Hoch y Brig Skitour Feb ’12, a set on Flickr.
Another weekend on the hills, this time with ultra running buddy Christian who was recovering from a 1,600mtr monster the day before (and a concert if I remember correctly)
Hochybrig was just stunning – we summitted Furgellenstock. Safe, sunny conditions and a great day out with a good friend!
Piz Titschal, a set on Flickr.
Photos taken from a wonderful day out in Obersaxen. We went from Surcuolm where were were lodged at the Bundner Rigi gasthaus (fabulous btw) to Frigga Hüs and climbed up to Piz Titschal. About 1,200 mtrs of alt. gain and stunning views. Especially the one of the sky after I fell over while trying to take a video while walking. Not as easy as it sounds when on ski’s!
Sarah Thompson, who has been my best mate from home since I was 11 years old is visiting!
Yesterday we went for a walk up to the Albishorn which was stunning, a real winter wonderland while we tried to figure out if it was worth sticking to our original plan to go to Glarus.
After a lot of time debating, weather forecast checking and calling the lift station at Brügg to see whether or not we could actually get up to our guesthouse (www.berggasthaus-biel.ch )we bit the bullet and drove down to Altdorf to find it was running (just about) and arrived at the guesthouse at 15:30 in the afternoon.
The fondue was amazing
The avalanche risk was really high this morning
So we did a conservative snow shoe tour around the ski resort – we were warned about 3 times not to wander far
And Sarah got her first alpine adventure experience!
Just thought I would share some fabulous photos I took yesterday while out skiing with my friend Kate.
The photos are taken at Les Carroz, near Flaine in the Haute Savioe/Mt Blanc region.
I went down on Monday by train to visit a friend, Kate. Within an hour of arriving to her house, we had skinned up and were climbing a local touring route in the dark. Wherever Kate goes, adventure follows!
The next morning we headed towards Chamonix and enjoyed fabulous off and on-piste conditions. Despite the bad quality perhaps you can still appreciate how spectacular the day out was, by looking at the photo’s below.
Alas, this morning’s ski-touring plans have been abandoned due to increment weather (I am writing this from a train on the way back to Zurich) However, I feel satisfied after yesterday’s rendezvous yet hungry for more snow fun.
Let’s hope the weather settles soon so we can enjoy more of the same very soon!
Mt Blanc
Kate getting stuck in with her telemark ski's
Some fabulous evening light on a tracked out piste
The end of day exit
A fabulous sunset to mark the end to an exciting day!
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 9,900 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 4 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
Its finally beginning to snow in Switzerland! Last weekend we kicked off the season with an easy day in Flumserberg.
Some of the other resorts like Davos have been using machines to create artificial snow but luckily in Flumserberg the snow was 100% natural. Although there wasnt much of it – there was enough for a day of fun!
First Ski Tour Race
Next Saturday I will give the Night Attack a go. Just for fun. It will be my first skitour race! The altitude gain isn’t extreme (about 700mtrs in total) and I have absolutely no expectations for my performance and have chosen to ignore the provocative message my friend Kate sent me, with her time from last year!
Snow Safety
A few weeks ago I mentioned that I was going to attend an LVS Course being organized by Mammut and Thomas Scheuner a mate of my boyfriend who runs the mountain sports shop called Kundalini in Zurich.
The evening was great, we got to practice using our avalanche transmitter receivers and learned some new things about searching for multiple bodies in snow. The topic of snow safety is really important for me. I don’t have a huge amount of freeride and touring experience but this year I am especially keen to get out there as much as possible and start notching up tours. So the more I can learn about avalanche search and rescue the better. Which brings me onto Thomas’ avalanche experience this year.
Watch This
Thomas Scheuner is a friend of my boyfriend`s from way back. Last year I met him for the first time just after the accident documented in the below video happened. Since then he has recovered completely and created a great video of his experience that brings the viewer through the avalanche thanks to the headcam recording. Afterwards he slows it down and recounts step by step how it happened and goes as far as showing us the avalanche signs he ignored.
Watch it…
Today is a very grey day in Canton Schwyz. It is so grey that at 3.30pm it is nearly black!
I grabbed my sports gear this morning on the way out the door to work but by the time lunch came around, my motivation to go outside in the wind and rain had definitely waned. However, I knew that I would feel better after I went out for a run and there was no excuse anyway because the forest behind the office offers plenty of shelter (and the trees look firmly rooted)
I decided the best use of my 60mins break would be hill repeats. Hard and painful but beneficial. The forest I chose for my torture session is located on a very steep hill and each repeat was approx. 2km in length with about 120mtrs total altitude gain. I am not sure how long each repeat took because I forgot my watch (I don’t care so much about measuring anyway) but I think they were about 4 – 5 minutes long. I only did 3 repeats but that was enough effort for me today. Then I did a cool down of 15 minutes.
Every year I say I should do more interval training – but I am lazy. Its easier for me to just go and run with no plan. 75 minutes, 90 minutes 2 hours. No problem. The problem is I don’t want to commit to the pain of an interval session! So this year I will force myself to do at least 1 if not 2 interval sessions every week, 1 running session and the other a Cross Fit or Vitaparcours workout.
I felt ok during the run but my muscles were a little tired because last night I did a Cross Fit session at Jeff Grant’s Hillseeker Performance lab: Hillseeker Performance Lab last night (more on that to come)
This is the best instructional video I came across on YouTube regarding hill running (maybe the music could be better)
And Amy Reynik writes some great articles on the topic too. Here is one from her blog: http://amyreinink.com/2010/08/11/workout-of-the-week-hill-repeats/
