VIP zone

I'm at the Alpine Racing World Championship, working as one of the 1400 volunteers. Today was the Super-G race. I worked outdoor in the VIP zone at the race arena. That's where the important people from FIS (the international skiing federation) and the national skiing associations sit, together with their invited guests. Austrian Ski Team, Swiss Ski Team, US Ski Team, Alpine Canada, Audi, Carlsberg ...

The spoiled and well-fed brats get their three-course lunches for free. Ten steps away is the VIP stand with prime view to the finish area. We checked their VIP accreditations, and guided them to their warm and exclusive restaurant.

And we chased ordinary people away.

We told the poor guys to go to the other side of the arena, and line up to buy hot-dogs and burgers. Be happy that we let you watch the race at all. You know, we have to obey Pareto's Law (economics), also known as the Matthew Principle (Matt. 25:29):

"For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the ones who do not have, even what he has will be taken away from him."

That's life. That's how our world works. Like it or not. It's class society.

It was a nice and cold day. From my work area, I had a perfect view to the race.  Very good >:)

(Picture taken today at the race.)

The end of now

The last day of April came with blue sky and a few inches of fresh white snow, from last night's percipitation. I took my rando-skis and went to the top of the mountain. In fact, I was cheating a little bit, since I used the ski lifts as far as I could get, and then walked the rest of the way to the top.

Moving up the slope, step by step, with climbing skins under the skis, just me, alone. It's like time is slowing down. It's a moment for reflection over life, the universe and everything. Maybe diffraction is a better word than reflection. Whatever, by Huygen's principle it's not that much of a difference.

It always feels like time is running slow in the mountains. You can enjoy the moment, the present. Now is the transition between the past and the future. Now ends but always reappears. Now is always moving, and always forward.

The past will never come back. The past was good, and not so good. Anyway, it's nothing I can do about it. The future can still be shaped. Or maybe I canæt do that much about the future either. What happens will happen. Universum decides. I take it as it comes.

And then the skiing season has come to an end, for now. Six months from now, the white gold will be back >:)

(My rando-skis. Picture taken in the mountains today.)

Winter games

I have heard there are some Olympic Winter Games going on. But I haven’t seen it. Apparently, nobody have. The Koreans who are hosting the games aren’t interested, except in short-track speed skating.  In Europe most of the competitions are at inconvenient hours due to the time difference.

So, I’m either sleeping or at work when the ski competitions take place. This week I’m in the mountains for winter vacation. I'm out skiing myself, rather than watching TV. Today was such a great day; sunny and no wind, a perfect day for the outdoors.

Whatever, the Olympics are not that important. The most important sports events are later this year; the Soccer World Cup in June, and the Chess World Championship in November.

In the mean time I have my own winter games. I enjoy the skiing and the great weather in the mountains, and tonight it's Champions League on TV.

There's  not much to complain about, really.  Just missing my best friend.

(I took this picture of myself today. Maybe it's the best part of me, the part which is free, or maybe it's just the shadow of the man I should have been)

Light and dark

Out skiing.
In the light snow.
And the darkness of my soul.
The days are short at this time of the year.
In an hour it's all dark.

(Picture taken in the mountains today)

A.Z Challenge 14: Nature

’ve spent the last few days on an archipelago up in the Arctic, and I’m still there, at 78 degrees north. I’ve been here before. The last time was in August 2013. It’s fantastic, and April is the best time to visit. There is still cold snow and winter conditions, but with the light of the Arctic summer. The midnight sun lasts from 19. April to 25. August at this altitude.

Today we went on a 5-hour snow scooter trip. Normally I’m not too fond of snow scooters. They are too noisy. I prefer to use skis. But up here I make an exception. The area is so huge, one and half the size of Denmark.  There are hardly any roads, and the only way to get around is by snow scooter in the winter and by boat in the summer.

The landscapes here are awesome. This is my temple, if any. We are surrounded by fjords and white mountains. No people around, no bosses around, no gods around. Just the mighty mountains, the way they were shaped and carved by the forces of Nature.

