Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Like a pig in mud

I’ve been trying to blog for months now. I wasn’t sure what to write about as I don’t have epic outdoor adventures to post about. I have been on some fun hikes, I am training for a marathon and I’ve been doing cool weekend activities, but none of that is very interesting. My corporate life is really all consuming. I work, a lot. I’m still not sure I love it, I’m not sure I want to be a lawyer and I know I miss the mountains more than anything. However, the reality is that I am enjoying aspects of life. I like that I’ve settled down in Melbourne, I like the friends I’ve made and that I’m using my brain. Though chatting to my friend Cara from Kashmir the other day reminded me of what I’m missing and that it’s easier than you think to fall into this life and think it’s necessary. Hopefully something more will happen for me soon-ish.
 
Today I do want to post as it’s snowing. LIKE REALLY SNOWING – 50cm in 48 hours!! More importantly, this weekend I headed up to the snow with a new friend who has seen snow twice and skied once. When we arrived late Friday night after a long roll up the Hume, a breath test by some police who assured me I was driving at more than 40km/hr at the old entry gate and after waiting for a truck clearing a mud slide on the road there wasn’t any snow. My friend seemed rather excited that there was no need to negotiate slippery slopes up the hill to the apartment.

After watching the Tour de France ride into a little town in the Alps of France where I stayed during my adventures this past summer and collapsing with tiredness after a long week in the office I slept pretty well Friday night. Waking up Saturday we were in a legitimately wild blizzard by anyone’s standards. It had snowed about 15 cm overnight but there was that classic snow/ice/wind combo that you only see in the Australian high country. With only the Big D and Summit trainer open I decided it wasn’t the best day to learn to teach someone to ski. Funnily enough just teaching someone to negotiate the snow to go for a walk was almost enough of an adventure. Ice in your face is apparently not that pleasant for someone not accustomed to it.

It snowed another 20cm as we watched Finding Nemo, a football game and ate delicious food. So, on Sunday, there was to be no excuses. Learn to ski day. Instead of forking out the $150 it would have cost for a lift ticket and hire for my friend I decided cross country skiing (on the parents’ skis) was a better option. After finding thermals a particularly feminine spotty neck warmer and old gear of mine that fitted we both headed outside the apartment in the still very windy icy world. My friend was surprisingly adept at plodding up the hill and started to get the hang of snowplough for the downhill, and so off we trundled down past the Big D, the General and all the lodges. It was a big success, I think, with only a few crashes for each of us. Most of these were into powder which was a nice cushion! A good intro into the snow.

One of the best things about this weekend was realising that the snow really is my environment. When you realise how difficult that kind of environment is for someone totally unused to it, it is increasingly apparent how comfortable I am up there. I’m happy. I’m relaxed. I feel good in the clothes I wear, fulfilled by the things I do and confident with the people I know up in the alternate universe that is a ski resort. I love showing someone the good things about that life and how it can be amazingly fun despite the cold, wet and windy inhospitable environment. So, this past weekend, has refreshed and re-inspired me to make sure I use what I’m doing now to find a way to live in my place, and to be who I want to be. Even if I have to wait.
 
Keep smiling!
 
Alex

Sunday, April 14, 2013

Nuclear Flashpoint - a documentary on Kashmir

Given my life is no longer full of exciting snowboarding days it is time for my blog to branch out. This is a documentary I stumbled across this afternoon on the political situation in Kashmir...

Living on water - mum washing at the boat dock
I'm not sure I entirely agree with the construction of the people of Kashmir entirely as victims. In my mind they are all proud people - Muslim, Hindu of Pandit, with a great innate hope for the future which I'm not sure is conveyed entirely. At the least the first 15 minutes are worth a watch for anyone who has no idea about why there is a war in Kashmir.

I enjoyed a surf this morning - I probably couldn't have felt further from Kashmir when floating out in the waves on yet another beautiful Autumn morning in Australia.

More to follow on Kashmir, a wonderful hike scouting terrain for a ski touring near Falls Creek and other plans for winter in Australia. I'm excited to start blogging again!

Hope you are all well! 

Friday, March 1, 2013

Memories of Kashmir

Being on the border of Pakistan, running from the army dogs, adventuring in the Himalayan powder, drowning in powder, drinking Chai, making amazing friends... This is what Gulmarg, Kashmir is...
Wandering up to the summit of Mt Apharwat on split boards... 
Spot Jesse walking to the top of Monkey hill


I wrote this reflection whilst ill in bed. Throughout my time in Gulmarg, the generosity of the people was amazing, and, the joy with which the local people approach life, a pretty damn tough life, was inspiring. Oh, and the snow was okay too!





