Michael's Musings

Happy Mother's Day!

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Stanton) — Sun, 11 May 2008 09:37:00 +0000

Me and the boys made some brownies. Then we all got to eat most of them hot. Then the boys gave their mom the present they'd been working on for her at school. Wooden spoons that masquerade as flowers!

We planted them where they'll get some good sun. Elijah made the red one...

And Rowan made the yellow one. He has a lot of personality...

Happy Mother's Day sweetie! Us boys love you so much!

Munich rules

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Stanton) — Thu, 08 May 2008 08:23:00 +0000

Lately, Elijah has been asking me to take him to work with me. So on Saturday both boys hopped in the stroller and we rode towards work. We stopped for some breakfast pastries, and then lay down a picnic blanket on the amazing new park right behind the Rathaus (City Hall). It's just a nice green lawn with some trees and sunny places in the middle of the city. We ran around, and then there was a little tourism event for the Tirol region in Austria. Each boy got a green soccer ball, some sausage, some water and bread. Oh and a cute flag to wave.

We went to work and they enjoyed running down the spacious hallway. We played Mike's guitar, plugging it into the amp and turning it up, I hope we didn't disturb anyone! Sure was nice to hear a loud, overdriven guitar though. :-)

Then it was a nice big playground on the way home from work. Rowan boldly climbed a 15 foot high ladder to a tower, and Elijah overcame a fear about crossing a thick rope bridge. I'm trying to get them to learn to push themselves on the swings, but no luck so far.

I stopped at the climbing book store, but it was too hard to get the boys to stand still. Rowan knocked over a 215 Euro globe! Happily it was ok. Let's get out of here!

Then we went into the beautiful yellow church at Odeonsplatz. The boys were very quiet and respectful, just whispering about the cherubs high on the walls. We called them "babys."

Rowan kept saying "go in yellow house!" Then I looked. There was a "prevent diabetes" fair on the Odeonsplatz, and sure enough there was a blow-up yellow castle for kids to jump in. We had to take that in, and the boys were laughing up a storm for 30 minutes as they bounced and fell in the house. It was time to go, but they did not want to leave! In fact the attendant was pulling them out because he decided they'd been in too long ("we have to alternate big and small children," he said). Oh the crying! Lots of looks of either sympathy or alarm, I never have the time to find out which is which. I carried one back to the stroller and the other just walked and cried. Too bad!

But then at home they got to watch a movie for 10 minutes before taking a nap, and they were pretty tired so it was okay.

The day before we'd all (including Kris) rented a boat after I got off work and pedaled around on a lake in the Englisch Garten. We all loved that.

Anyway, I'm just really impressed with Munich as a kid-friendly city, I'm discovering new attractions every weekend.

Interesting article about "America's Dad"

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Stanton) — Thu, 08 May 2008 08:14:00 +0000

Bill Cosby's activism is profiled in the Atlantic Monthly:

His anger and frustration erupted into public view during an NAACP awards ceremony in Washington in 2004 commemorating the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education...
That night, Cosby was one of the last honorees to take the podium. He began by noting that although civil-rights activists had opened the door for black America, young people today, instead of stepping through, were stepping backward. “No longer is a person embarrassed because they’re pregnant without a husband,” he told the crowd. “No longer is a boy considered an embarrassment if he tries to run away from being the father of the unmarried child.”

Great article, read it here. The liberal storyline about the failure of black communities centers on external influences, like pervasive racism, predatory lending, lack of education, lack of role models. But it's solutions don't have the bracing and energizing appeal that a prophet of personal responsibility can provide. Also, there is raw emotion and anger in the people that can't be addressed by say, a new community center. Anyway, this is Cosby's take on the problem.

Ski touring is fun

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Stanton) — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 12:24:00 +0000

pizbuin-11
Originally uploaded by ripsaw ridge

I'm happy to report that finally, after two years of effort, ski touring has entered my blood. I can ski well enough now that I hardly ever fall down in a tangle of arms and legs. I do my share of "kick turning," which means my descents aren't as joyful as those of a real skier. But I've found a sweet spot with it. There are just so many places to ski tour here, an endless supply of mountains. And I get to see so much more of the Winter Alps than I ever saw of the Winter Cascades. Adding up the ski tours (and occasional snowshoe tour, which I still like), I have been able to do considerably more "hiking" in the winter here than back in the U.S..