(Picture taken today on our snow scoother trip into the wilderness)

Gold rush

Yesterday we had a crazy storm coming in from the west, with strong winds and lots of snow. Today the wind had calmed down. It was time for the gold rush.

The white gold; tons of it. Awesome!

Little boy and I took our skis and went out in the mountains. We had a full day of off-piste skiing in the powder. It continued to snow all day. Great. Best day of skiing so far this season.

(Picture taken today. The skier is little boy, and the photographer is me.)

Last day

Today is the last day of the year.  Tomorrow comes a new day with a new year. Who knows what ut will bring.

New oportunitues and new challenges? New problems and new obstacles?

Maybe it will be status quo, or maybe its time for a revolution, for me and for you.

We will see.

Happy new year >:)

(Picture taken a couple of days ago when I was out skiing with the boys. They are much better skiers than me now, even little boy. So I hang around watching them in the snow park from time to time. It's fun)

A-Z Challenge 06: Freeskiing

I've been out traveling for 3 days. Unfortunately, I didn't have the time to read nor write much on my blog. My posts for day 4 and 5 were prewritten, and just posted on the right day.

I've up in the mountains with my two boys for a freeskiing competition.  So it's a perfect match that the letter for to day is F.

You might have seen it freeskiing in the recent olympics. Slopestyle (on twin-tip skis) was on the olympic program for the first time in Sochi. It's all about jumping big jumps, and making flips and tricks in the air.

Freeskiing (or newschool freestyle) is one of the fastest growing sports, in particular among teenage boys. My sons are both totally brainwashed by this sport. For them it's the meaning of life. It gives them plenty of physical challenges and adrenaline kicks. They both have 100+ days on skis every winter.

The saddest time of the year is when spring comes and the snow extincts.

(The picture above was taken by a professional photographer this weekend. It shows older boy flying high in the big jump competition. If you wanna see what the live action looks like, check out this video, showing older boy and one of his buddies in the Austrian Alps two weeks ago.)

Monogamy - Part 1

When I was a kid, we used to hike up along a canyon in the mountains. After an hour walk we got to a spot where we could climb down to the river at the bottom of the canyon with our fishing rods. It was my favorite place to fish, because we always caught 10-15 trout in an hour or two. Every time we got there, a screaming buzzard couple circulated above our heads, trying to scare us off, to protect their nest in the cliff above the river. In recent years I’ve been there with my own kids. Both the trout in the river and the buzzard in the cliff are still there.

I don’t know if it’s the same buzzard couple (they can live for 20 years). It could be the same couple, because the buzzards live in lifelong monogamous relationships. Monogamy is quite rare in nature. It’s common in only a few species, including buzzards and humans (but not trout).

Is monogamy (or the opposite) a natural or cultural phenomenon (nature or nurture)? That’s an interesting question. I don’t know the answer, but I have some thoughts about it. This topic has been carefully researched by a variety of scientists (check it out in Wikipedia), and here are just my thoughts. I'll touch into both the biological and cultural aspects of it.

Let’s start with biology and nature. Two issues are important for every species of animals: (1) reproduction, and (2) protection and safety. Humans are just one species among many mammals. Our main purpose on earth is to breed and spread our genes as wide as possible. This is good for the genetic health (just take a look at the paintings of the Habsburgers, and you will see what happens when the genetic variability becomes too limited). Therefore, the males want to screw as many females as possible.

After the ejaculation the male needs some time to recover before he can perform again. The recovery time is shorter (reduced from, say, 20 mins to 5 mins) if he’s offered a new female. That’s the way it works. The biological purpose of this mechanism is to throw the seed over as many fields as possible. This counteracts the idea of monogamy. In the modern society the consequence of this is that men enjoy watching porn (I think I have read somewhere that statistically 95% of men get turned on by porn, whether they admit it or not; for women the number is lower). And they want to see a great variety of models (that’s why the Internet is full of porn).

