Really should stop heading out for pints before getting up early the next morning!… This Friday it was the Chill pray-for-snow party in the Dux. Seems to have done the trick, it has been raining here (snowing up there) constantly for the last 3 days – if this keeps up twill be a good season. I even won a t-shirt at the spot prizes (not exactly legitimately but all the same..)

Then Sat morning it was back up to Arthurs Pass, this time heading up the other side. The tramp started up a valley and boulder hopping up a river. There were nice views down over Lake Kaurapataka (the lake on the way in to The Otahake Hot pools), and across to Mt. Alexander too.

The idea was to get up onto the summit of Mt. Pfeifer (1704m). We even brought ice-axe and crampons. Unfortunately we left a little later than we should have (plus the weather clagged in anyway) Also, I was going pretty slowly to be honest.. not used to wearing heavy mountaineering boots! So we didn’t make it onto the top (this time)… Back down again (note the trees who shed their bark to stop the moss + lichen growing on them..) and then a quick stop in the Bealey pub before back to ChCh.

A while ago at a party I casually mentioned that it’d be good if there was a place to go to organise car pooling to the ski fields this winter.

Euan and Darren (two of the others at the party) thought it was a good idea too, we drank our wine, ate Florians excellent cuisine, and thought no more of it.

OR I did at any rate. A couple of days ago they came back and said that it actually was worth doing..

So, no I’ve spent no time on making it look pretty, but spent today registering a domain and setting the bones of the system up.. IF anyone wants to try and break it / suggest obvious improvements (there are lots of things I want to do to it) then http://www.snowpool.org.nz/ is the link to try. Hopefully it’ll get used…

I was quietly happy with my days work :)

Some people maintain that tramping isn’t worth the effort. At 5am on Saturday morning I was beginning to think this for the first time in my life. Mind you, I personally reckon it might have had something to do with drinking until midnight with Kiwi, English, Scottish, Irish and Slovakians (a dangerous combination if ever there was one)

So.. up at 5am, and after meeting the others from the CUTC we drove up to Arthurs Pass to start up Mt. Bealey (1836m)

The route climbs steeply up through the bush (beech forest) and then becomes a really impressive arete with side ridges coming off it. I was here 1 year, 11 months and 3 weeks ago with Florian. It was misty then.. we managed to get onto a side ridge and went completely off route. It was actually hilarious – Florian was adamant we were heading North (look at the sun) when we were infact heading South. It wasn’t until someone pointed out he was in the wrong hemisphere and showed him his compass that we finally turned around!

Anyways – blue skies for us this weekend.

Summit Pic L->R: Sharon, Caroline, Olivier, Carol, James and Volker. A great crowd to go tramping with (not a kiwi amongst us.. though I am getting there I feel)

So we trundled along through amazing scenery (though I am so out of shape I wasn’t admiring it as much as it deserved.. more cursing it really)

Once we got onto the top of Avalanche Peak (where they have races up and down every year, for fun, as you do…) it was a shortish trip down the ridge to find the exit off the mountain. The exit is a really long scree run which you can see below.

You descend about 500m. Quickly. It’s super fun as it is really easy to slide down it (acts like sand). The bottom of the slope was agony though – thighs screaming blue bloody murder with all the big rocks (which don’t slide *quite* so easily) having already fallen to the bottom! It was good to get to the hut that night.

The walk out the next morning was quite straight forward along the river valley. I had thought by the end of yesterday how funny it was to have dry feet on a hike… Fortunately there were more than enough river crossings to make up for it today!

So all in all a great weekend, it was good to stretch the legs again.

Declan (on the right in this very old picture I took off the climbing website..)

single handedly got me through tech-drawing in my first year in college (no joke), came away climbing to Cassis in France for that summer. He was a real help in second year too with motivation for the schol exams. We then flatted together for a year on campus (house 37 I think).. where he made erroneous stories about my pyjamas up.. also getting me through electronics that year..

Anyway.. great guy – and he has just left Ireland to join the British Army.. I actually think he’ll be really good in there – bringing his own brand of sanity to the job. Good luck Declan.. keep us posted with the stories!… and if you can manage a rotation out to NZ – all the better.

Dave turned a quarter of a century this week… we went to the climbing walls ‘clip and climb’ area before heading to the pub. It’s a funky play area.. e.g. climbing on perspex so you can race against your opponent, velcro walls so you only get minimum grip with your fingers.. speed climbing… lots of fun (thanks to Dave for the pics)

So… I dunno how many of you think about peak oil and some of the possible reasons behind the Iraq war (and maybe the Iranian one?) But I thought Robert Newman’s History of Oil (27megs) from http://www.thedossier.ukonline.co.uk/ was quite good. Firstly it’s comedy (and I love good comedy!)… but he explains some ideas in fairly understandable language. For example the petrodollar cycle (oil is traded only in dollars… and why this has real benefits for Americas economy (and the deficit they can run)).

Look! I’m not turning into a raving anarchist (even though I do live with some interesting types!) but I thought it was both fun and interesting.. so thought I’d share :)

Other news.. thanks to all who have posted to http://picaweek.blogspot.com. Just go to www.blogger.com with username/password picaweek/picaweek. You can post anonymously or get a login if you want (mail me).

The idea (again) of picaweek, was to collect pictures from friends & family & anyone who comes across this blog and feels like it – from around the world. So far there’s posts from Africa (Uganda and Ghana (who is/was in Ghana?!?!), North America, South America (cousin Thomas in Peru), Asia (Thailand and China), Europe (Ireland (yay), Germany, Italy and Austria). So I think that’s got every continent covered except for Antarctica. Anyways.. thanks again to all who have put pictures up… I’m planning on getting into the hills this weekend so hopefully will have something purty to put up :)