Ski touring is way, way more rewarding than going to a lift area. The few times I went this year were marred by snow-making machinery and icy slopes.

This is a picture I took from the Silvrettahorn, in the Rätikon Alps on the Swiss/Austrian border. I love the party of 5 people traveling on the ridge top. And I love the steep, pointy mountain across the valley.

Fun day at Starnberg

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Stanton) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 15:22:00 +0000

Kris, the boys and I had a great day at the Starnberg Lake. The weather was warm and sunny. The boys took their bikes, and we went to lay on the grass near the water. The boys had a great time running around. We pigged out on raisins and croissants too. There was some sadness because Rowan fell into a creek (he was jumping across it again and again), so he had to take his pants off and wander around in a diaper for a while. Then on the way back his bike tire deflated. We finished the 5 hour visit with apfelstruedel at a restaurant by the lake. The kids got a great workout, and we enjoyed the sun.

Looking forward to more days like that coming up!

People don't go outside...

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Stanton) — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 08:21:00 +0000

A short essay on declining National Park visitation...

Overall, the number of people who visit national park sites has been on a steady decline for almost 20 years — with a handful of exceptions. For years, the complaint about parks was a variation of that old Yogi Berra line: nobody goes there anymore because they’re too crowded. But now the treasures of original and scenic America have the opposite problem.

The rest here.

Stephen King's take on ice tools

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Stanton) — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 16:26:00 +0000

This was pretty funny:

What I really feel when I hold this in my hand isn't so much the possibility of murder as the gravity of mortal things. It speaks to me of the vulnerability of human flesh, but also of the resilience and determination of the human mind: Lying on my desk, it whispers, "If you need me, I'll be there. If you need to hang all 215 pounds of you off me, I won't let go--if, that is, you plant me deep."

The rest is here.

First day of spring

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Stanton) — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 05:38:00 +0000

Sunday was the first day of spring. I went for a morning ski up the Pleisenspitze, almost 5000 feet of skiing up and down, and the views were great. In the afternoon, Kris went out with some knitting friends and I took the boys to Hauptbahnhof to get nacho supplies. We ate ice cream on the train platform and watched trains come and go. Then we went to the English Garden, sat on a hillside near the Monopteros and listened to the drummers down by the river. We ate a butterbrezen, and enjoyed running around in t-shirts with no jackets.

Something I really like here is that because it doesn't rain as much the grass is usually dry. In Seattle you can't lie down on the grass until June, it seems like! Anyway, this is one of my favorite things to do, I can really spend hours on a picnic out there. There was some kind of improvised swing on a tree, it looked like a set of aid climbing etriers (fabric step-ladders). We all climbed up on it.

Just a fun day...

Sad story

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Stanton) — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 06:33:00 +0000

An article at the NYT about a kid who gets bullied repeatedly here. I was a subject of bullying in the 6th through 9th grade. The memories are painful. I really feel for this kid. It's a very isolating feeling, and a vicious circle. If you "tell," then you are a tattle-tale, and fair game for worse treatment. Also, it's surprising how often (most of the time) you get no help from school authorities. What I came away with was the feeling that they were afraid of the bullies too.

For me, learning to play guitar helped get me out of that lowest social class: awkward misfits who could always be taunted as "faggots." Being in that box and looking out at things like the pretty girls feels like being on the moon. It's easy to hate everyone, because it seems like everyone is complicit in what's happening to you. Now that I'm older I know they were just unaware.

Anyway...not so good times.

Kris made me a sweater!

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Stanton) — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 13:57:00 +0000

Look, Kris made me this amazing sweater, in just 9 days of constant knitting!

