January 2010
Monthly Archive
Saturday, 30th January 2010
Judith 30 Jan 2010 | : Walking
I have been wanting to walk at Puigsacalm for ages and today seemed like a really good bet. The weather would be sunny, visibility good and although a weak front was forecast for late in the day, I didn’t think it would spoil the party. We’ve done a lot more flying than walking this winter, so it was about time to dust off the walking boots.
We dropped off the spare car we are baby sitting for my parents at the Coll de Bracons and drove back down to Joanetes to start the walk. Puigsacalm is the highest bit of a ridge near Olot and it is a sheer rock face. You walk in and start ascending. Once you clear the treeline, you get to the bottom of the cliff and then climb up a Via Ferrata. It’s slightly more than 800m height difference, so a stiff climb. Once we got to the top of the Via Ferrata we could really appreciate the stunning views – the Med and Roses, some 70km away was clearly visible, in fact you could have counted the houses. The Pyrenees looked just amazing. We sat down in a sheltered position on the edge of the cliff and had our sandwiches while the wind started picking up. It had taken us two and a half hours to reach the top of the ridge and we decided it would be time to get a move on, if we wanted to do the rest of the walk in a leisurely fashion.
As we emerged from our picnic spot, we realised that the ‘weak’ front was nothing of the sort. In the 20 minutes it had taken us to eat our sandwiches and admire the view, the front had come in and it was snowing heavily in the mountains – and the snow was heading our way.
The route we had chosen was the Cami dels Burros (the donkey path), which is a narrow path right along the front of the cliff, about a third of the way down. We tried to assess if it would be safe to walk it in the increasingly gusty winds, given that the path is sometimes about a foot wide and the drop next to you is 100m. In the end we decided to go for it.
The weather was coming fast, and we decided we needed to be off the exposed side of the mountain, so the second part of our walk turned into something of a route march. As soon as we crossed the ridge and onto the back of the mountain it started snowing. The path back to the Coll (and the car) is wider and easier to spot, so we were less concerned about the snow. It was actually quite nice to have the snow flakes dancing around you while you walked through the forest. What a contrast though. From t-shirts for the ascent to jumpers, jackets and cagoules for the descent.
We ended up walking in the snow for an hour, although the trickiest bit was the incredibly slippy fallen leaves. I mentioned to Geoff that he should try not to break his ankle and this made him trip up about every 5 minutes. After five hours of walking we got back to the car, exhausted, but pleased to have had such a nice walk/adventure.
People did go to fly at Santa Brigida, including Erwan from Niviuk, who texted us to say it was his last flight there, and wanted to say good bye – he’s moving to Morocco to work with his father. Unfortunately, we got the text when we were on top of Puigsacalm, so no chance. Have a great time in Morocco, Erwan, it’s been nice flying with you the past year or two.
Friday, 29th January 2010
Geoff writes: we’d planned to go skiing today, though looking at the forecast this morning it seemed like it would be cloudy most of the day, and snowing by late afternoon. In the event, it was sunny all day, with some good cumulus development later in the afternoon. So we had a great day at Masella, made better by the fact that I picked up my skis from the repair shop, and, this time, they were perfect – which was a great relief. Fourth time lucky….
Being Friday, it was a bit crowded, with the beginners earlier in the week moving up to the higher slopes. But crowds are relative – the longest we had to queue for a lift was, literally, three minutes. More often than not, we got straight on. The snow was really nice to ski on, and sitting in the cafes when we had a break, it was warm in the sun.
Thursday, 28th January 2010
Geoff 28 Jan 2010 | : Flying, Work
Geoff writes: Another excellent day at Santa Brigida. We were a little late out, working this morning, and arriving about 2pm. Nani, Enric, Marc, Joan and Sergi were already there, and just about to launch for the first time – it had been off, but now the wind was on. At first it was a little scratchy, because the sun was hidden by cirrus. But as the sun came out, it got better, and was easy to stay up, and push out into the valley. There was also some ridge lift as the wind got a little stronger. Marc had the best height, probably around 1200 feet ATO. It also got a lot warmer, it had been quite cold when we arrived.