For the female mammals, things are somewhat different. They can’t spread their genes in the same way as the male. The female must bear and give birth to the offspring, and feed it until it's able to survive on it's own. Hence, they use a different strategy. The females want to be fucked by the superior males, the alpha-males in the wolf pack. That’s why the females put so much effort into clothing, hair and make-up when they go out to bars and discotheques. The red glossy lipstick is a projection of their their swollen horny labia for the reproduction marketplace (the last proposition isn’t my idea; I read it in a book by the British behavior psychologist Desmond Morris). 

In the wolf pack, the alpha-male is the strongest and most dominant individual. For humans, the situation is more diverse. The alpha-males can acquire their status by (symbols of) physical strength, thick wallets, political power or bright minds, or a combination thereof (that’s why women tend to admire Johnny Depp). The men who lose the alpha-male battle go to the prostitutes and pay to get their seeds spread over the fields.

Remark, somewhat on the side: Men tend to like chubby and curvy women because they appear more fertile, which is appealing to men’s biological instincts. The strive for skinny and bony bodies and narrow hips is just a counter-natural competition between women who don’t realize that it just makes them less attractive (unless that’s what they want).  

Another remark: For ants and wasps, the situation is different. The female can produce lots of eggs in a short time, and the ant and wasp queens attract and serve an army of males. Humans however, are more like wolves and gorillas than marching ants (imagine what it would be like if we were like ants).

That’s my thoughts about Monogamy-cons, the reasons why we want to fuck around like horny gorillas. I have to split this topic in two parts, and deal with the monogamy-pros later (otherwise this post becomes way to long, and I would get to tired tomorrow morning).

(The picture is from my archives, taken some years ago, in the canyon with the nesting buzzard couple)

Arguments

We have this big refurbishing project going on. It has taken some time, but now It's close to completed. I wanted to spend this weekend finishing the last details; painting some moldings and stuff like that.

Little boy had other plans. He wanted to go skiing in the mountains, like we do almost every weekend and every vacation.

"We can ski only when there's snow", he said.
"We can refurbish the entire summer", he said.

I think he had good arguments. Guess what we did?

(The picture wad taken about a week ago, on our previous trip to the mountains, which was winter break, and a full week on the slopes)

Arctic magic

Last week I was up north, in our archipelago in the Arctic at 78 degrees North.  The archipelago is basically the continental shelf lifted above sea level.  It’s one and half times the size of Denmark, and more than half of it covered by glaciers. The rest of the land is free from snow and ice in the summer.

One week away from the modern world, away from cell-phone coverage and wireless networks. It was the last week of midnight sun, and still light around the clock. We stayed in a nice and comfortable ship that took us around in the fjords. When I woke up one morning and pulled the curtains to the side, the first thing I saw was a Beluga playing outside of the window.

It’s cool to hike around with geologists, because they know everything about the landscape we pass; how and when it was made. Layer-cake mountains and rivers, valleys and fjords, carved by the glaciers of the ice ages.  Present-day glaciers flow slowly from the mountains to the fjords. Sometimes ice bergs break off the front of the rugged ice, and exhibit the bluish ice core.

In the morning we went by Zodiaks to work, from the red and white ship to shore. There were smart and shy students, and loud professors with big egos, and everything in between. All of them were nice people. We had a great time.

We hiked over shorefaces and plains with scares flowers, into the valleys, and up in the mountain sides. At interesting exposures we stopped to study the rocks, and to get a lecture by an expert. The outdoor classroom, as stunning beautiful as it can possibly get.

Polar bear scouters armed with rifles were ahead of us and out to the sides. This is the kingdom of the polar bear. It’s his home, we are only visitors. We must behave according to this. 

The polar bear is the perfect raptor, waiting patiently by the seals breath holes, climbing vertical cliffs to get to the bird nests, and running twice as fast as Usain Bolt. The polar bear is the king of the Arctic, and one of the few raptors that hunt humans.