I really like it. It's going to be cold this week so I should get to wear it a lot. I've also got a great scarf, many pairs of socks, a hat and some mittens from Kris. I just need knitted pants and underwear and I'm completely swaddled in wool!

Reaction to Obama's speech

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Stanton) — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 11:49:00 +0000

A couple of great editorials from the NYT on Obama's speech on race: Roger Cohen, and N. Kristof.

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Stanton) — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 09:25:00 +0000

A hilarious, very short story by Desmond Warzel in an online magazine Abyss & Apex. Check it out here.

Mountain Hangman

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Stanton) — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 09:18:00 +0000

Going through old things I found this Flash game that I made back in 2001 or so. You need to be up on your obscure mountains in Washington State!

(I just noticed that in Google Reader you don't see the Flash game. Visit the original post for that).

Knuth on TeX

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Stanton) — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 06:51:00 +0000

Lately I've really been into the TeX, LaTeX and ConTeXt typesetting systems. I have some book ideas, and also I want to archive my trip reports in print form, removing most of them from my web site too (yikes! I hear one guy say :D).

Anyway, I liked this interview with the great Knuth that I found while browsing the TUGBoat archives: Donald Knuth, University of Oslo, 30 August 2002.

Rice is heavy

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Stanton) — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 23:21:00 +0000

Today I walked across town with a 10 kilogram (20 pounds?) bag of rice on my head. It was so much easier to carry that way! I don't think there is anything else to say.

Solved a Nano problem

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Stanton) — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 21:06:00 +0000

For a few weeks I noticed that certain podcasts wouldn't sync to my iPod Nano. I searched on web forums and apple support without finding any answers. I would drag a selection of mp3 tunes from the iTunes main window to the Nano within iTunes, and only some of the songs would transfer. I would never buy any DRM'd music from Apple so the problem has nothing to do with authorization.

So then I looked closely at the filenames. The files that didn't transfer had "funny" characters like "?", "_", "'" (single quote) and "!". After renaming these file in iTunes, I had the nice feeling of seeing the Nano accept the files.

Now this is with the latest firmware for the Nano and iTunes software (7.6 (29)) as of Friday Feb. 8, 2008.

I saw many sad people posting about this problem on forums across the web. And the Apple troubleshooting page had the usual "reboot, reset, restart" crap. Which didn't work. I can't believe something this simple isn't generally known?

So I hope people find this. Let me help:

"Nano won't sync certain songs."

"iPod won't sync certain songs."

"Help please: some songs won't sync to my Nano."

Zischgeles skiing and Sellrain ice climbing

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Stanton) — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 19:05:00 +0000

Right when I got back from Hawaii, I slept a while then set out at 3 am, pointing the car towards the Stubai Mountains. I met Cyrille and Christian there. Cyrille had a nasty knee injury, got while skiing into a rock the day before. So Christian and I skied up the popular peak Zischgeles, not far from Lüsens. We were in the fog a lot, but the skin up was good exercise. The last two hundred meters of scrambling to the summit made for interesting climbing in clumsy ski boots. We got some interesting misty views, then started down. My skiing was bad as usual, but we eventually made it.

I was tired so I took a nap. We went for dinner, and the next day Cyrille felt well enough to do some ice climbing. We climbed Gasthausfall on top rope many times. Well, I led half of it, then got scared. Cyrille finished it and then it was a fun afternoon of top roping. Really neat to try out Cyrille's leashless tools. It seems like a great way to go. My down jacket and MEC thermos full of tea made the cold bearable.

That night we ate at a restaurant, and rather lamely went to bed at a decent hour (uh, it was New Years Eve, or Silvester in the German world). Christian did the right thing and got up at midnight to watch fireworks in the village.

The next day was extremely cold. Just walking in to the ice climbing area was painful. I led a pitch, and foolishly set a belay at an uncomfortable hanging stance. If I had known how uncomfortable Christian and I would be hanging out there while Cyrille continued leading above, I would have done something different! It was a real test of will to survive without crying. Toes, muscles, fingers, everything hurt. My climbing harness hurt. Everything freezing cold too. If I leaned against the ice too long my jacket would freeze to it. Finally Cyrille belayed us each on a line.