It was easily flyable for a couple of hours. The views were stunning, with some big wave clouds towards the mountains. People top landed, and Marc and I were the only ones in the air. The wind switched abruptly to west, we got below ridge height, and finally, after a struggle, bottom landed. Judith came down for us, and the others on top packed up too. After LZ beers and chat we drove home. However, as we left, it was probably flyable again, the flag at the hermitage was back on. A nice drive in the sun back home, with the wave gone, and just blue sky.
Wednesday, 27th February 2010
Geoff 27 Jan 2010 | : Trying, but failing, to fly, Work
Geoff writes: a lovely sunny day. Would have been great for skiing, especially since it snowed last night in the mountains, but we opened our conference for the reading week today – 12 countries, 260 participants and counting … this is our largest Supporting Deaf People conference yet. Reading week isn’t that busy, but certainly today we couldn’t go out all day, we need to make sure no-one has any problems. Later on we took a quick drive to Santa Brigida, but it was too much north – in spite of being quite light – so we didn’t bother waiting around, but decided to have a walk round St Feliu de Pallerols instead. It’s a nice old village with a stream running through it. We actually discovered a few parts of it we’ve not been to before.
Tuesday, 27th January 2010
Geoff writes: Today is the day before we open the conference for reading, so we went skiing. First, we stopped to pick up my skis from their fourth repair, but they hadn’t been done, so they lent me a pair for the day, and promised to get mine fixed. So then we decided to go to Nuria to ski – the train station, the Cremallera (zip) rack and pinion train is just opposite the shop. Nuria is the miniature, Legoland resort we’ve not skied at before. Just under 7km. The ride up on the train was quite spectacular. The skiing was ok, but hard to spend a whole day there. I’m not sure why people would buy a season ticket for it, when there are much better resorts close by (we got a free one day pass, including the Cremallera, with our Masella season ticket). But it was fun for one day.
Apart from a couple of greens, there is just one ski lift taking you to a few runs of varying grades. All very short! Judith, for the first time for a year, managed to fall over after hitting some ice; then later on got told off by the guy at the bottom of the lift for skiing too fast, and not slowing down when getting close to the lift. That put her in her place….
We decided to catch the train back around 4.00pm, hoping to get the seat right at the front, with a panoramic view through the window. As the train came in, and we were walking towards it, a huge horde of kids came out of the waiting room, and trampled us in the rush to the train. Fortunately, Judith was able to use her ski poles to good effect, and did manage to get the front seat, pushing the kids out of the way. No use being tall if you can’t use the height. On the other hand, that meant there were far too many kids behind us in the train, all competing to shout the loudest – mostly screaming “uau!” (that’s Catalan for “wow”). They weren’t exclaiming at the scenery – they just wanted to make a lot of noise. Their teachers tried to shut them up, but failed miserably.
Back at Ribes, and back at the ski shop, they’ve fixed them again. They offered us a full refund, but we refused it. They’re nice people. However, next time we go skiing, we will borrow a spare pair from them just in case….
A fun day out. But we won’t bother skiing at Nuria again. Work tonight, in preparation for tomorrow.
P.S. And here’s what the lads got up to while we were skiing… Johnny’s video.
Monday, 25th January 2010
Geoff writes: another work day, mostly, partly because of a poor forecast, but also because we have a lot to do. We expected rain much of the day, but in the end it was just cloudy here, and sunny on the coast at the NE tip of Catalunya. We went to Rupit to do some house-sitting duties whilst Judith’s parents are away, and had a brief walk around.
From tomorrow, the forecast for the next eight days is getting warmer, sunny, no rain. Of course, that might well change – and probably will – but for the moment, it’s looking good.
Sunday, 24th January 2010
Geoff writes: a poor day, very cloudy and a bit of rain early on. We have work to do anyway, since the conference opens for reading this week. Monday is a bad forecast too, then after that, sunny with temperatures rising.