The Arctic is magic, the Arctic is addictive.  I had to get home before I got stuck.  But I’ll be back >:)

(I took more than a hundred pictures last week. Above are just a few of them)

Mountain with a view

It was a nice and sunny Sunday in May, a great day for a hike in the mountains. We went up in the ranges on the coast.

Down in the valleys the fields and trees were dressed in the light green colors of spring. Up in the mountains, there were still patches of snow, and large areas of brown grass from last year, places were the snow melted just a few days ago.

The view from the top was great; fjords, islands and ocean. The coast is nice. Mountains are great. But there’s nothing like a mountain with an ocean view >:)

(I took the picture today. Can you see the wrecked airplane in the front of the picture? It’s a German plane from the 2^nd World War. In April 1940, the plane was hit by shell fire from a British navy ship, and crashed into the ranges by the fjord, with three men on board. The first died immediately, the second lived for a couple of days. They were buried next to the wrecked plane. The third soldier walked down fro the mountain, in hiding, and was able to re-unite with the German Nazi forces.)

Preparing for Christmas

Lots of stuff to finish off at work before the end of the year.

People are going crazy in the shopping malls.

We're getting close to Christmas, but who cares?

Crappy creepy commercial Coca-Cola Christmas.

Santa Claus is coming with presents. I guess he won't get as far as the children in Africa, as usual. It's quite understandable. He's coming all the way from the North Pole.

This year, we're doing it differently. We just go up to the mountains for a 10-day skiing vacation.

No Christmas tree, except a picture to put on the wall.

Kids will get presents, don't worry. I don't need anything. I've got too much already.

I'm looking forward to the days on the slope. Cold days with white snow and the faint December sun. Great! This will probably be the best Christmas ever.

I'm preparing for Christmas; waxing my skis >:)

(The picture above is from my archives, taken last Christmas, on a beautiful day, with the low December sun burning between the birches.)

Narrow fjords and narrow minds

On the way back home from our summer skiing vacation, we went via the fjords for a weekend together with family.

We took a boat out in the fjord, and were set on-shore on a strip of rock by the steep cliffs. Then we climbed the trail up to one of the old farms on a narrow shelf some 800 feet above the fjord. The farm was inhabited from the 16th century till the 1950s. Now it's maintained by the descendants of the last farmer.

For centuries people along the fjords  have been living from farming and fishing; hard-working and God-fearing. I guess the hard work is what kept them alive. Still they continued with the useless prayers, and they still do.

Nothing fails like prayer. But tourism helps to make a living in the 21st century.

The fjords are scenic, with breathtaking views. Huge cruise ships arrive every morning in the summer. No wonder that tourists come in thousands to see high and snow-capped mountains and steep cliffs going straight into the green water.

I like the high mountains and the open archipelago on the coast. The narrow fjords are not my place. Roads blocked by avalanche in the winter, hazzle with ferries and narrow hairpin roads.

Beautiful, for sure. But most of all, I find the fjords claustrophobic.

It feels like your mind becomes locked in. Narrow fjords create narrow minds.

(Picture taken from the shelf-farm we visited by the fjord. The farm house and barn were behind my back. In the past, goats and sheeps were grassing on the green field, which ends on the edge of a 800 feet vertical drop into the fjord. If you look closely, you can see a similar farm on the other side of the fjord, above the gray cliff  to the right of the water falls.)

Destiny of a ski dad

It's summer and it's vacation. We could have been on the beach. We could have been down south in the warm sun.

But we have our habits. Guess what we do. We go to the snow. Same procedure as every year. In the first week of the school's summer vacation, we go skiing on a glacier in the mountains. We've done this for eight years in row now. No training camp and no races. Just vacation, and skiing for fun.

Yesterday was foggy and white-out, but good skiing. Today we had a nice sunny day with four inches of fresh powder and great skiing. Tomorrow we get who-knows-what; probably the oposite of what the weather forecast says. The high mountains and glaciers are unpredictable. Anyway, I hope night temperatures go below freezing.

