A and B came to town.

A few weeks ago I packed my bags, caught the gold line metro to Union
station, and jumped on an Amtrak train to San Jose - it apparently
knew the way. I have travelled in trains in many countries, but never
in the US (over long distances) so this was something new. I wasn't
sure what to expect - most people said that the trains were okay, but
a few had pointed out that they were slower than buses (!) and quite
noisy and bumpy or something. Well I have no idea what trains they
were accustomed to, because I soon settled back in air conditioned
comfort as the train worked its way up the coast, past a number of oil
rigs, spectacular scenery, and about half a dozen prisons.

In under 8 hours, we had arrived at San Jose station, where my friend
D was waiting. We drove via a diner (at which the usual offering was
duly consumed) to D's new place in Sunnyvale, a short commute to his
current work with some company in 'the valley'. Like myself, D is an
Australian expat making his way in the big scary US of A, so we (as
usual) had plenty to chat about! I spent the evening on an air
mattress, and in the morning, woke, packed, and headed off to a nearby
eatery for breakfast. Walking in the front door, I was only slightly
surprised to see my friend J (who studies NLP at Berkeley) and my
parents A and B (because A + B = C) sitting at a table. My mother A in
particular seemed quite excited to see me, and soon we were seated,
eating American hash browns and bacon and other good things, catching
up on news, discussing the latest in information technology, and the
somewhat peculiar sport of ultra marathon running.

After breakfast D took off to work, we dropped J at a caltrain station
so he could head back to Palo Alto, and A, B, and C headed off into
the sunset.

Well, almost. It was only 10am, but we were in a hurry! We drove
swiftly to Santa Cruz, met some family friends (I was able to finally
deliver a few things I'd brought across in September!), and then
proceeded to drive down the coast, stopping in Carmel and a few other
nice seaside towns. Land slips meant we had to cut inland, coming back
out at Cambria. We checked into a hotel, then drove up the Big Sur
highway towards another land slide, admiring the incredible scenery
along the way. I thought it compared well to the Amalfi coast, and the
Chuisky Trakt, both of which feature similar winding roads perched
precariously on cliffs above crashing water. I saw the car of "Goanna
Tracks", some Australian 4WDers who wrote a very useful account of
their trip along the Kolyma highway about a year before I went. A was
a little nervous at times, and not just because B wasn't always sure
which side of the road to drive on...

In due course we turned back, greeted some seals, and drove up to
Hearst Castle for an evening tour. Hearst Castle is worthy of another
blog update in its entirety. Instead, check out the photos!
https://picasaweb.google.com/CaseyHandmer/SanFranciscoTrip
The story goes that Hearst got really rich running a newspaper and
decided to funnel his money into building a huge house with which to
entertain guests and live well near San Simeon. So he did. After he
died it made its way to becoming publicly accessible, so we can enjoy
its rather extraordinary features. The floor plan of the main house,
for instance, is quite haphazard since room dimensions were dictated
by the sizes of the various decorated ceilings he had purchased from
Europe. Eventually we finished the tour, had dinner at a local
restaurant/karaoke bar, and retired for the evening. I spent several
hours writing up a report on the mechanics of river incision, for a
purpose that will be revealed shortly!

The next day, we checked out and drove down highway 1 via several
lovely volcanoes in the surf to Santa Monica, then to the Getty
museum. By this stage we were running a bit late for the evening's
adventures, so we had to see all the nice stuff in the Getty (and
there is quite a bit) in about an hour. Back on campus I swiftly
changed and got ready for the chamber singers concert that evening. A
and B turned up and quite enjoyed the proceedings - madrigals in
French, Italian, English, and German. Dinner at Wokcano was followed
by a quick trip to the top of Lake St to look at the view over LA at
night, and we retired for the night.

Next morning we met for breakfast, then drove up to Eaton canyon, and
with about 1000 other people walked up the waterfall. I went largely
barefoot (it was a nice day), which was interesting. It's not every
day your feet get to savour the texture of the surface of the earth,
after all. Italian sandwiches were procured, and we spent a few hours
at the Huntington looking at nice old books, gizmos, art, and plants.
The Huntington is a pretty extraordinary place - well worth a visit if
you're ever in the area. Soon enough it was time to propel A and B
back onto the perilous freeways for their last trip to the airport.
Soon after they were airborne and in Australia, and I was back at
work, with only 4 days to catch up!

As for mechanics of river incision, all will be revealed in the next
installment!

Mammoth Ski Trip 2011

The Caltech Alpine Club, already such a productive font of adventure, has delivered yet again. This time, the order of the day was skiing, instead of trudging into thin air.

I packed in the usual frantic way, made rendezvous with two geologists, and proceeded to a high speed 4 hour guided tour of the Owens Valley. I had previously driven here to climb Mt Whitney, but the days were shorter and I had not seen much of the fascinating scenery in one of the world's most seismically active regions. Previously, for instance, I had had no idea that I didn't properly understand how columnar basalt forms.

As we wound up the road to about 2500m it began to snow heavily, and by the time I'd hired my gear and we'd found the apartment, the roads were quite dodgy. More than 12 inches fell, which was terrific! We were condo stacking, so I picked out a nice patch of floor for my sleeping bag, traumatized everyone by walking around in thermals, and waited while everyone arrived. By breakfast, 18 people had slept over, which certainly kept the place warm. We even had someone sleeping under the table!

Before long we'd driven to the lift and started up the mountain. A few easy runs to make up for 3 years of inactivity, then we hit the turbo quad to the top and powder heaven.

I had last skied 3 years ago while training through Bulgaria, and wearing jeans etc managed to get stuck somewhere in the back country. I survived that time, only to be chased by hungry streetkids that evening at the train station in Sofia...

We decided to traverse to the other side of the mountain and my companions D and E got stuck, as snowboards have poor glide characteristics. Soon after we negotiated a series of ungroomed
nirvana. I stopped to catch my breath, disguised behind ski glasses and an outlandishly enormous Russian fur hat, only to hear a nearby skier say "are you a Caltech grad student?" Why yes indeed.

A, her friends C and T skied with us for a while, with several hilarious crashes and no tree collisions. I got thirsty so filled a ziplock bag with snow and put it in my pocket.

At length we returned to Eagle lift and met with two beginner boarder friends of ours, Z and H. Both were already exhausted, but we convinced Z to go up the lift and come down the run, about 10 times slower than usual. Z was wearing jeans, which were already pretty wet, as were his gloves. His intention to go down the easiest run was dealt a serious blow when he lacked the turning skills necessary to turn away from an intermediate slope. But he stuck it out and by the time he reached the bottom was edging well enough to carve down the last bit. Spectacular took a turn for the sublime when he collided with a lift tower! Fortunately he was moving very slowly. The next day he was still improving, but managed to take out a sign that said 'slow', again, right in front of me.

