Tapas party at BK and Lori’s. One of the contestants came up with this awesome dish, and it didn't even win! Battered and fried eggplant heart, with sun-dried tomato, cheese and other stuff (what IS that?)
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| Awesome! |
Wednesday 23 November 2011
Climb at the Pit. Flash “Don’t Feed the Agave” (5.11c). Techy route with a very high first bolt that gives the climber plenty of time to ponder the location of the sharp agave plant growing below. Bad day to forget the slick-clip!
Friday 25 November 2011
Climb at the Asylum with Patty, Chris, Patrick and Tyler. Rock is chossy compared to RRG, but I guess I’m spoiled! Do a few routes, including a flash of a very tricky 5.11c. Have to take a rest on the rope at the crux of an 11a that is very traddy and burly for the grade, which is disappointing.
Saturday 26 November 2011
Climb at the Pit. Clean ascent of “Purple Shark” (5.12a); good to know that I can still get up this route even with the injury.
Sunday 27 November 2011
Get ready to go to Telluride.
Monday 28 November 2011
Drive to Telluride. New state - Colorado!
Tuesday 29 November 2011
Snowboard at Telluride. The resort we stayed at was amazing, and amazing we got such a great deal! $450 each to stay 3 nights and ride 3 days. We found out that a lift ticket ofr 1 day is $100, and a room in this hotel at peak is $800 a night!
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| Telluride Lumiere |
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| Not enough snow! |
Thursday 1 December 2011
Snowboard. Drive back to Flagstaff in terrible conditions. Snow reduces visibility so driving is dangerous and draining. Why couldn't all this snow have landed the first night we arrived! Oh well, perhaps Arizona Snowbowl (in Flagstaff) will open in time for me to get a run in.
Friday 2 December 2011
Post ad on Craig list.com to sell the van. Its snowing right now and more is forecast for the weekend, so it looks like I will have trouble selling the van.
Saturday 3 December 2011
Organise stuff to sell and pack bags for the flights home. Flying with different airlines means that I have to deal with different excess baggage rules. Could be an expensive trip home!
Sunday 4 December 2011
Put van in the Fry’s parking lot with FOR SALE signs on it. High visibility from route 66. Not sure if I can keep it there overnight. Hope it doesn’t get towed!
Monday 5 December 2011
Christmas shopping.
Tuesday 6 December 2011
Sort stuff to sell and stuff to donate. Take photos of the snowboard and gear to sell. Print flyers to put up around town.
Climb at gym in town. Weird to get back on plastic; leading indoors feel way scarier than outdoors now.
Wednesday 7 December 2011
Transfer title of van into Patty’s name. Put up flyers around town for the van, snowboard and crash pad. Hopefully this stuff will sell soon, but if not maybe my friends in Flagstaff can put it to good use.
Thursday 8 December 2011
Finish Christmas shopping. So much stuff to take home! At least I can drop off a few small things in France. Climb at the gym again. Looking forward to a rest for the finger, but already I'm keen for real rock. I'll have to be smart about rehab when i get home, because I'll want to get back on the 'classic quarry routes' after so long away! Haha
Friday 9 December 2011
Snowboard at Arizona Snowbowl. Conditions are not good, as expected with such low snowfall and no base, but its better than nothing to me! I won't be able to ride again for quite a while. A few more scratches to further de-value the board.
Saturday 10 - Sunday 11 December 2011
2.30am catch shuttle to Phoenix. 8.20am flight to LA. 3.15pm flight to Manchester via Frankfurt. Stay in a 35 pound B&B in Manchester. Nice and cosy!
Monday 12 December 2011
Fly to Lyon via Zurich. Bus from Lyon to Grenoble arrives 1am Tuesday. See Alexis and Laura with Clay as they come to pick me up. Good to see family again!
Tuesday 13 December 2011
Lunch with Soe, Alexis, Laura, Clay, Katya and some of Katya’s work colleagues. Play the Bohnanza card game with Laura and Alexis.
Wednesday 14 December 2011
Spend day with Clay, Katya, Valentina. Soe, Alexis and Laura.
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| Valentina Maria Boladeras Iracheta |
Soe, Alexis and Laura leave. Boulder indoors (“A Blok” gym) with Julien Pishot. Dinner and night out with his friends: Christophe, Julien and Camille. Wonderful night at bars and Christophe’s apartment. Watched “The Art of Flight” (snowboard movie; amazing!) and drank the beast Scotch ever - “Lagavulin” 16 year old single malt scotch whiskey. EUR90 Duty Free. Hope I can find it at one of the many airports I'll travel through on my way back!
Friday 16 December 2011
Christmas shopping with Clay. Buy tree for the apartment. Spend time with Clay and Katya, and of course with Valentina! She is such a cute little baby!