We were shivering like crazy! It was good to be moving though. I went to the side of Christian to avoid any chunks of ice. Suddenly Christian fell, and there was enough rope stretch that it was at least 10 feet. He was fine, but it made us a little nervous. He tried once more, but had exhausted himself the first time. So I hurried another 50 meters to Cyrille's belay while Christian waited.

At the belay Cyrille and I rigged a rappel where we could pass the knot and thus lower Christian 100 meters to the ground. I know he was relieved to be off the troublesome icefall! Other than that complication, it was a fun pitch. Cyrille and I made two double rope rappels to the ground, the second one was freehanging, next to the frozen ice. Very beautiful.

We called it a day and went home after a late lunch. The mountains were beautiful on the drive home.

Article on Dirt

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Stanton) — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 19:31:00 +0000

I liked this article in Salon quite a bit. The article has two interesting facets: a historical treatment of cleanliness in Europe from Roman times, and the problem with our current obsession with being clean. Writing about 17th century France, the author tells:

They must have smelled terrible. But the ocean in which they swam was the odor of rank sweat, or fresh sweat. So I think they were quite used to it. In the Middle Ages, St. Bernard said, "We all stink. No one smells." I think that sums up their tolerance for it.

We had an enormous tolerance for cigarette smoke 20 years ago. Every indoor space was filled with it. I never smoked, but I never noticed it particularly. Now, I actually checked into a hotel room on a smoking floor by mistake last week in Montreal, and I thought it was the worst thing ever. But 20 years ago, I wouldn't have even noticed it.

Read the whole thing here.

(By the way we can't wait for January, when smoking will be phased out in all restaurants in Germany!)

Some great music

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Stanton) — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 10:32:00 +0000

I'm a huge fan of the Irish and Celtic Music Podcast, and wanted to advertise it a little bit here.

Very lively music, all for free, so easily downloaded with iTunes. Go check it out!

Article on 20th century music

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Stanton) — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 12:44:00 +0000

Some people knew me in the context of music, because after I was a diehard rock guitar player I was a diehard lover of 20th century music. Schoenberg, Webern, Bartok (still a favorite), Legeti, Crumb, etc. It's neat to see a new article about these guys. One of my first awakenings into this world took place at UCLA, where I posed as a student in the Schoenberg Music Library. He had immigrated there from Austria in the 1940s:

In one of my favorite anecdotes in the book, Ross relates a story from Schoenberg's son, Ronald, about the end of the composer's life. In the 1940s, the Schoenbergs lived in upscale Brentwood, Calif., near Shirley Temple. Ronald admits his father, the scourge of the bourgeois, the enfant terrible of the 20th century, felt discouraged that Hollywood tourist buses never pointed out his house. "But another time," Ronald says, "we stopped at a juice bar out on Highway 1, and the radio was playing 'Verklarte Nacht,' and I never saw him so happy."

Read the full article here.

Wonderful trip

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Stanton) — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 18:17:00 +0000

I'm on the last day of a great trip to the states. First, a week in Texas with Mom, Cathy, Tamara, Denver, Randy, Christina, Steven, Trevor, Macray. The whole clan! Vicki and Jimmy, Uncle Mickey and Aunt Anna came too. Also, many of my parents friends from Huntsville. Everyone was there for only one day, for an incredible memorial service for Tom. It was such an honor to hear the stories people had to share. A few tears were shed, but mostly we had a party, like one of Dad's "closing show" parties years ago.

We also did a tremendous amount of yardwork. For a few days it was just Mom and I. It didn't take long for me to discover the joy of jumping into the pool after a session clearing brush with clippers or a chainsaw. Even though it had some algae in it. Thursday, Randy and Mac came, then I picked up Christina that evening. Randy cleaned the pool, and we all jumped in for a cold but refreshing swim. The weather turned nice and "cool" (for Texas) Friday. Mom and I had some great talks over dinners, then as everyone else arrived we had a great time all teasing each other about various things. Christina left the yardwork to the rest of us, but she did a great job watching Trevor and Mac. Randy's Wii gaming device kept us very entertained. I eventually beat Trevor at tennis which made me proud :-).

