Alpine Adventure

 Our original plan for this trip was, to do a series of snowshoeing and rock climbing. Upon arrival there was very little snow so we decided to not take the snowshoes. Our hike started at just over 800 meters. We then continued up the Berg (German word for Mountain) for an additional 1100 meters to an altitude of 1900 meters. Were we saw some "deer" (I forgot the name). We were probably 40 ft from them and it was totally cool. The only bad part was that we had to back track down the Berg because we could not continue with the route we chose without climbing the wall and we did not have cams to anchor us into the wall. Needless to say we ended up doing the same thing again until we went to the other side of the valley where a Hut was.

Once at the hut we had lunch and relaxed for a bit. We ended up climbing to the top of the other side of the valley and we were able to see a better view as well. (Santis)
Below are some pictures of our adventure (I tried to arrange the pictures in the right order but gave up - sorry).

Pfänder Rock climbing

I think the next few posts I make are going to be about the new hobbies I have picked up since moving to Germany. The first one I am going to write about is rock climbing.

 I have been rock climbing on and off now for a little bit and this weekend Gus took me out for the real thing. The place we went to is Pfänder (a MT in Bregenz, Austria). Beth and I have been there a few times before and Gus has told of this place and we had no idea where this was because we never saw a place that looked remotely close to rock climbing. Sure enough it is there. Beth and I have never been to this part of the MT as we thought Pfänder was only the tourist place with a cable car. Come to find out it is much more. Not that we can say we explored anything more either.

From the parking lot it is a nice hike to the climbing section of the MT. There are many other hiking trails with great views of the city and Alps as well. There's even a trail that will take you to where Beth and I have always gone before - a trail I think we will have to explore later on. My first day to Pfänder we chose easier routs (level 4 to 5). This was for 2 reasons: 1 it was my first time doing this outside on real rock, 2 it was the first time this year for everyone and a good warm-up run.

The first climb was easy, but it surely adds a level of realness to it. It is hard to explain but when climbing indoors things seem much safer and things like that. The second climb we tried to do a level climb (I forget the technical term for it) where you both climb up to the top of one and then continue on the next one. This is what is done if you want to climb lets say 60m up. The rope is 60 meters long but you have to have enough rope to go up and down meaning you can only go 30 meters up at a time. (Sorry fellow Americans but get use to meters rather than feet - you know the metric system is better anyway. Multiply by 3 and you will be close) This didn't work as we couldn't find where the top rope was and therefore it didn't make since to continue on, so we all went back down.

On Sunday Gus and I did the same place again (Lindsay and Jeremy came along but went hiking). This time we did some other climbs and higher climbs as well. I was doing great until the last climb of the day. This was a level 6+. I was doing great until I was about 5-8 meters from the top. There are 2 really difficult parts to this climb. the first one was getting over the sandstone section and the other was getting pass a smooth section on the rock. I couldn't figure out how to get past this section so I had to repel down.

There is a saying Gus and Lindsay told me about. It is "tops off for Power". A friend of theirs went climbing with them and before he started he said "TOPS OFF FOR POWER!!!!" and took his shirt off. Come to find out he was 95% professional. Well, part way up the climb I determined I needed more power and it was tops off for power time. After I did this Gus decided he better do the same thing and did.

Below are some pictures from my climbing weekend.

 

Gus, Lindsay, and Jeremy - eating lunch

 This is Gus's leg looking down.

 Last climb of the day. The climb follows the crack most of the way. I got a little above the where the tree is in the crack.

The next few pictures I took at the top of my first climb on Sunday. What a great view!

 More pictures Gus took

Happy Birthday to 2 special people

33 or 53 years ago was a special day for my brother and my Mother. In keeping with the tradition Beth and I started while in Germany, here is your birthday cake picture. I decided to get a large one because there are 2 Birthdays and this of course calls for extra goodness. I am not sure if it is a good thing I have to eat this all by myself or not...I guess it is a good thing I ran (over 6 miles) today and I plan to do the same thing again tomorrow.

For those wondering what it is like...

It is a Milka cake/Tort. I ate 1/2 of it today...it is very rich as the top is like a Milka candy bar. The inside is like a layered cake with frosting in the middle - it was a frozen Tort so the cake part is more like a the frozen cake than a regular baked cake (hard to explain). The bottom is like a giant wafer cookie. The out side is lined with little ball like Milka chocolate.

Michigan

Sorry the posts have been a bit slow in coming lately.  I (Beth) have been in Michigan for almost a week now because my mom was sick in the hospital and we decided last minute that I would come to help out my family since I wasn't doing much in Germany.  It has been a good time here so far and Mom is doing quite well and improving since I got here.  I'm here for about another week and a half.

Brian is still in Germany and keeping himself busy.  He's had quite a few adventures this first weekend alone and is planning to have some more in the next week and weekend.  I'll have to have him post a few blogs with the pictures that he's taken this weekend and tell you about what he's been up to.  I'll try to catch up on a few things that we've been doing in the past weeks since our visitors were here in the beginning of March.