Then skiing will be good. After a day of skiing, we go back to camping down in the valley. We barbeque, skateboard and play football (soccer), and we watch the Euro2012 games in TV.

Yesterday there was no TV-football, so we went for a historic walk around the camping. We visited the 12-century stave church, and passed by a farm from medieval times. Finally, we stopped by the house (more like a log cabin) of the author Tor Jonsson, who ended his life at the age of 35 yo.

Something for the body in the morning, something for the brain in the evening. That's a nice combo.



We've got six months of snow and winter. Why do we spend the short summer in the snow? Because the kids want it like this.

I could think of better ways to spend my summer vacation, no doubt.

America has soccer moms, and Canada has hockey moms. Winterland has ski dads, and I'm one of them. I enjoy skiing a lot, and I gave the kids the chance to get hooked on it. So here I am, stuck in the snow. It's my own fault.

It's the destiny of a ski dad >:)

(I took the top picture at the glacier today. It's the best day we've had so far. The 2nd and 3rd picture are from yesterday's historic walk near the camping.)

Before Man made God

I just came home after a week in Spain, on a geology field trip in the Pyrenees. They call it work. At least we get paid for it.

The geologists go on field trips all the time. Occasionally (every 10th year or so) they let the geophysicists join in.

We studied the making of the Pyrenees; the Pyrenean orogenesis. We didn’t bother about all of Genesis, just a small part of it, in the southern Pyrenees.

(And we had some great hikes while looking at the old rocks. I know that I’m privileged.)

The Pyrenees are younger than the Rockies, but older than the Alps. The Pyrenees have been there for a long time.

They helped Republicans escape from General Franco during the Civil War. 

They survived the Spanish flu.

They witnessed the Spanish inquisition.

The mountains were carved long before Man made God.

But in the end they will be gone, planed by water and ice. That’s the inevitable faith of a mountain range.

(We hiked a steep and stony trail. After an hour we stopped at the crest of a great moraine. The reward we got was the view of the mountain in the picture above.)

Russian break

The pace is high right now. The last three weeks I've only spent four nights in my own house.

I returned safely from Moscow on Friday 13th. Tried to book a seat in row 13, but it wasn't available.

Then I went straight to the mountains with the kids for the weekend. Nice weather, good skiing. Can't miss the last three weeks of this season.

Tomorrow I'm going to Russia again, to Murmansk this time. I'm not at all looking forward to the four-hour drive across the tundra.

Lots of traveling, but I don't complain, because most of the time I've been out skiing. And next weekend we're returning to the mountains >:)

(I took the picture above this weekend. Good snow and nice weather, a perfect day for taking the gondola to the top of the mountain. The top station carries the memories of recent blizzards.)

New winter

The last weeks of March were warm and rainy. Then came the Easter holidays with cold weather and snow. Lots of snow.

A new winter starting. Great!

We got some sunny days when the best thing to do was skiing in the backcountry. Alone in the wilderness, the tracks from our own skis where the only signs of human presence.

But most of the time tons of powder was falling from the sky. It's not often we get such large ammounts of dry snow in April. Little boy and I named it the Judas powder, in honor of the Easter jerk.

I borrowed older boy's wide rocker skis. We got a great time of off-piste skiing. Little boy enjoys jumping off cliffs (I'm too old for that). We're not speaking of very high cliffs, just 4-5 m (12-15 feet). No problem with a soft and steep landing beneath.

Once he lost a ski in the landing. It was buried under a foot of snow. We searched and dug for it, and it took us almost an hour to find it.

You see, that's the Judas powder >:)

Tomorrow I'm off to Moscow again. No powder I hope. It's just gonna mess up the traffic.

(The picture is from a trip on crosscountry skis in the mountains.)

October sun

Winter is getting closer, but it's not very close yet. Only the highest mountains are capped in white snow. The trees have dropped the leaves, but down in the valley, the grass is still green.