"This town is insane, I feel like I've met more people I connect with in the last 10 days than the last few years. We roll through days as a community of crazy-ass skiers. I don't quite know how to describe the sheer joy of floating on powder, of partaking in uncontrolled whopping and then dinning with 17 adventurous people for a few dollars a day.
Split-fest. Riding down to the river with a big group before a walk back up through the little village, Drang, often inaccessible by road in the winter.
Top of the one of the highest gondola's in the world 3,979m 
Lunch time at one of the dhabas at the midstation of the gondola!
Making crazy friends who like candlelit jumps in the night and long walks on the
beach. Thanks Turtle for a one in a million experience!
The skiing here is exceptional; endless bowls and faces of powder to explore. There were only about 40 real skiers in town when I arrived in January! I have had without doubt some of the best turns in my life, including a fairly technical descent of Shark Fin Colouir - ask somebody, it was epic! Cara, a new friend from England, and I went for it. We were the 3rd and 4th people to ride the line for the season!! An amazingly big day that evinced just a little jealousy from our male companions.
The couloir! My track is the highest one that dog legs out to the viewers left before coming back through the narrower little line into the main couloir! 
Happy Cara walking out of the Shark Fin bowl!
Although the phrase "not possible" is a favourite of Indians and Kashmiris, everything seems possible here. The absolute freedom we as westerners feel is pretty electrifying.  I wish I could share that joy with some Kashmiri women. Unfortunately, except a few rich (usually Indian) tourists there is literally no women in town. It makes it a fairly strange experience living here - all the men have homes in villages down the mountain in which their wives and children wait for them for a cold winter. This leaves Gulmarg as a very testosterone filled environment. 
Sledge wallahs on the golf course waiting for some Indian tourists to pull around...
Fayz, the manager of the backpackers where Cara and I first stayed. 
I felt like a bit of a pornstar just going for a run around town. There were definitely videos being taken by Indian military men. In addition, I was nearly attacked by a pretty scary dog, but I survived after 10 mins of nervous backwards walking!!

If others will take photos of me without asking, I will take photos of them!
Loved this ski suit a little too much!!
However, all that testosterone has some advantages too. Us lucky western ladies feel like princesses. Currently I'm staying for free at one of the swankier hotels in town. Feels a bit bizarre to have had a bath in Gulmarg, but maybe I should embrace the recuperation it allows. My traveling body is certainly becoming weary!

Many of the people who end up here seem to be in search of something more. Perhaps it comes from the many years most of us have spent living the hedonistic ski-town life. Everyone seems to be an adrenaline junky, nearly everyone is well educated, and most of us, to a certain extent, need to justify our freedom. Sometimes I wish we could all just be happy in the moment. However, I guess when each moment is as intense as those here we feel the need to actually earn those turns over and above walking up the mountain. I'm not entirely sure anyone can earn these kinds of experiences. How can I deserve to do what I love every moment? It feels especially indulgent in the face of the poverty and unhappiness that is the life of many Kashmiri people. I guess what I hope, and many of my Gulmarg friends seem to dream about, is using the happiness we experience to improve the lot of others."
Big group skiing the lower part of the mountain for my last day. 
Saying good bye to many new friends!
It's good to feel wanted...
And so my days on the road ended. I will post again at some point a bit more about the political situation in Kashmir. The time in Gulmarg certainly did make me hope that in the future I can find a way to combine the love of my life, snow, with some useful social goal. 

We will have to wait and see though, because, for the moment I'm at a desk in a suit trying out life as a lawyer! I'm trying not to worry too much as to what the future holds. Jack Kerouac eloquently sums it up in an excerpt from On the Road I happened to read after a particularly stressful time near the end of my trip: 

"They have their worries, they're counting the miles, they're thinking about where to sleep tonight, how much money for gas, the weather, how they'll get there - and all the time they'll get there anyway, you see. But they need to worry and betraying time with urgencies false and otherwise, purely anxious and whiny, their souls won't be at peace unless they can latch on to an established and proven worry and having once found it they assume facial expressions to fit and go with it, which is, you see, unhappiness, and all the time it all flies by them and they know it and that too worries them no end..."

Being the turtle rather than the hare on the way down the mountain going home... 

Sunday, January 13, 2013

Achtung!! Gletscherspalte!!! [Danger!! Crevasse!!!]

Funnily my time at the Auberge de Jeunesse de Chamonix was characterised by lots of epic ski runs with some crazy folks from the south of Germany. I thus learnt some handy German phrases to use in the back country. Words cannot explain the amazing quantity and variety of skiable terrain from the resorts that surround Chamoniux. I have to find a way to live here in the future! Pictures can NEARLY explain the "epicness"...

Photo credits to Sebastian and Mathius [see Mats blog at http://blog.heckes.cc/] & a few are even mine.

Mont Blanc from the top of Grand Montets
Team Germany + me. Thank you for including me!! On route to the Pas du Chevre line to meet up with the Vallee Blanche
Yep you know...
In all that fluff is a little bit of my helmet = good times.
Searching for an exit...
Being the guinea pig down what is kind of an exit couloir. Someone was choppered out in the afternoon... I think I stole all the snow!