We headed off the mountain and I passed out back at the lodge. Next came dinner, again everyone wearing their best thermals, white wine chilled in a pile of snow on the balcony, and mountains of food to replenish our reserves. After failing for the 50th time to get the
wifi working, we fell asleep.

Next morning, D decided to try skiing, so after an awful breakfast of corn flakes and mineral water (it seemed like a good idea at the time) we hit the slopes. D stepped into his skis, and boarded the lift with the confidence of man who knows he's wearing 10lbs of body armor. Which he was. The first order of the day was the run Z tumbled down the previous afternoon, and D did not disappoint. He decided to skip the snow plough and start paralleling, and within 30 minutes was linking turns like a pro. I demonstrated how to carve turns for speed (or 'rail'), and succeeded in my efforts to fall over.

A few runs later we decided to maintain the learning curve by heading up Cloud 9 to Ricochet, also known as McCluskie's Eternal Regret. In my mind, at any rate. The first few turns in particular were hair raising, but D didn't fall until the flat bit at the bottom. Meanwhile more than a few hair raising beginners coasted past in outrageous snowploughs, ignorant of their total lack of control. D worked on his pro-valley stance and we tacked inwards to main, caught up with
primary organizers extraordinaire D2 and D3, and ate lunch. During this run D achieved his penultimate and 13th fall on skis, right next to the Mammoth fumarole. It smelt like volcano and made me happy. Mammoth is, to the best of my knowledge, an eroded but active lava dome.

We ducked back to the car so D could get his trusty board (recently repaired after a nasty run-in with a rock), then hit the slopes on the back side of the mountain. The mountain remained uncrowded and supremely awesome. The vertiginous couloirs above us beckoned 'test yourself!', but it wasn't until we headed back that we found ourselves by accident on the edge of a rather steep slope. We dropped over a cornice and traversed the worst of moguls that seemed to grow from cornices and then ripped down the side of the mountain. We raced down the mountain at terminal velocity, reaching the home lift 25 seconds before it closed. One final run on empty sloped, catching some persistent freshies between trees, and then down to the carpark.

Back at the place we packed and cleaned, piled into a car with R, F, H, D4 and me, and herded aggressively back to LA to the tunes of Iron Maiden. We stopped at Lone Pine to stare at Mt Whitney in the sunset and eat some buffalo burgers. The conversation shifted to the pros and
cons of dating within Caltech (hypothetically, of course), and by midnight I was back on campus with only 72 hours of work to catch up on.

Photos and video are in the usual places.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1drgxdNcgV4

Maska Scorbi

The mask of sorrow is a large concrete sculpture sited on a hill
overlooking Magadan. In broadest terms it is reminiscent of the moai
statues on Rapa Nui, but exceeds them in both scale and scope.

Originally conceived as one of six similar statues arrayed in a
hexagon throughout the former soviet union, to the best of my
knowledge it is the only one that has been completed. In purpose, it
commemorates the terrible lives and deaths of the prisoners who passed
through Magadan as part of the dalstroi (Far Northern Construction)
effort which began in 1930, expanded enormously through the prewar
purges of 1937, and was officially ended by Kruschev's pardon of
Stalin's prisoners in 1956. At its height, more than 12 million
Russian citizens were convicted under article 58, for political
crimes, and were sent to work camps for the 'reforging of the criminal
spirit' to labour for 10 years or more. These works camps were arrayed
throughout the soviet union, but the most infamous by far were the
mines of Kolyma. When people refer to mines of Siberia, they refer to
Kolyma. This is not the self imposed exile of the intelligentsia after
the failed uprising of 1839 to cities in Siberia such as Krasnoyarsk
and Irkutsk that subsequently became centers of learning.

Kolyma is a region in the far east of Russia, well beyond Siberia. A
number of great rivers flow from the central asian highlands through
Russia to the Arctic Ocean. From west to east, they are the Northern
Dvina, the Pechora, the Ob, the Yenisei, the Lena, the Indigirka, and
the Kolyma. With the exception of the Indigirka, all are navigable
along most of their length from source to ocean. Each is a story in
itself, however here I am concerned with the Kolyma river. Like many
of its northern cousins, during the bitterly cold winter it sometimes
freezes all the way through, leading to the formation of ice dams and
flash flooding. From the ocean it rises towards the south, and
eventually tracks west at the point where it meets the highway at
Debin, which is also known as 'Left Bank'. Debin was the headquarters
of dalstroi for most of the 1930s, and remained an important center
with a major hospital until perestroika. When I visited, nearly every
building was abandoned, and its population currently stands at about
80. During the WW2 the hospital was frequently home to (inter alia) a
convicted nuclear scientist called Kipreev who managed to build an
xray machine. Shalamov worked as an orderly in the hospital prior to
his release after 17 years of labour, and eventually returned to the
mainland.

It is hard to describe the isolation of these places. Magadan is a
town on the coast of the Sea of Okhost. Within quotation marks, it is
the only town. There have been other towns at other times on the shore
since the 1600s, when the Russian sled route first reached the
pacific, but with the exception of Sovgavan', more than 1000km away,
it is the only one of any size that is left. Magadan, which I have
written about before, is an astonishing city, the gateway to the
Russian Far East, to Kolyma, and the still productive mines in the
region. Even today, in the age of trans-oceanic jet liners, it remains
remote. I will describe the usual path of convict to these places to
give an idea of how remote these places were - prisons like convict
Australia, from which escape is meaningless.

After the usual formalities of accusation, constant interrogation, and
beatings, a person convicted under article 58 would be transfered to a
holding prison, which in Moscow was the famous Butyr prison. From here
they would be loaded on a prison train car and taken by train to
sovgavan', probably a 20 day journey in those days from one side of
Russia to the other. From here they were loaded on steamers to take
them to Magadan, a 3 to 5 day cruise, and in Magadan they were placed
in prisoner camps before being divided up, allocated a work site, and
sent there. Before that, of course, they came to terms with the nature
of criminal life in Russia, which to this day involves a
semi-exclusive language, a strict hierarchy, and complete degradation.
Usually clothes would be confiscated before prisoners were marched
500km up the highway to Debin, where they would be fanned out to one
of hundreds of work camps in the area, most accessible only by river
(at least in the early days). As the decade progressed, punishments
for escapees and transgressors became more serious, the roads were
improved and lengthened, and by about 1938 it was possible to travel
from Magadan to Yakutsk via the original Kolyma highway. Still, travel
without freedom or permits was almost impossible.

