Back in Galway

I'm back in Galway for a few weeks. Weather as expected for this time of the year: wet, dark and windy. After a hot summer back in Romania, I can't say I mind the weather here too much...

Ski touring

First ski touring trip this season, a two hours long climb in Bâlea. Legs did their fair share of work but upper body gave in pretty much from the beginning. Longer trips are out of the question without some additional training...

Ice and Rocks

Sîmbăta Valley

Some pictures from last Sunday's hike up the Sîmbăta Valley. I stayed low as higher up avalanche risk jumped from nil to 4 overnight. It looks like more snow and lower temperatures are heading this way.

Taste of winter

Work has been keeping me away from the mountains lately. After a few failed attempts, I managed to squeeze in a short trip yesterday morning. Winter has settled in at high elevations since I went up there last, and looks like it means business this year.

Panorama of Doamnei Valley

I took a quick trip into the mountains before work today. Weather was too nice to pass up.

Lounging

Azumi catching some beauty sleep.

A blast from the past

I captured this image yesterday while cycling an old mountain road. It reminds me of my childhood. The pickup is a TV 12, aka "Teveu", a utility vehicle built in Romania during the communist years. A rare sight now.

Different

A B&W shot I took yesterday. The tree was standing out from the surrounding evergreens through foliage and color.

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.

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?!

Winter fighting back

We have been trapped inside the hut by a wild snowstorm all day today. The weather turned bad in a matter of hours.

Sunday Outing

Glorious weather for third day in a row. Sunny, no wind whatsoever. Having arrived at the hut yesterday afternoon, the plan for today was to pay a visit to our neighbors to the North, Vf. Omu weather station, some two and a half hours away (by foot or ski). I left quite early to avail of the frozen snow. The weather and landscape were an invitation to stop often and take lots of pictures. Spent about two hours at the station discussing avalanches, weather fronts, heliografs (sunshine recorders) and many other things with the guys on duty. On my way back I tried to hide my face from the sun as much as possible. Why, you might ask? Well, the sunblock decided to stay at home... Finally some pictures:

Morarului Ridge

Gaura Valley

Omu Hut

Bucsoiu Peak (2492m)

My latest hairdo :p

Fresh powder

We got spoiled with fresh powder this morning. The fog lifted just in time giving us the chance to carve the perfect lines for most of the day.

Skiing in Postavaru

It has been snowing at a slow but steady rate for the past couple of days. Skiing on piste, taking advantage of the lifts and avoiding avalanche areas, sounded like a good idea this morning. Not having to wait in line at the lifts was great, today being a working day. For the same reason good snow lasted for longer. Fog was the only minor nuisance. Total vertical descent: 4816m. A great day overall.

Scurtă tură în Valea Bâlea

Pornesc de acasă tîrziu, ajung sus la Bâlea Cascadă un pic dupa ora 3:00pm. Pun focile pe schiuri și o iau în sus pe Transfăgărăsan. Zăpada este neatinsă. Un strat proaspăt de 15-20cm acoperă orice urmă. Urc încet, fără grabă.

O capră neagră se hrănește cu lăstari tineri la cîțiva metri de drum. Nestingherită iși vede mai departe de treaba. Mă opresc din cînd in cînd să fac cîte o poză. Stau și ascult: valea este încremenită, nici o adiere, nici un zgomot.

Începe să se întunece. Urc de aproape două ore, sunt deja în golul alpin. E timpul să fac cale întoarsa. Scot focile si încep coborîrea. La masină ajung pe întuneric , la lumina frontalei.

Văile Viștișoara si Viștea

După o săptămînă de congelator in Bucegi m-am gîndit să mă încălzesc puțin acasă, la Cîrtișoara. Ca să nu stau toată ziua degeaba m-am dus să văd noua pîrtie de schi "Moțul Drăgușului" deschisă de curînd în apropierea complexului turistic Sîmbăta. De dimensiuni modeste, deocamdată, pîrtia se pretează începătorilor. Din cîte am auzit, în primăvară vor începe lucrările de extindere a pîrtiei. De întors m-am întors pe sub munte, prin locurile unde am copilărit si pe unde n-am mai trecut de cîtiva ani buni.

Valea Viștișoara

Valea Viștea

Four Elements

Air, Fire, Earth and Water

Pinus Mugo

Evergreen dwarfed tree native to mountainous areas in Central and Southern Europe.

In the blizzard