We also worked hard to retire Mom's PC and move her to the Mac Mini that Randy bought for Dad a few years ago. It's an older box, so we couldn't find a wireless card, despite all kinds of attempts (including a drive to the Woodlands Mall after the salesman (or "mac genius?") told me they had what I needed in stock, even though, yes, it's a PowerPC Mac rather than an Intel...but I got there and the story was "we'd never have that. Look on E-Bay...").

Then I spent a week in Montreal. I'm writing now from a little cafe downtown after an excellent time. Sadly, it is raining today which aborted my plan to hike up a mountain near Lake Placid (maybe Wallface or Gothics for northeastern mountaineers). So I wandered around the old part of the city. I bought a nice print by the artist "Chloe", displayed on the left.

The reason for the Montreal trip was to hook up with partners at Softimage so we can build new features together. It was very productive, though a bit suspenseful because it took several days to get our JBOSS server working in Eclipse, such that the developers here can go forward with new code. We finally sorted out all the kinks, and can expect rapid progress.

Everyone was really nice too. We went to a Mexican food restaurant Thursday night. Some of the party were getting a night out from "kid duties", so they were happy to stay and drink for a while! I discovered how good aged Tequila is, something my sister Tamara has told me about before.

I also went into the Notre-Dame Basilica which was a beautiful church. Here is some of the interior:

I did a lot of walking around the city, my legs are kind of sore! It's a beautiful town, with a lot of attention paid to design. I hope to come back next year!

Okay more later, gotta head to the airport for the long flight to Amsterdam.

Great dinner with Mom

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Stanton) — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 03:51:00 +0000

Tonight I cooked chicken, salad with walnuts, apples, peppers and other things. Mom and I had a great long conversation and a bottle of wine. We took a picture to remember the occasion (also with Raggs):

Chinese culture vs. German culture.

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Stanton) — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 09:26:00 +0000

I couldn't pass this one up. Forwarded by my good friend Robert M...

On the left side of the drawing is how the author sees life in Germany, and on the right is what it's like in China. There are about 25 drawings. This one is called "Anger/Displeasure":

More here...

Fasul Valley Deathmarch

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Stanton) — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 19:26:00 +0000

Josef and I wanted to go climbing, and supposedly had a decent forecast. I was eager to explore the Verwall Range, south of St. Anton, which is a famous ski resort in Austria. I had naively picked out the Kuchen Spitze which has a Grade VI 20 pitch north face climb. Sounds awesome! In reality, there are only a couple of grade VI pitches, mostly it's easier.

But Josef pointed out how incredibly cold and snowy it would be. Still trying to be ambitious, I proposed the mountain next door, Patteriol, via it's Grade IV northeast ridge. Okay, 25 pitches, but about half of them really shouldn't be called "pitches" at all (just grade II scrambling). All of this wrangling was rendered moot though when we drove into heavy rain falling in St. Anton!

So we decided to go on a hike instead. I have a 50,000 scale map of the area, and I picked out a nice looking loop hike. It looked long and exciting. We pulled all the climbing gear out of our packs. Then I forgot to bring the sandwich I bought at a gas station.

We drove up a road from St. Anton about 4 kilometers, then rode our bikes from the Verwall See to the Konstanzer Hut (1688 m). Man, biking up steep hills is HARD! At least it quit raining right when we started pedaling.

We walked south along the Fasul River for several long miles, continually hoping the clouds would open up. Sometimes we'd get a local view of golden heather slopes which were just beautiful. I griped about all my problems at work and Josef was a good sport for my ranting! None of this helped our motivation to put one foot in front of the other, but when we reached the Schafbichljoch (2635 m) near the head of the valley we were happy we kept going. We'd gained about 1100 meters of elevation at this point, and were happy that now we could start heading back north on the other side of the mountains that make up the eastern half of the Fasul Valley.