I don't intend to dwell here on the conditions suffered by the
prisoners, or try and give any account of the experience. There are a
number of excellent books on the subject by survivors, including
Varlam Shalamov's "Kolyma Tales", and Alexander Solzhenitsn's "The
Gulag Archipelago". The bottom line is that more than 3 million people
perished at the camps, mostly between 1937 and the early 1950s.

This is a legacy that cannot be forgotten, marginalised, or undone.
Kruschev's 'rehabilitation' meant little except for a small number of
survivors who, having been released years previously, were finally
permitted to leave the far east and return to their homes. Despite
this horrific past, the taiga and the extremes of climate have all but
erased tangible memories of the camps, few of which were built to a
lasting standard in any case. In the 20 years since perestroika, the
region has depopulated by more than a factor of 2, and some cities,
such as Kadykchan, have been completely abandoned.

Which brings me back to the mask of sorrow monument. It is large in
scale, and depicts a stylised mask. Within the interior of the
sculpture is a small one room museum. One eye is the bars of a prison
cell. The other eye, weeping, has tears in the form of people crying.
Around the sculpture are a number of concrete plinths with religious
symbols of the faiths of people who died, some of whom were prisoners
of war. Some of the main camps are also named. Yet for many locals and
visitors, the most important question is of its fundamental nature.
Why a mask, and not a face. Why is the mask sorrowful, and not an
actual person. In my mind, the mask symbolises a disconnect between
the people changed by suffering into something different, between the
horrific history and the need to go on with life, and between regret
and an inability to rationalise, explain, or otherwise understand the
profound pointlessness of the spilling of that much blood. In a way, a
mask can be used to express a desired emotion, while concealing
conflicting feelings which continue to lurk deeper still.

Nearly everyone who lives in Magadan today is unrelated by business or
blood to the gulag. They are as aware as anyone of the past and its
weight, but Kolyma remains a perilous place to live and work. One
cannot dwell excessively on the past and still expect to make a
success of the present. Most of my exploration of the history has
occurred since I returned. When I visited, I was more interested (and
remain so) in the people living there today, rather than the all but
vanished history of the place. Yet the character of a city and its
inhabitants cannot be divorced from their awareness of the past.
Ultimately, however, the past is too confronting to worry about every
day. The lessons to be learned are either too obvious or too subtle to
be taken in one sitting. In every way, the human tragedy in Kolyma
exceeded any person's will to survive, to be tough, to be human. In
the opinion of a number of people I talked to, even the people who did
not die, did not survive. And that, if anything, is the reason why the
mask of sorrow is a mask. Why it, as a work of art and a monument,
encompasses so much of the dissonance of that part of the world. A
dissonance that will not be understood until it is forgotten.

I visited in August 2010, though I did not see the mask up close
during the day time. Here are some photos I took:
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/0SZq-SZF8ecpqlV3BpWWiA?feat=directlink
Better photos can be found here:
http://www.google.com/images?rlz=1C1ASUT_enUS398US398&q=mask+of+sorrow+wiki&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=1366&bih=667

Composers day music party

Late last year a friend had asked me to reserve March 26 in my diary, which I duly did. March 26 finally arrived, and what happened? Well read on and find out.

Every year, a composer's day music party is held, during which the complete chamber music of a particular composer is played. But my skills on the fiddle are non existent, and my piano playing remains far inferior to the requirements of even the easiest chamber music. In addition to this, a group of friends is called upon to gather around a piano and do a complete on book performance of a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. Such are the demands of this undertaking, that this is the first party I've ever been involved in that had a dress rehearsal the day before!

On the day the weather held, and arriving at about lunch time, I snuck between hordes of string players, set up in every room, valiantly attempting to play all of Haydn's chamber music in a single day. One room was stacked with music cases, there could have easily been a hundred people in a modest sized family home.

At the appointed signal, all unassigned musicians disappeared into the back yard, where stands appeared and were arranged, and the complete overture was played through of "The Gondoliers", twice. Just to make sure. After that our trusty pianist and keyboard, braving arctic gusts of wind and the threat of imminent rain, began the show. The Gondoliers is slightly peculiar in that there are two almost entirely separate casts that do not meet on stage until the finale, so in between singing (I was singing the role of Giuseppe, an eligible bachelor gondolier whose charisma 'shamed the summer skies'), we huddled at the back and shivered resolutely as a couple of children singing the roles of the Duke and Duchess of Plaza-Toro stole the whole show. Each of the main characters has a song, and mine appeared early in the second act, a typical G&S patter song making fun of the concept of a republican monarchy (where republican retains its literal meaning). After that, there is a tradition of singing an updated version. The Gondoliers had last been performed in 2001, and at the dress rehearsal, my predecessors in the role of Giuseppe sang an outrageously funny version about Bush II, who I believe was still a suitable target for humour at that stage of his presidency. Thus my time between the dress and the performance was spent in feverish rhyming, the semi-successful results of which are at the end of this post.

At length we reached the final chord, obtained divorces from our on-stage spouses, ate enough food to immobilise us, then headed back home to sunny Pasadena. Coincidentally it was also on this trip that I learned that the Arroyo Seco Parkway was the first expressway ever built, in 1940, which explains its hair-raisingly dangerous corners and 10mph off ramps.

In all it's not every day that one has a party that one has completed a dress rehearsal for, but I certainly wouldn't object to more in the future!

To the tune of "Rising Early in the Morning" from The Gondoliers (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbM-DhoCWvU), updated politically.

Rising early in the morning,

We supress needs nicotine,

Then, rememb'ring Michelle's warning,

breakfast burger - extra lean!

I stroll to the oval room,

In the face of impending doom.

First we double check that Clinton

Is still spying on the UN;

It's best to keep an eye on all those slimes

Then if we want to see some foreign

Former classified addendum

We simply have to read the New York Times.

Then we probably take aim at wikileaks

Anonymous and Assange are total freaks.

Now Manning is exposed at Quantico,

The arabs can know cablegate's fair go.

As for Bush and all his phoneys,

Thugs thieves criminals and croneys

I think it's most appropriate to keep them all immune.

Such privilege executive

Rendition, torture, right to live,

Wire tapping sans a warrant - they are too good to impune.

Contemplating reelection

Watching democrat rejection

No need to fear a threat by a rethuglican candidate.

Bachmann, Newt, illegitimate

Conservative illiterate

Or Palin just for LOLs, such would be perfect fate.

Oh, Colbert, Maddow may whine,

That the problems are all mine,

Yet the legacy is frightful and the obligations great.

But the privilege and pleasure

That we treasure beyond measure

Is to blame it all on Hillary, the Secretary of State.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

UPDATE:

Casey Glick (who sang Luiz) contributed a second verse on similar themes, just to show us how it's done.

