skiing within an hours drive and friendly.

a few more in a slideshow…
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On occasion we managed to get out, do some winter hiking and the like. The photo below is from a ski touring escape, there and back before lunch type of deal.

again more in a slideshow…
[[Show as slideshow]]

• Men In Trees: A Look at the Annual Portuguese Cork Harvest
  from: Core77 on October 25 2011
• HOWTO take over your neighbor’s stereo
  from: Boing Boing on October 25 2011
• World Solar Challenge Results Are Disputed
  from: IEEE Spectrum Recent Content full text on October 25 2011
• Mouth agape… awesome promo video
  from: Vincent Laforet's Blog on October 25 2011
• Booths and Bodies: Short documentary shot on Sony NEX 5N
  from: Philip Bloom on October 25 2011
• Video: South African biker saves calf from drowning
  from: Gadling on October 24 2011
• Three common mistakes in medical journalism
  from: Boing Boing on October 24 2011
• Research: Auto-selecting good stills from a video
  from: John Nack on Adobe on October 24 2011
• CodeSOD: The Query of Despair
  from: The Daily WTF on October 24 2011
• That Top 1% Thing
  from: Dilbert.com Blog on October 24 2011
• Backsplash on a Budget: Jaroslav Wieczorkiewicz’ Water Angel
  from: Strobist on October 24 2011
• Keeping it real
  from: Math Fail on October 23 2011
• How to: No tangle extension cord storage
  from: Boing Boing on October 22 2011
• Why the QR Code Is Failing
  from: Daring Fireball on October 21 2011
• Improv in Toronto: DARE TO FIGHT!?
  from: Boing Boing on October 21 2011
• Reality Series Coming to Everest
  from: Backcountry.com: The Goat on October 21 2011
• Updates & Followups: October 21st
  from: The Online Photographer on October 21 2011
• ‘I’m Going to Destroy Android, Because It’s a Stolen Product’
  from: Daring Fireball on October 21 2011
• People Don’t Care About Your Competitors – (by @baekdal)
  from: Baekdal.com on October 21 2011
• Periodic table of swearing
  from: Boing Boing on October 21 2011
• Schrödinger’s Cat on Yahoo Answers
  from: Math Fail on October 21 2011
• Intervju z vodjo razvoja pri Pipistrelu
  from: Kvarkadabra blog on October 21 2011
• The history of the typewriter recited by Michael Winslow
  from: kottke.org on October 20 2011
• Decades-Old ‘Calvin and Hobbes’ Strip Succinctly Explains Occupy Wall Street Movement
  from: Daring Fireball on October 20 2011
• ProVideo Coalition.com: CUT.N.COLOR by Steve Hullfish
  from: provideocoalition.com on October 20 2011
• ProVideo Coalition.com: News by PVC Staff
  from: provideocoalition.com on October 20 2011
• National Geographic features the Sami
  from: Rob Galbraith DPI on October 20 2011
• An American Tourist in North Korea
  from: Wired Top Stories on October 20 2011
• Gorniški filmi v Mariboru!
  from: Friko.si – slovenski plezalni portal on October 20 2011