We followed a side trail past a pretty tarn below the Grauer Kopf. We'd only seen a few patches of snow to this elevation, but north and east sides proved to be much snowier. I was starting to feel like it would be a monster day by the time we got back to the bikes, so I declined Josef's idea of continuing on the crest to the Karkopf, climbing at least three peaks on the way. So we split up with detailed plans for meeting again. I bombed down through 2 feet of fresh snow to eventually reach trail again. I was not really dressed for this! No gaitors, and old tennis shoes, which were in fact visibly falling apart! Oh well, my socks are warm. I got mysterious cloudy views from the Matnaljoch (2656 m), with big snowy peaks to the south.

Down in a huge rocky basin I heard a hoot. Josef was standing on the crest far above!

I took a picture and wished him well. Then I bent to my tiring task of climbing about 300 meters up to a pass. As I neared the top, Josef called from below. He gave up on the crest ascent, because of sketchy, snowy, icy terrain, and an endless series of peaks to climb. At the pass by the Karkopf, we faced the sobering fact that we still had a long was to go to reach the Darmstaedter Hut, and then from there we'd still have to climb 400 meters and descend 1000 to reach the bikes. It was already almost 3 pm, after more than 6 hours of non-stop travel, and darkness would come by 7. We were also scheduled to cross two glaciers according to the map. I didn't take them all that seriously though...yet!

Down into the broad valley below the Kuechel Spitze, first on deep and wet snow. Later, we lost the trail and spent an annoying hour climbing up and down without the trail to get back on track. Finally we saw it below us further south, and could downclimb a steep gully to reach it. It's hard to believe you can lose a trail in Austria...they are so well marked! (usually).

Another 250 meter ascent to the Rautejoechle, this one taken very slow to conserve energy. Now we were in thick fog, after a long, cold day with only occasional sunbreaks. We started down on rocks, then snow, then (gulp) real glacier. We were stomping along when we saw an open crevasse on the right. Then on the left there was a kind of bergschrund below us...we'd have to guess where a snowbridge was thick enough to let us cross! Oddly enough, on the last bit of rock above the glacier, a spray-painted arrow ordered us to go left, right into the bergschrund (or above it). But it looked dangerous. So we went almost straight down, where the ice seemed nearest to rock.

Now, in the fog, we had to guess which way to get to the Hut. Remembering the arrow, we trended left. Suddenly, we noticed a long depression in the snow just below us, going about 100 feet in both directions. We were on the glacier at one of the worst possible times: when fresh snow covers the crevasses. In winter and spring, they would be so thick there are no worries. In summer and early fall they are completely open and easy to avoid. We moved around it, then very carefully crossed. Josef's foot went too deep in one place, and I didn't like the hint of darkness I saw beneath. We continued finding these depressions and crabbing carefully across several more times, aiming for an area of the glacier covered by rocks, and breathing a big sigh of relief when we got there!

This really impacted our thoughts for crossing the second glacier going up to the Kuchenjoch pass. Darkness, fog, deceptively covered crevasses...what a horrible combination for tired hikers with no equipment other than their wits! We started to think about staying overnight at the Darmstaedter Hut if there was an open winter room.

After a longish, tiring descent we reached the hut at 2384 meters. The fog had lifted a bit and we had some local mountain views. Josef found that the winter room was open, with plenty of blankets, pillows. Also a propane stove!

Already we sorely missed my sandwich left in the car. Josef had to start splitting his food with me. At the hut we talked a few minutes about pressing on, but it was far enough after 6 pm, that we thought we'd be up on the glacier in darkness. No need to pile a 4th danger onto the ones we'd already signed up for, so we gathered water from a creek and set to enjoying our stove. We called Daniel, Kris and Angie. Daniel because he and I were hoping to do a hike or climb the next day. Darn, no chance now! He told us we should have great weather the next day.

The alpine club asks for a 9 euro donation per person to stay in the hut. It was pretty wonderful. It got very cold outside once the sun went down, but we were quite cozy. My socks were soaking wet, and I made a major campaign of getting them dried by morning, with a combination of hanging over the stove, wrapping them around a hot water bottle at night, and finally putting them on my feet when still damp to get some drying action from my body heat.

