First day here, it'd just snowed and I got the offer of going skiing at Ax le Thermes - a resort 30 mins away. I went along, undecided as to whether to hire skis or a snowboard. I'd never done either apart from some skiing at sheffield ski village (dry slope) back when I was at school. Anyway ended up going for a board as I've always enjoyed the movement and feeling of going fast on boards. It took a couple of hours before I was going anywhere near fast though! Ian kindly gave me a quick bit of tuition in the morning then I was off by myself enjoying it, was good to learn something new. Great fun but it all felt a bit artificial. I guess this is why people get into off piste/touring/back country or whatever? It felt like quite a cheap thrill really - getting whisked up a 2,500 m mountain with no effort and then hurtling down it on a prepared surface. I think Tez hit the nail on the head when he said he sees it in a similar light to going bowling...
A few days into my stay, my feeble body gave in to a bout of sickness. I think it was down to drinking too much of the dodgey water from the 'old source' ( the 'new source' was frozen up). Anyway, a night of violent dry retching and squirting through the eye of a needle ensued, sometimes simultaneously, nice. I've still not got much appetite as the guts got a thorough undoing but I'm too fat anyway at the moment so perhaps that's not such a bad thing. Fortunately the new, cleaner source is thawed and back in action so hopefully will enjoy good health for the rest of my stay.
Only managed to go climbing once so far but it was the probable highlight of my week. We hit the local world-class class sport crag, Calames. I didn't actually expect to do any climbing as I was still feeling pretty ropey after my sickness bout and had barely eaten anything since. Once there though I inevitably ended up climbing. Didn't get up anything apart from the warm up but just thouroghly enjoyed been at the crag and climbing again. I was worried about the elbows at first but they were fine, get in! Tried tez's project, a great 7c called bamboula which as well as being awesome felt totally desperate but hopefully that's mostly due to the state I was in. I did manage all the moves, nice little short term (with luck) project anyway to get me back into the swing of things - it's pretty pokey, hard slappy moves, no rests, pe based... Think I might try and stick to routes of this style (at least for redpoints) as I think it'll do me more favours (ie get me stronger) for my bouldering and route ambitions when I go back to the UK. Anyway, I digress, the main thing is elbows are back in town, another month and i reckon they'll be back to 100%.
Had a good day yesterday too, I'd have been keen to go climbing but Ian and Ben had planned to walk up a mountain near the house here so I tagged along. Up we suffered with me, obviously the least fit, suffering the most. Was good though, amazing views. We used snow shoes most of the way which were vital really, still lots of deep snow about! A few hours later I made it as far as the indended summit before calling it a day and following our tracks back down to the house, legs a bit thrashed! The other two fitness machines got their crampons and metal work out and bagged the rest of the summits along the ridge.
Haven't got any photos. Think Ian might have taken some. In the mean time this gives some idea:
except it's colder with more snow about and there aren't many lakes (apart from a few artificial ones - dammed valleys)So yeah, all this amongst the odd evening social engagement and some man-strength increasing graft, it's felt like a fairly busy time. Not enough climbing but that should be rectified this week. Got the beastmaker mounted too and have hit that a couple of times. Will go and hit it again now but a bit knackered from moving and splitting logs this morning.
sounds really interesting all this
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