 
The Vallée Blanch is a classic Chamonix line from the gondola that goes to the Aigulle du Midi, a Mt Blanc viewing platform. It was good to get out the crampons after lugging them around Europe!
Ice tunnel at the top of the Aiguille du Midi
Crampon action/ unfortunately the fixed rope wasn't in place the whole way until the day after we went. It was critical not to fall to the left, you probably would have landed w few thousand feet down in Chamonix town!

Some context of the size of the glacier path, Sasha was standing only 20m away!

Strugglers in the trees!
We also got a bit of touring in on my new bling lib tech splitboard... Aussie teleskier, Tim, joined us for his first real powder run. It was great to see that powder smile on his face and the begginings of PPS (powder panic syndrome) in his eyes...
The boys skinning up behind me
Pretty happy with the new ride!

Being pregnant trying to keep my skins warm down my jacket. From right Johann, Tim and Matthuis. Props to Johann for doing the tour in snowshoes!
After Chamonix I visited some smaller ski resorts; La Clusaz, Le Grande Bornand and Combloux (Megéve), competed in a freeride event and was hosted by an awesome new french friend but these are stories for later. It is time to go splurge on a french patisserie and pack the bags once again!


Aurevoir, Auf Wierdersehen, Goodbye

I'm saying goodbye to Europe as today is my last full day. I am spending it in Annecy and have just enjoyed half a kilo of cheese at the local market. Tomorrow I jump on a plane to Delhi from Geneva, I am pretty sure I could not have chosen too more contrasting cities to leap between; can not wait for the culture shock!! To update comprehensively on the last 6 weeks may be a bit too challenging for me, especially given that the French keyboard I am typing on is particularly fun! However, I can manage a short highlights reel.

I have travelled on land and sea (yes, on sea, there was a memorable night ferry from Harwich, UK to the Hoek of Holland, Netherlands) from London to Annecy via Amsterdam, Berlin, Zurich, Verbier, Chamonix, La Clusaz carrying nothing less than 2 backpacks and one ridiculously heavy board bag. Being a pack horse is certainly a good way to meet people, the number of times a bus driver, conductor or good samaritan has helped me on or off a train is truly heart warming!

Aside from the epic powder skiing and glacier negotiation in Chamonix, see below, I have loved the chance I have had to make some pretty special memories with friends and family. It has been a vast contrast to the rather solo travel I have experience over the past winters in Canada.

Spending time with my brother and his fiance in London, including eating REAL jerk chicken in Brixton (included just for Jess) and a ramble in the English Country side with a lunch at the historic Rams Head Pub.

Catching up with my Canmore family in Amsterdam, thank you for the couch Jorrit, I hope the giant pig balloon is still haunting you!
Frieda dancing in the street with our present for Jorrit. A giant pig head balloon!
Jorrit, aka sleezy dutch guy


Self timer photos of the ugliest part of Amsterdam, it is a pretty city so hard to find this!
Frieda and I then jumped on a train to Berlin to meet up with my cousin Laura. With help of a "local" guide Gabby, a friend from Melbourne, we had the most amazing time exploring this vibrant city. We went to concerts in abandonned buildings, trawled through the most amazing fleamarket at Mauer Park, ate meal after meal of delicious food, danced the night away at a typical club and generally enjoyed the "vibe". Historical lessons included a pretty harrowing but worthwhile visit to Sacchenhausen Concentration Camp, a visit to the Stasi museum and dinner with a real life East Berliner who remembered the wall falling (this is a story best told in person!). Although it is far from the most beautiful city in the world, I found it amazingly hard to leave.
East Side Gallery: I saw the artist behind these faces in a bizarre concert later in the week.
The holocaust memorial in Berlin
And the germans like eating pigs: my first try of a "pig foot" with lots of other forms of pig!

Street Art = Berlin
After an overnight train from Berlin, Zurich was a bit of a disappointment. Geez Switzerland is expensive and really not that interesting after the adventures of Berlin. Luckily I quickly moved on to Verbier to spend Christmas with Laura, her brother (who lives in Geneva) and good friends hosted by Laura's brother and his gorgeous girlfriend. It was a fantastic time. The skiing was fairly good, the food too good and the company a lot of fun. My competitive self was bummed to lose a post fondue night tobboggan race down the ski run! Unfortunately my camera sat in the bottom of my bag, photo credits to Laura!

Aprés Ski
Christmas Dinner
Fondue!
Toboggan racing is tricky on a full cheese stomach
More like the turtle than the hare with the 5cm of fresh snow!
With a big dint in my funds that was entirely worth it, I chuffed off to spend a few weeks in the relative cheap Chamonix over the New Year...