In the evening reuniting

Cop and teacher who’ve been fighting

Racist fears suppressed by glass of beer or three.

I’ll take my birth certificate

(I’ve reproduced in triplicate)

Conveying it to pundits on TV.

Then I’ll work to stop an ultimate relapse

Of the global economical collapse

Or intervene in Middle Eastern State

Which Newt derides as early and too late

Appeasing Dems, an order signing

A new Health Care law confining

‘bortion rights, insurance premiums, approval in one blow

Though I found quite ineffective

An executive directive

To fulfill my campaign promises to close Guantanamo

Then appointing Justice Kagan,

Signing treaties just like Reagan,

And desperately taking steps to mollify my base

All the while I’m interacting

With a GOP impacting

My chance to be the President who first transcended Race.

Oh conservatives complain

Of my socialistic reign

And the lib’rals think I’ve given in to “blackmail” sans a fight

But the culminating pleasure

That I treasure beyond measure

Is the comedy induced by all those idiots on the Right.

Walk to the beach!

Some time ago I had noted via Google Maps that it is not impossible to conceive walking to the beach from Caltech. The only problem is you'd need about a day of spare time, which only occurs about twice a year.

Still, yesterday was such a day, so I gave a friend J a call and we met at 6:30am (just before dawn) and set off. I took minimal weight; phone, keys, wallet, jacket, and a hat. J brought a bag with some water and a red cap that made him look like Mario. (In my opinion!).

The weather was perfect, and we walked at a steady pace, joining a series of very long LA roads.

From memory, we began on California Ave, then zigzagged up to W64 Ave, cut through on Meridian Ave, then York. Walked through an underpass under the railway festooned with pigeons (dead and alive), before joining Eagle Rock Ave, following it south to Fletcher, which took us over the LA river (which had some water, and trees in it). By this point we had covered about 12 miles, or 20km, which is a decent walk in itself, in about 4 hours. J put his NY honed 'diner finder' skills to good use and we stopped at 10:30 for Breakfast/Lunch. I consumed my own weight in steak, capsicum, and omelette, providing essential walking fuel. 

A quick dogleg put us on Silver Lake Avenue, and suddenly the affluence of our surroundings jumped about 10 points. The lake itself is a fairly unremarkable reservoir, but there was a nice park (infested, as usual, with Australian trees of varying kinds). We sat under a bottlebrush and dodged a rain of gumnuts for about 20 minutes. For varieties sake we swapped shoes, then continued on. Silver Lake Ave fed into W Sunset Boulevard, which had a lot of interesting looking shops, and soon we turned left onto Santa Monica Blvd, which marked the end of tricky navigation. Santa Monica Blvd is about 14 miles (25km) long, and only has one substantial bend in the whole thing. Although by this stage a degree of discomfort was apparent, it's only at this point that the idea of walking all day becomes worthwhile. That is, walking is easy, even when tired, but only when tired does putting one foot in front of the other become meaningful.

After a couple of hours we entered Hollywood, then Beverly Hills, which seemed to ooze money. The side of the road was a long, skinny garden. Walking on grass for a change, J said it felt like 'walking through cake'. We took a 25 minute break, then continued on. We walked past a large Mormon church, the turnoff to UCLA, and one last raised expressway before finally, we could see the last row of buildings before the beach, now 'only' 3 miles (5km) away. Our pace had slowed by this point, but inevitably, inexorably, we reeled in the miles, one numbered street at a time, 20th, 10th, 3rd, 2nd, and finally, we were there, at the park above Santa Monica beach and pier. 

Some otherwise trivial steps, doffing of shoes, and a quick jog across about another mile of sand and we dipped out toes in the great Pacific Sea. I attempted to skim some pebbles, took a few photos, and ran through all the streets we'd walked on through my mind - it was exhausting!

Back up into the town and found a Thai restaurant to supply essential, life giving nutrition. I had Pad See Ew, naturally, though I mixed it up by ordering chicken instead of beef. Google provided guidance on the swiftest way home, so we caught a 'metro express' 10 to Union Station (sleeping most of the way), then the gold line to Lake St Station, followed by a walk back into the university (about another 2 miles in total).

After a quick shower and glass of water I joined some friends who were watching the final half of 'The coronation of Poppaea', which was an extremely silly (and early) opera, then went home and slept the sleep of the righteous until 3pm the following day.

In total, we walked about 30 miles or 50km, which is further than a marathon. This is nearly the furthest I've walked in a 24 hour period, and certainly the furthest I've walked in an urban environment. LA is HUGE! In my opinion, beyond a level of physical discomfort, it wasn't all that difficult either. Just something, without a good reason, you wouldn't do every day.

The air is so thick, it stings! (Or recreation, part 2)

Photos: https://picasaweb.google.com/CaseyHandmer/MtWhitneyWeb#

Other people's photos: http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~alpine/wiki/Winter_Mountaineering_Trip_2011#Mount_Whitney_Trip

My most recent blog post concerned a hike up Mt Baldy (or Mt San Antonio, depending on your level of formality), ostensibly for fun. Well I can say now, it was a training hike for climbing another large Californian mountain - Mt Whitney.

Mt Whitney is the tallest mountain in the 'lower 48'. It is 14,505ft (or 4421m) tall, which is nearly half of Everest. It holds the dubious distinction of being struck by lots of lightning, sometimes via people standing on top. Statistically speaking, however, it is a safe mountain to climb, with around 30,000 people summiting a year, and maybe one or at most two deaths. Most people climb the 97 switchbacks of the Whitney Trail. We chose the much more direct (and much steeper) mountaineer's route. A straight line distance of about 7 miles (or 10km), vertical distance of 6000ft or 2km. That's pretty steep! The mountaineer's route is perhaps a hundred times more dangerous than the Whitney trail, but we rested assured that noone had died on a Caltech Alpine club trip in nearly four years.

To the account! We met outside the Braun gym (not to be confused with the Brown gym next door), allocated into cars, and set off. I travelled with L and J, and we covered the 4 hour distance about an hour faster than everyone else. After stopping at a gas station for emergency jerky supplies, we headed off from Lone Pine up the mountain, until the car got stuck on an icy bit and was unable to make headway. We parked by the side of the road (away from the fallen boulders) and waited for some other cars to arrive. Eventually we were ferried by 4wd a mile up the road (walking would have been faster) and camped on the hair pin. I was eager to try out my sleeping solution, with a car windshield cover acting as an insulator (though providing minimal padding). All went well.