Josef gave me a 2-square-inch 1/2 sandwich for dinner. I organized the evening activities. Tea at 7, photo viewings at 7:30, dinner at 8:00, more tea, then bed at 9:00. And when I say "tea" I mean hot water with a little bit of salt in it. I was kind of amazed at how good we felt despite running on very little food all day. As long as we didn't think about a big dinner, we were okay!

After studying the map some more, and talking of other things, we went to bed. Josef had to stay up until 10 to call Angie, but I was already asleep then. All the hot water hydrated me pretty well, so I had to get up twice to take a leak. The promised good weather finally arrived in the night, with clear black skies, twinkling with stars. I shivered so violently when I went out that the stars were shaking!

Morning came, and after some hot water, salt, two tiny squares of chocolate and a 1/2 apple we were on our way. Josef additionally ate his two cherry tomatoes, but I saved mine for our high point, 400 meters above.

We enjoyed the great views, especially of the snowy glacier we came down, and the imposing north face of the Kuchen Spitze...home of the long Grade VI climb I had raved about. It did look snowy and cold!

Eventually we realized that if there was once a glacier on part of this trail, it was gone now. Josef saw evidence of a trail re-route further up the slope, though it was hardly necessary. "We could have come up this in the dark," he said. Yep it's true, but we didn't know that then. At least now we got to enjoy the scenery. After a short "via ferrata" section on a cliff, we reached the pass to be blown away by an "in your face" view of the northeast ridge of Patteriol. It looked wonderful. Indeed, if we had started fresh today we could have done it, because there was very little snow for some reason (contrast with the Kuchen Spitze). A long, 25 pitch rock climb, it reminded me a bit of Mount Goode in Washington. The peak dominates all others in a wide radius.

We can't wait to climb it next summer then!

A long and beautiful hike down alpine slopes followed. I tried to prolong the enjoyable feeling by stopping a few minutes by a babbling brook and scanning the countryside for more hikes. The Alps are so huge! And the vast slopes above timberline just invite wandering. In a little more than an hour we'd made the 1000 meter descent to the bikes. Here we were shocked to see people for the first time! A gentleman farmer sweeping his barn, and two kids who rode their bikes up to the Hut.

We sped down the road, reaching the car after 20 minutes. A good lunch in St. Anton, and we headed home. Thanks to Josef for being game for such an "underspecified" adventure, and for sharing half his food!

I think we should name this hike the "Fasul Deathmarch". The elevation gain and loss, is over 2500 meters. Kilometers? Who knows...many!

If we'd had more daylight, or known that the glacier below the Kuchenjoch is non-existent, then we could have finished it in a day. But it worked out great and we saw some amazing new country.

More pictures here:

Fasul Valley Deathmarch

German Reunification Day

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Stanton) — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 18:05:00 +0000

Today was German Reunification Day...a holiday!

Kris was feeling kind of sick, so in the morning I played with the boys then took them to the Jogoli playland. We had a good time there. While they napped, I re-read parts of the compelling book Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue See. Such a neat story. Apparently Tommy Thompson is missing now, and the investors were never paid? Jeez...

In the afternoon Kris watched the boys for a while, and then I let her go back to bed. I tossed the boys in the stroller, got on the bike and we rode to the Olympic Park. We had a great time running up the hill. A man was collecting apples from a tree, and he retrieved 3 for us. We climbed higher and sat to eat our small, tart apples.

Later we ran around some more and climbed to the highest point. We could see the mountains in the distance behind the city. It was a beautiful early evening. We went to a little kiosk where I got a Radler (1/2 beer, 1/2 lemonade), and the boys got apple juice. We also shared some ice cream.

I had to take a leak and Elijah said he did too. Wow, that is a first? Well I helped him unhook his diaper and he gave it a try, but he didn't have to go after all. I keep hoping though!

More pictures below:

Day at park