This weekend we had some great October days in the mountains. The nights were cold, but days were warm. The sun slowly melted the frozen gound from last night.

The ponds were covered by just a thin crust of ice. We could easily break it by throwing a small rock on it.

Yesterday we had a nice hike. We reached to the top, after an hour and a half. When we opened our backpack, we found that we had forgotten our water bottles and lunch packets in the cabin.

The kids were very thisty. Fortunately, we found some patches of fresh snow.

"Make a snow ball and eat it like an apple," I said.

They did, and it killed their thirst. There's always a solution.

"Don't eat it to fast, or you will get very cold in your stomachs," I added.

They didn't listen to my advice. No problem; not for me :)

Gone fishing

It was still sunny and warm when little boy and I left the city behind, and drove up to the mountains. We were just the two of us in the car. We had a nice trip, playing AC/DC, Iron Maiden and Led Zeppelin, load, all the way. It was dark when we arrived in our family cabin.

The next morning it was raining. We only went for a short hike. I slid on a slippery rock and fell into the river.
"Are you OK", little boy shouted. He looked a little bit anxious.
"No problem", I just got wet.
"Do you wanna go back to the cabin?"
"No, We can stay if you want to, I’m not cold."

I took off all my clothes, and stood naked on a rock. The rain had stopped for a while, and the wind gusts coming down the mountain sides felt warm. I emptied my boots, twisted my clothes, to squeeze out as much water as possible. Then I put the clothes back on. The digi-cam in my pocket was wet, and didn't work anymore.

Later, when we returned to the cabin, our fish bag was still empty.

On the 2nd day, the rain had stopped. My clothes were dry, and my camera came back to life (beating Jesus by one day). We went up to a pond where we always catch fish, without exception. It's a one-hour hike along a white-water river, to a deep canyon, above the timber line. Little boy's cousin and uncle joined us too.

We stopped at the top of the gorge to eat some sandwiches. Then we climbed down to the river.
"Be careful," I told little boy, "check the rocks before you step on them, to make sure they don't slide."
"Yes, I know, I've been here before."
"And remember that climbing down is more difficult than climbing up," I added.

Down in the canyon, we put bite on the hook and threw it into the river. Little boy threw the line towards the mountain wall on the other side of the canyon, and let the bite drift towards the white-water fall. He hooked a trout on the first throw. We always do in that pond.
"I wanna kill it myself," said little boy.
"OK, just knock the fish head against a rock a few times," I said.
We put the trout on a big flat rock, and a smaller rock on top of it, to make sure it didn't escape between the boulders. The trouts move for half an hour after they're dead.

In two hours, we caught ten fish all together. The trouts were quite solidaric and fair; they went evenly on little boy's and little cousin's hooks. (The Tea Party guys have something to learn from the fish.)
"We got twice as many last year," said little boy.
"That's not important. Ten is good enough, and then we leave some fish for the guys who come here next time."

On the 3rd day, the weather changed. Northern winds brought cold air down from the Arctic, and temperatures dropped to less than 10 degrees (50 Fahrenheit). We had to find our gloves in the suitcase before we went out.

We caught 3 trouts and lost even more.

On the 4th day we didn't fish at all. We sat in the forest with our knives, carving stuff out of birch branches, and we picked 3kg (6 pounds) of cloud berries on the moors.

Then we returned to the civilization; to newspapers, TV, cell-phone coverage and Internet. I must admit I didn't miss is >:)

(The picture above is from the 2nd day. It's our best pond in the lower part of the picture. We always catch fish on the first throw, and usually on the 2nd and 3rd throws as well. There are two similar ponds above, but they are not accessible. Actually, when I was a kid, my father climbed down to the uppermost pond, making a rope with T-shirts tied together. My brother and I sat on the top watching (without T-shirts). My mother got furious when she heard of it: "Such a lack of responsibility, setting his life at stake to catch fish, with his little kids watching". I have never tried to copy his stunt, and I never will.)