Next day we got up early (easy to do when lying down on rocks), packed everything together, and set off. By 9am we'd reached the trail-head, begun to learn the difference between snow that's firm enough to walk on, and snow that will 'post-hole' you down to thigh-depth, or deeper. There was a weighing device hung at the beginning - we all weighed our packs. Mine was about 33lbs (16kg), though I wasn't carrying full water bottles. What weight I gained with ice axe, crampons, rope, harness, and helmet I saved by only taking a single change of clothes. Saved by the layering principle! The heaviest belonged to PT, at 68lbs. In training for his Denali attempt he carried 5 litres of wine, a large beer bottle, and a cake up the mountain. I too brought stuff to share - in this case Werther's Original sweets. They had a double purpose - they prevented hyperventilation while resting. My tent/cooking partner P's pack was also about 35lbs (with a little more water). Together I think we had the lightest stuff, and it made a big difference.

I had decided that there was no point in rushing to the top. I am hardly fit, and over exertion is a great way to get a nice altitude headache. Also, as we were only covering a few ks every day, there was no rush. Towards the back of the group with two Ls, we walked up the first part of the Whitney trail, negotiating snow banks, sub-nivean streams, and fallen trees. At the trail junction we waited as a group to ensure noone went the wrong way, then set off. Soon the trail began to steepen. Sticking to the track to avoid post-holing through the softening snow into a nice cold stream, we continued to climb up a narrow gully. It seemed we were making agonizingly slow progress, stopping every few minutes for a breather and a sip of water. At one point we met some people who'd stopped, put on helmets and crampons, and begun to climb some ice sticking to the rock walls on one side. It looked like heaps of fun, and also really really tiring, so we continued on. P was nowhere to be seen, but I hoped I wouldn't arrive (with the shovel) too late after him (with the tent) so we could dig in. I also put on crampons and my helmet, because they were banging around a bit on the outside of my bag, and serve a very useful purpose when installed according to directions! I also took out the ice axe to help with balance and self belay on tricky steps. 

When one is climbing a steep, snow filled chute (couloir), while lugging a heavy pack, it's not unusual for your face to be mere inches from the snow ahead. Even though previous climbers have often left large snowy foot holds that can be climbed like steps with minimal calf-pain, craning your neck to look upwards never reveals a horizon that's particularly far away. Most chutes are not perfectly regular, but have steeper parts and less steep parts, so typically one can see the edge of a flattening part. Thus the end always seems a lot closer than it actually is. When one has climbed the last bump, buried the axe, and stood up to take a breath, the ground does not flatten out towards your destination at Lower Boy Scout Lake, but merely dips inwards and begins to climb again.

Horrible as this sounds, the weather was perfect, the air cool, and at any point turning around rewarded me with a view of the cars parked below, and, in the distance, the entire breadth of Owens Valley and lone pine. At high points, looking ahead one could see the summit in the distance. This was true for most of the climb. 

Luckily, the distance was not far, and eventually we reached the top of the chute. L, L, and I sat on a rock, and ate trail mix, bread, and granola bars. A few hundred metres down the trail we found the campsite. At this point we were higher than the summit of Mt Baldy that I'd huffed and puffed to get to only 2 weeks before. P was still nowhere to be seen - someone said he was iceclimbing. I took out the shovel and started to dig. Surprisingly, it was not difficult work. Perhaps the action of bending ensured enough oxygen in my brain? Before long I'd dug a large tent-sized hole and piled the snow around the edge. I also dug half a snow cave to see how difficult it would be. Before I had time to build an igloo, though, P turned up, we pitched the tent, and started melting water. I use a jetboil stove - it's surprisingly efficient, and we devised an efficient scheme for melting a litre every couple of minutes. In the meantime we unpacked some stuff and generally got ready for dinner.

There was a false sunset at about 4pm, when the sun dropped below a nearby outcrop. Soon after it rose again on the other side and we had a few more hours of warm sun, before it finally set, and the temperature dropped. We donned our head torches and pulled out dinner - freeze dried miracles in a bag. Water boiled, bags filled, and sequestered under layers of insulation like a hot water bottle. We headed to the communal rock where PT's cask wine had been annexed by the French element and converted (in part) to mulled wine. 10 minutes later our food was ready and we ate it. The obvious deficiencies of storing food in an airless environment for up to three years were perfectly compensated by double helpings and a generous portion of hunger sauce. Someone had some spare hot chocolate, which was nice. After dinner was packed up, P sat in the tent and began to de ice his boots. We installed a foot-well below the door to prevent kicking snow inside, but the process was time consuming. I took out my pet laser pointer and started firing it at things, like distant peaks. I even managed to see a spot on the side of the main summit, 5 miles away! I heart science. My head torch is the Petzl Myo XP (top of the line about 2 years ago - thanks dad!). For this trip I'd bought brand new lithium batteries for everything. At this point I discovered that they supply too much current for the bulb, and it overheats and shuts off, every few seconds. This was pretty annoying! Hopefully with normal batteries it'll come back to life. Still, I've got my eye out for a not particularly useful torch which is just absurdly bright. Ideally, I would have a torch to use as a stove as well.

Soon I too turned in, de iced my boots, wrapped them in my sleeping bag bag (inside out), and stowed them, and most of my clothing, between my legs in the sleeping bag to keep it from getting frozen. As I drifted swiftly to sleep I noticed that P was breathing rapidly in his sleep - but other than that, little effect at being 10500ft above sea level.

Next morning we woke up pretty early, after a long (roughly 12 hour sleep - plenty of darkness at this time of year), and occasionally disturbed sleep. P's tent is pretty amazing, but it is well ventilated, and I hadn't bothered to secure the warmth cuff in my sleeping bag, so got cold shoulders. There was ice on the bag where my breath had frozen. Once awake, we got up, put our shell layers back on, and packed up pretty swiftly. J had brought a finger pulse oximeter, which we used to test our haemoglobin oxygen saturation level. Levels ranged between 84 and 96, which was pretty good. Mine was about in the middle. I'm told by my brother that exercise acclimatises you to a certain altitude. Since I do no exercise, I am not acclimatized anywhere, and I had relatively few symptoms while climbing. P is much fitter than I, and as a result, possibly pushed himself a bit too hard and got a headache. But he did climb about twice as fast as I did!

Before the sun had risen over the hill we'd rejoined the main trail and crossed the flat section above Lower Boy Scout Lake. We proceeded to climb a broad chute before arriving a while later at the snowed in meadow below upper boy scout lake. Here there was an even better ice wall, which K, H, and a few others immediately threw themselves at. N and the rest of us moved to some rock ledges on the other side of the valley, had a breather, and got a demo on how to test for avalanche danger. Soon enough I'd eaten a few more snacks (in anticipation of losing my appetite when I finally ran out of lungs), and we'd set off across the upper part of the valley. To our right was a terrific cirque surrounding the (frozen) lake - a series of jagged granite outcrops hundreds of metres high completely enclosing the valley. 

