View over Făgăraș Mountains

We woke up to beautiful weather this morning. I shot this panoramic image just before breakfast. Went up to Bâlea shortly afterward. Snow was very wet and heavy so I didn't stay long. Hopefully the snow will settle over the next few days.

Hellbent

K2 organized a ski test in Bâlea yesterday. Everyone was welcomed to try their new 2011 skis. I was pleasantly surprised by the maneuverability of the K2 Hellbent ski, with 132mm underfoot and a full-rocker profile it was designed for deep powder but performed beautiful in much harder snow. Carrying these bad boys up the mountain is another story altogether.

At play in Bâlea

Yesterday started with clear skies and beautiful views of the Făgăraș Mountains which meant skiing in Bâlea was on. Gear, dog into the car and at 10am I was at the cable car at Bâlea Waterfall. One small problem however, no one else was around and they won't start the damn thing with less than 10 people on board. There's the option of an extra fee one can pay, the price of about 7 tickets, to get in and to the top. Two more people showed up, eager to go so we split the damage.

It was a bit windy at the top but snow was just perfect. Avalanche risk 3 out of 5 at above 2000m. We skied down a few slopes, taking pictures during breaks. The repaired ski was holding fine. Couple of hours later blood on the snow was a sign to cut the day short, Miercuri's paw started bleeding, snow can be very abrasive at times. Before our final descent to Bâlea Waterfall we crossed to the other side of the mountain through the longest road tunnel in Romania (887m) to enjoy some beautiful southerly views.

Bâlea Lac Hut with Capra Saddle (2315m) in the background

Paltinu Hut

View over Bâlea Valley

View from Doamnei Saddle

The entrance in Doamnei Valley

Leaving the tunnel

View to the South

One of the many avalanches we encountered today

Miercuri taking a break

Emerging Crocuses

Backcountry skiing stays amazing

What a week it has been in the Bucegi Mountains! With close to perfect snow I have been nailing great lines almost every day. One of the skis is in need of repair now and needs to be fixed before I can head to the Făgăraș Mountains. The screws at the front of the binding have become loose and I am unable to tighten them. It is a similar problem with the one described in my earlier post.

Fog, wind and hoar-frost...

... sums up our day today.

Back in the Bucegi mountains

Back in Bucegi until the snow settles in Balea and the avalanche risk drops to more manageable levels. When I left the hut this morning the mountain was covered in fog, so I turned my GPS unit on, the track-back function is a lifesaver when the weather gets really bad. It wasn't the case today, halfway into the descent the fog cleared for almost an hour, more than enough time to enjoy the ride down, soak up the sun at the bottom and take some pictures.

Alaska journal found

Today I've found the journal I kept during my trip to Alaska in 2003. I'm still missing half of the digital photos I took during that trip...

B&W HDR Experiment

I've been experimenting with creating HDR images in Ubuntu using Qtpfsgui (recently renamed, more sanely, Luminance HDR). I couldn't get the colors quite right, need to dig more into the docs for that, so I've converted the image to Black and White. I've used 3 images taken at -2, 0 and +2. Perspective correction has been done in Hugin and I've applied a bit of noise reduction in Gimp using the G'Mic plugin.

Bâlea Valley yet again

I'm back in Cârtișoara after spending two weeks in the Bucegi Mountains. Rushed through Easter shopping this morning and around one o'clock I had the car parked at Bâlea Waterfall (1200m) and was all set to start my ascent to Bâlea Lake (2034m). I checked the avalanche forecast before I left the house, it was 4 out of 5 at and above 1800m. Not great, but judging from what I saw in Bucegi I thought the forecasters were playing it safe. Will keep my eyes open anyway! I decided to follow the road as much as possible. Had to walk almost 1km to reach snow and put the skis on. A snowmobile track made my life much easier.

Suddenly I saw the footprints of a brown bear. So they're out of hibernation, big and hungry! Mister Bear had followed the path of least resistance, which was the snowmobile track I was following. Not good! My dog got excited. Dogs have the nasty habit of chasing bears, pissing them off and then running back to you for protection. That's when the trouble starts. Luckily mine forgot about the bear very soon and went to chase a squirrel scent instead. The bear left the trail a few hundred meters from where I first spotted his footprints. All clear!

About an hour into the ascent I met some snowmobilers. One of them had an accident which resulted in a few broken ribs. His friends were helping him of the mountain. Everything was under control so I pushed on. You'll see from the pictures that the higher you get, the steeper the terrain gets. To avoid a few avalanche prone areas I had to get off the skis and put the ice axe and crampons to work. Just to play it safe. It took me about 4 hours to reach Bâlea Lake and I was more tired than I expected. The last part took its toll. Snow was much softer and deeper than in Bucegi. It has still over 240cm in depth at the top of the valley while in Bucegi it doesn't have more than 90cm at the same altitude.

Caught my breath for a few minutes, ate half a sandwich, removed the skins from my skis, tightened my ski boots and I was ready to descend. What took me 3 hours to climb took less than 20 minutes to descend. The steeper part at the top was a lot of fun although the snow was somewhat heavy, making steering quite difficult. I got to my car about one hour after leaving the top.

Driving back to Cârtișoara I thought a bit about the possible dangers I avoided today: big hungry bear, rock slide, avalanches, fall. Knowledge plays a big role in staying safe but luck needs to be thrown into the mixture to guarantee a safe return. Or is it Karma?!

First Lx3 panoramas

First panoramas stitched from photos shot with my Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3 camera. I used Hugin for this task, an excellent piece of software. In the past I always needed to mark the control points manually but this time they were automatically detected and images were placed in correct order without my intervention. Cropping the final image can now also be done in Hugin, I used Gimp for this task in the past.