Saturday 17 December 2011
Climb at “Espace Vertical” gym with Julien Catalan. Do some long lead routes including some steep ones. The grades here feel way harder than the conversion chart suggests, but I guess the fact that its gym climbing also adds to the feeling of difficulty. Met up with Julien’s brother Stephan and his partner Sonia at the gym. The last time I met them was at Oliver’s place in the mountains, after an afternoon’s climbing.
Dinner with the Juliens, and Clay and Katya, at the Mylan apartment. Chamois made a cheese fondu with garlic, white wine and mushrooms, which is supposed to be a traditional local recipe. Very decadent!
Sunday 18 December 2011
Hike up to the top of Chamrousse mountain following the piste runs, using showshoes and hiking poles with a snowboard slung through the shoulder straps of my backpack. Julien C had skis with skins to hike up with. We went from the resort at about 1650m, all the way to about 2250m, which took us a couple of hours. The ride down took only minutes! Not really worth the effort in my opinion, at least for a rider of my limited ability, because by the time I got to the top my legs were so sore and tired I found it hard to control the board. Plus conditions were bad so visibility was limited, so the run wasn’t very fun. But there was loads of fresh powder and I haven’t ridden fresh pow since Mammoth lakes back in May. So can’t complain! Plus the day was free, whereas lift tickets there are around 35 euro. One lady even told me to get a split board as she zoomed down past us! It was hard to appreciate the hike when we could see riders coming down around us, and taking the lifts back up above us; as Chamois said, it is better to hike where there is no-one else around to take away the sense of isolation.
Monday 19 December 2011
Begin the long journey home. Bus to the Gare to catch another bus to the airport, then a couple of flights (through Zurich) to Manchester. Stay the night there again, then onto Perth via Frankfurt and Singapore. Then a train to Kalgoorlie and a 6 hour drive to the station! All in all 4 days’ travel to make it home in time for Christmas.
The night in Manchester was pretty uneventful - went back to the same restaurant for a nice feed of ribs.
Tuesday 20 December 2011
Spent the morning on the internet and reorganising the bags so I’m not over by too much on the weight limit. Bit of a scare when it was time to go to the airport - Frank (the B&B proprietor) was nowhere to be found! There was loud music playing from his private room but he didn’t answer to my insistent knocking. I thought the old guy had carked it in there! But his car wasn’t in the driveway so he must be out having his coronary somewhere else. The neighbour came over to say Frank rang, and had run out of petrol. He’d be along in time to take me to the airport she said. 2 hours before departure he arrived sheepishly and drove me to the departure terminal. I had time to collect my extra bag (at a cost of 40 quid) and make it to the check-in counter in time to hear the bad news.
I was told that my flight to Frankfurt was cancelled, I was allocated a different set of flights through Paris with a different airline to meet up with my QANTAS Singapore to Perth leg, had to pay 86 pounds for the extra checked bag, had to check my hand luggage as a third bag (no charge) because there was an airport security staff strike on in the French airports; I barely made my connection in Paris because they only gave me an hour to transfer, and I had a long night ahead of me on the plane to Singapore.
Wednesday 21 December 2011
I endured a 12 hour flight from Paris to Singapore sitting next to a schoolboy rugby team from Australia, didn't have in-flight entertainment because they couldn't fix my screen, and missed my connection in Singapore because they only gave me an hour to make it (but the flight was late), and they told me to pick up my boarding pass in Singapore, so by the time I got it they wouldn't let me on the plane! So Air France have booked me a flight on Singapore Airlines which gets me into Perth tomorrow morning, but not with enough time to spare to get on the train to Kalgoorlie from East Perth. So I lose that $86 and have to book a flight from Perth to Kalgoorlie that can get me there in time for Dad to collect me so we can get back to the station in time for Christmas! Another lazy $200-odd but at least I get back in time. Whew!
So this is the end of the line. I have to say updating this blog quickly became an ordeal; reading it you can see it was right about the first few weeks that I was over it! When I started doing things over there and had a regular set of friends to climb with I couldn’t be bothered writing it all down. Any time I had spare, writing was the last thing on my mind. Much of the blog is note entries of pretty boring sounding events, written without any patience or flair. I threw a few good entries in every now and again, when I had the time and inclination to sit down and write. Much of the problem was that I left it too long and had to catch up on a month or more of events, which when formatting and pictures was included seemed too much of a task. I should have copied other people’s blogs in their punchy brevity, instead of writing down a list of events. But at least I have a record of what happened, and I can draw conclusions from it all in times to come; hell even make shit up to make it sound more interesting! That’s the benefit of not going into much detail - I can fill in the blanks later. Haha
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