L dropped a water bottle and we watched it coast at terrific speed back down the hill we'd just spent the better part of an hour climbing. Fortunately T, on skis, was on his way up and caught it on its way past. Reunited with its owner, we turned left and zigzagged up to the next valley, where high winds had carved the snow into fantastic shapes (sastrugi). By this point we were at about 12000ft and I was beginning to feel a bit winded! We paused on a few rocks and chatted with some people who'd camped there on a two day trip up and back. At altitude you take lots of photos and chat with lots of people, especially if they're going the other way, because then you don't have to walk!

By now we were most of the way to the last camp site, so we put on our packs and headed up. We traversed along the right hand side of the valley until we found the first coulois leading to the next level. It was pretty steep and mushy, and by the time we got to the top, it wasn't clear how to exit. We thought maybe to the left, where some rocks and tracks led. Someone else behind went to the right and managed to climb over a rock shelf onto snow above and continue. L and co traversed the top of the chute to try the right fork. In terms of fail modes, a fall from the right would have been on (steep) snow. From the left, several protruding rocks and ledges severely discouraged false steps. In the end I spotted a line and, clambering onto rock, followed it up. I threw my backpack ahead, and about a dozen moves later, had likewise got onto the snow. Though less steep here, it was still steep enough that climbing was best performed in a zig-zag, one leg over the other, with toes pointing slightly down hill to minimise calf tension.

Breathing deeply we climbed onto the broad lip of iceberg lake, 12300 ft (3750m) above sea level. Above us (literally directly above) loomed the main peak like something out of "Lord of the Rings", with two spires to the left, and the iceberg cirque to the right. P, arriving first, had picked a spot behind a large boulder and had already excavated a hole big enough to park a car in! I started melting water (being a slow process), we unpacked (slowly), pitched the tent, and unfurled sleeping bags to let them relax and puff up. Behind another large boulder everyone else had set up camp, digging deep holes and building walls around the edge. Ice axes, rocks, and shovels were used as anchors to secure tents against the wind. At the entrance of each tent a now semi-sub-nivean network of trenches connected everyone together. P and I sat on the rock, chatted with other snow-melters, and ate candy.

Meanwhile H, who had turned up at about 10pm the night before after ice climbing, dug himself a trench in the snow and slept in all his clothes in a sleeping bag, once again turned up, having been ice climbing. He explained that all the ice and rock gear in his pack meant there wasn't room for a tent (which are pretty useless in the wind, given the size of the hole you have to dig anyway...). He coopted all the climbing ropes, laid them on the rock, secured them with his pack, put his sleeping mat on top of that, and his sleeping bag on top of that. It wasn't very windy anyway, he claimed. (That's how it should be done!)

PT arrived with cake. It was L's birthday, and although she was feeling altitude perhaps the worst of anyone, she perked up when we all sang her happy birthday, then sliced up the cake with an ice axe. The remaining wine was converted to warm ambrosia. Sadly, the beer bottle had asploded the previous day, leading to a beer water-fall.

P and I duly heated water, filled out powdered dinner sachets, tucked them under out jackets, and sat on the rock as the sun began to set. The food was eaten, waste products sealed inside the zip lock bag (very efficient - no cleaning of cooking pots necessary, even though snow is pretty good for that). The sun set (for us), lighting up the surrounding granite outcrops in shades of orange and yellow. The laser made another appearance, and pointed out with stunning clarity the astonishing monolith we had yet to climb!

Now came the best part - attending to bodily needs in snow and at altitude. For this purpose we had at our disposal a number of NASA designed 'WAG bags'. The process was surprisingly unstressful - fortunately it was neither particularly cold nor windy. The trickiest part was preventing paraphernalia from scooting away on the smooth and gently sloping snow surface! P dug a small hole and we banked our zip-locked presents out of the way of hungry animals and disturbing wind, and a safe distance from the tent, to be picked up the way out the next day.

All said and done, we turned in, by now experts at the process of knocking ice off boots and storing them in our sleeping bags. I methodically removed my shell layers, folded them, and placed them on the shiny mat (car wind-shield cover) to insulate my shoulders and arse. Because moisture migrates through the insulation until it hits the impermeable mat (where it collects), I folded the clothing so that the least important part was on the bottom. I also left my down jacket over the top. Inside was my hat, neck warmer, gloves, and socks - ready to be internally deployed to any cold spots, like elbows, etc. As during the previous night, snow settled unevenly beneath me, leading to some odd bumps and slides, and my toes were rather cold. My sleeping bag is excellent, but the down has over the years been crushed by storage in a compression sack during long trips. I might have to fluff it up a bit again! In any case, I was only slightly uncomfortable. Finally, I set my alarm for 3:30 and unceremoniously passed out.

Next morning I woke with the alarm, motioned to P, who seemed pretty awake, and we got ready to go. I reinstated the chosen pocket junk, put on boots (warm but moist), crampons, retrieved ice-axes, fitted a harness, tied on a water bottle, ate a few granola bars for good measure, fended off a wake-up call in incomparable Hindi sung by PT, and, some of the first ready to go, set out.

But we were not the first. As I climbed the bottom of the talus slope, J explained to me that K and H had got up about an hour before and were now RACING each other to the top. Looking up I could see their lights already at the top of the notch nearly 2000ft (500m) above me! H told me later that he sprinted the last 100m up the near vertical coulois, but had to hyperventilate a bit at the top.

Moving at a much more stately pace I zigzagged back and forth up the slope. P swiftly pulled ahead, but I held my own against the remainder of the group, most of whom were suffering either headaches or nausea or both by now. We clambered in the dark over a few rocky patches (probably thoroughly snowed in again by now), and my headlamp finally stopped working entirely near the top. Fortunately I had brought a little Fenix LOD with me (which ate lithium batteries just fine). At the top the sun just started to come up, and the lights in Lone Pine began to be drowned out. It was pretty windy at the top, but I snuck behind a rock and, after smashing the ice on the top of my water bottle, had a few sips of ultra chilled water. B had previously experimented with burying water in snow overnight to prevent it freezing by insulation - which seemed to work. P had opted for the well tightened bottle in the sleeping bag approach, whereas I kept the bottle just outside the bag near my head. It was partially frozen in the morning. As I munched on some well deserved scroggin, we were joined by a few more people at the notch, and PTs crampons struck sparks from the rocks. The mountains across the valley's shadows passed us as the peak lit up with dawn and descended rapidly into the valley below. I could see a trail of lights leading nearly vertically up from the camp below, and below that, the valley we'd walked up. Further still, the trail head with cars parked as far as they could drive, then the road leading back to Lone Pine in the valley 11000 ft below.

Since I was ready to go I unhooked my prussik, tied in, and proceeded to climb the three ropes K and H had already set up the last steep bit to the top. By this stage the adrenalin had kicked in and I barely even felt out of breath. I was still overtaken by a few of the more competent climbers who climbed without ropes up over the final lip and onto the summit, a gently sloping, mostly snow free area a few hundred metres on a side. Near the summit a small stone hut served to provide (some measure of) refuge against lightning. Incredibly, the sky remained clear, the wind reasonably gentle. We ran around like headless chooks taking all the requisite photos, and either eating or throwing up, depending on the individuals state of mind. I got close enough to the edge to see the camp below and a more suitable chute to climb down in due course. T uncorked a bottle of beer he'd carried up for the occasion, PT served up his cake, and P (a different P) had, incredibly, ported a 15lb (7kg) watermelon to the summit, which was smashed with an ice axe and consumed. We took a group photo (with a few people shirtless, of course), and then decided it was time to get back.

We lined up at the ropes and commenced to rappel to back to the notch, then to walk back down. Walking back down is much the same as walking up, just in rewind. Below the last rocky section, I noticed a large rock (which I photographed) attached by a tiny bit of snow to the slope. I gave it a wide birth as I didn't want to send it to anyone who was descending in front of me. As I treasured the dry status of my pants, I opted to walk all the way down, but a few people opted to glissade, which, while fun, made a mess of the foot-holds! When I was about half way down, C, who had climbed back up with skies, began to ski back down. Some loose snow dislodged the rock of doom, which, weighing about 100kg, began to slide, roll, bounce, then richochet down the narrow chute. Several people screamed rock at such a pitch that I was expecting to meet the big one again, so I turned around and scooted to one side of the canyon. At first I saw only small rocks and snow bombs above me, but then I heard, and saw the big one bouncing around. I had about a second to work out where it was going and dodge - even with my quality helmet, prevention was better than cure.

As it went past me I would have been safe anywhere - it was going so fast it was about 8ft off the ground! It came to a halt a few hundred metres below me in a soft patch of snow - so I saw it a third and (thankfully) final time - in two pieces.

Before long I was back on the flat near the camp. By now the sun had warmed the interior of the tent enough to evaporate some of the ice and water from my stuff, and to sunburn the parts of my face I hadn't blocked out that morning (ie all of it). I blocked out swiftly, but there was still a moderate amount of damage. We dismantled, packed, retrieved wag bags, and, once again the quickest out, set out. One of the Ls had not summited due to altitude sickness, so H, descending rapidly, had packed her gear and taken her back down to lower boy scout lake. We were next out - avoiding the difficult section from the day before. N, coming in later after ice climbing, had tried going to the right of the chute, and had fallen up to his chest in a rock-well. Fortunately he could pull himself out using his ice-tools!

Pretty soon PG and P got sick of traversing the icy 55 degree slope without crampons and glissaded to the bottom of the valley, and walked out. Again opting for pants of dryness I traversed (in my now seriously battered crampons) and, with occasional rest breaks for my poor, unfit ticker, continued to walk back down with substantially less difficulty than the day before. At the slope above upper boy scout lake PG went for a glissade and became unbalanced, tumbling and dropping even more stuff (I already had collected his shovel). P, by this time, was nowhere to be seen. T, who is above 6'6", came down on skis from above. I was critiquing his stem turns on the left as he (rather deftly, I might add) negotiated alternating patches of rough and smooth, soft and icy snow. As he passed the compacted trail, he lost it and flew right at me. I jumped to the left, landing with 3 points (axe and two feet), and just missed getting a ski to the teeth. T picked himself up and skied down to help PG, who was disinclined to ascend a few hundred feet to collect some of his missing belongings. I turned back around and descended into the valley, forensically examining foot prints to determine a path of firmest snow to the next section. We tended to the right to avoid a series of cliffs (that T nearly went over on his skis), and before long, and with slight icyness, we were back at the first campsite, reunited with P (who had got there about an hour before, literally by the seat of his pants) and H and L, who was feeling much better. From here we knew it was only a short descent, though during this section we became a bit strung out and were more or less alone on the mountain. Down the steep chute with the false horizons, into the trees, avoiding post-holing into the stream or other hazards, back onto the Whitney trail, down the road to the waste disposal area, where I left rubbish in the appropriate places, then back down the road to where the cars were parked. I managed to fit into a car that was heading back down, and before long we were in Lone Pine.

In dribs and drabs car loads of people arrived at the bistro, ordered food, disappeared into the bathroom to change back into civs and wash their extremities, consume their own weight in Whitney burgers, compare sunburn, share horror stories, stare back at the summit (still visible), or watch 'bondi rescue' on TV. I ordered something with a salad, but it was delivered to the wrong part of the table and promptly consumed by others. No loss, I substituted with an enormous bowl of chips (in addition to the steak, corn, and baked potato I had already eaten).

H and I climbed into his rather nice 4WD and set off for Pasadena. It's about a 4 hour drive, and I struggled to stay awake for solidarity! The first 3 hours were not so bad and we shared our respective mountain climbing ambitions and Caltech experiences.

After I climbed Mt Baldy, I was really thinking "well that's my mountain for the year". The experience had not been sufficiently positive to make me want to repeat the experience for hedonistic reasons. Yet the Whitney trip was organised and attainable, and I'm sure my readers understand that I could not pass up such an opportunity. I was more than prepared to suffer extraordinarily for the duration of the trip, as I have on occasion done in the past, just so that I could complete it, or fail, having tried to the best of my ability, and thus know my capabilities. For the most part, however, the trip was pleasant. I was not challenged beyond any degree of discomfort or difficulty I've previously survived, and I was able to experience new things (like camping in snow) which were not so bad afterall.

So who knows. Its mesh bag does not entirely conceal my harness, and my battered but valiantly red crampons and blue ice axe will sit in the corner of my room saying 'use me again'. I might even go rock climbing some day, now that I have a harness and vibrams (toe shoes). Last time I climbed my piano playing suffered (and most would say it's already suffered enough!), but maybe this time will be different. In any case, I feel I know the mountains a little better than I did before.

What some people do for fun

"Rock!"

"Rock! Rock! Rock! Rock! Rock!" Our faithful guide PT echoed.

I planted my ice axe and looked up and up until my eyes met the horizon, seemingly above me. There skittering on the icy surface was a rock the size of my head, and on a sure path to displace it. It bounced to one side, crisis averted. Returning to intense concentration on breathing I focused once more on the point of my crampon - the only thing preventing me from zooming at terminal velocity down the bowl behind me right to our distant campsite where we had been roused at 4:30am.

While focusing on the immediate task at hand - my goal being to complete ten steps before gasping for breath, I noticed that my newly bought snow glasses still had a sticker on the lens- a huge blow to my credibility. Though most of my gear is old and well-used, I'd bought a few new things for this trip. Last Monday (6 days ago) I was mindlessly browsing the net looking for a US supplier of 'just add hot water' freeze dried camping food that worked so well in Tasmania a year ago. I realised with a timely email that in fact the trip was on Friday night, not in 'about a month' as I'd thought for the previous few weeks... reviewing the gear list I made some surgical purchases on Amazon.com (ice axe, crampons, glasses, harness, carabiner, descender, food, and a shiny blue laser...), draining my phone battery before the end of the class! :(

Fast forward to Friday. I packed and headed off to the rendezvous point about half an hour early - to make sure I could get a car seat and also to brush up on rope work which, I realised, I haven't done in 8 years! A short drive took us to the trail head by 8pm. Donning my headlamp I set off with the first group of 7 (of 17) hikers, reaching the Baldy ski hut about 2 somewhat strenuous hours walking in the dark (sometimes off the trail - it being hard to see and all) later. I found two trees close enough for my hammock, pitched camp, prepared dinner, then walked across to the snowy western side of the valley to chat with the people there, hand out Werther's Originals, and test out my ice-axe helping to make a flat camping area. Dinner was prepared and duly consumed, and after a bit of tuning my hammock was ready to go. I kept all my clothes inside the hammock to help insulate me and to keep them from freezing. Next morning I simply unzipped the bag, climbed into my clothes, and stepped out - no more to say.

One more thing to say - we were woken at 4:30am by PT, our trusty 'bad cop' guide. I had a muesli bar for breakfast, sipped my drink bottle, performed a quick triage on my gear that wouldn't be going up the mountain - tying it all inside my hammock, and set off to join the group. We checked our avalanche transponders, tethered our ice-axes, fitted our crampons, and set off.

Before long we'd reached the base of the bowl, and working our way between the outflows of a recent rock fall and an avalanche, began our climb just as the sun rose and kissed the tops of the craggy rocks forming the summit ridge of our mountain - still so far away.

Having found a suitably precipitously steep and icy bit of slope with not too many protruding rocks we were strongly encouraged to fling ourselves down the slope front-ways, back-ways, head-first, and upside-down. In each instance we were to use the ice axe to maneuver ourselves face down feet first and then stop. This exercise is called the 'self arrest', an essential skill if you are ever going to slip while climbing a snow covered mountain. It was rather exciting, not to mention peculiar. The muscles have a similar feeling to performing an eskimo roll in a kayak. A short video of the proceedings can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afZiFn088YU Photos of the whole event are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/CaseyHandmer/MtBaldyWinterTrip#

K and P, the other two guides, yelled up the slope that it was time - the rising sun had warmed the air above freezing, and any rocks/boulders broken off by last night's freeze would soon unfreeze and commence a terminal flight to the bottom of the valley, already hundreds of meters below us, and hopefully not ricocheting off any of our heads. We traversed out of the danger zone and across the bowl to our chosen chute. One of 14 on this ridge, it was called 'once is enough', or possibly something else. Misidentifications are possible. After fixing some crampon trouble (I was wearing my waterproof but ankleless summer hiking shoes) I found myself directly below our chosen chute, and commenced an increasingly breathless climb upwards.

As I neared the base of the chute, the previously described episode of 'rock' occurred (a number of times), as people dislodged small rocks with their feet as the climbed. A chute is a narrow space in between boulders that fills with snow and can thus be climbed. Theoretically at least. The winning strategy was to kick steps as you go - each lasted just long enough to move to the next one. After a few twists and turns we emerged at the top of the ridge with blasting icy wind (okay it wasn't that bad!) and, after a short break, continued towards the summit. Again I found myself quickly out of breath, though the rest of my body felt great, despite its abuse. Last time I climbed baldy I got a bit of a headache - this time I was in the clear. I just had to concentrate intently on breathing on every step, and continuing to breathe after I stopped for a rest.

Moving almost agonisingly slowly I eventually reached the summit, now snow capped and very windy. There was a small wall for a wind-break - about four people could fit behind it. The remaining 13 of us ran around (as much as we were able) and sacrificed the summit watermelon according to tradition (with an axe). We traversed to a neighbouring steep bit. I should state that in summer all this would be impossible as it is just mounds of super-critical and bottomless scree, but in winter the snow affords a surface that can be climbed on.

We dug a few holes to prepare 'dead man' belay points, and also made a snow bollard. We then practised rapelling (abseiling) and prussiking. Prussiking is a way of climbing a dodgy section to which a rope has already been fitted with a safety point. The abseiling was lots of fun, and probably the easiest thing we did all day. At about the same time we lost one of our guides (P), and K went to search for him (who was searching for us). After dismantling the ropes stuff we traversed yet more icy snow and began our descent.

Every step downwards felt better, as though I could breath again. Soon we reached the top of another chute, and were strongly encouraged to attempt to glissade all the way down the bowl back to the camp site about 1600 vertical feet (500m?) below us. This was possibly the most tiring part of the whole exercise. After some zigzags to avoid inconveniently placed rocks, I ignored the steady accumulation of snow in my pants and top and zoomed down the hill so fast I had increasingly slushy snow flying over my shoes in front of me and spraying everywhere. My ears popped. With one or two self-arrests I brought myself in a semi-controlled way to the base of the snow pack and the campsite. I packed away my stuff, checked out the (rather comfortable looking) hut, and commenced my descent back to the carpark.

I had initially considered spending a second night on the mountain and attempting another igloo, but snow conditions were less than favourable for such exploits. So off I went. Not far down the trail I hear a couple of men speaking to each other in Russian. Swallowing any vestiges of bashfulness I may once have had I called out 'zdravstvutye, kak vy pozhivaetye?', and spent the better part of the next hour of descent speaking as much Russian as I could remember to these guys, who were rather surprised by my Russian adventures, as related mainly in this blog (and an older one). We had a good chat about the strategy of Russia retaining the southern Kuril Islands, about the richness and poorness of Russia, the continuing effects of the communist era, and other points of mutual interest. Clearly no adventure is complete without wrapping your tongue around such words as "dalina geyzerov" "Kolyma", and "vyertalot"!

In the car park, I repressed my sudden and unexpected craving for pancakes, packed my stuff in to M's car, and began the long and rather dozy ride back to main campus, where, I knew, a scrumptious dinner of pasta con tomato et egg was only a few short minutes of preparation away.