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Played tourist for thursday and friday on a good ol' road trip down the Big Sur coast to San Simeon. Then came back through the Santa Lucia mountains near Cone Peak, collected marble samples by the roadside, visited the old Spanish mission of San Antonio de Padua. Got a flat tire while coming out of the mountains, which made us cancel the plan to visit the Pinnacles.

Worked Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. JT tomorrow.

Went climbing 3 out of 4 days, but spent all of them sick from the infamous "boat crud." Had to climb! Was happy to finally meet Alois at J-Tree Friday, did some climbing with a friend until we got soaked like drowned rats, but I don't quite had my landlegs after spending 3 weeks on a ship. Made it to Tahquitz on Sunday, 34 degrees at the trail head, couldn't have been more than 50 at the rock. Did a multi-pitch on snow and ice, had trouble on the friction descent due to ice and resorted to some emergency sling rappeling, barely made our way to the packs before sunlight completely disappeared and the temps dropped back to 34. Very exciting climb indeed!

Great hearing what everyone's been up to.

I went mountain biking on Mt. Seymour for about three and a half hours on Saturday. Went to a friend's company Christmas party on Saturday night.

Went for an easy two hour hike around Buntzen Lake on Sunday. Then saw some awesome films at the <a href=http://www.banffmountainfestivals.ca>Banff Mountain Film Festival</a> Sunday night. The festival is touring 200 cities around the world. If you get a chance to see it near you, the mixed climbing in "Musashi" a 13 minute Canadian film, is unbelievable!!!!

My wife and I - tired of cold/foggy Portland weather - decided at 'the last minute' to shoot down to Las Vegas for some warm Red Rock climbing. Did "Cat in the Hat" and "Physical Graffitti" and scored a late exit ticket. Were planning on Solar Gully/Slab combo on day 3, but it started to rain (guess we brought some P. Northwest weather down there with us). Nevertheless, drove home happy to have done two very enjoyable climbs in very enjoyable weather. Can't wait to go back there.

My wife & I hiked to the meadows below <a href=http://www.summitpost.com/mountains/mountain_link.pl/mountain_id/504>Mount Forgotten</a>. Another beautiful sunny day in the Cascades, with a Perfect, clear view of <a href=http://www.summitpost.com/mountains/mountain_link.pl/mountain_id/146>Glacier Peak</a> to the NE.

The sun's great and all, but I sure am itching for some stormy weather around here so I can get back on the skis again.

Saturday in the office - shit.
On sunday I rode my bike up to Schauinsland (Black Forest, 1284m). Only 5cm of snow on the top. Excellent view of the alps (including north face of Eiger)
Then I found out, I had forgotten my windproof jacket. Freezing bitterly on the way down, though I went extra slow
Shortly before back in Freiburg I happened to meet the friend who had shown me this perfect mountain bike route. Nice surprise.
Pizza Frutti di Mare and Chianti with other close friends and a victory of my favourite soccer team SC Freiburg concluded a perfect day ))

I'm little late to report on this ... but on Friday I had a great party for my 50th birthday anniversary. My wife, my 3 boys and a full room of friends made it unforgettable. Still dizzy.

I'm little bit late too, anyway I wish you all the best Vid for your 50th birthday! Many more peaks and mountains under your foot and also many beautiful photos that you will share with us

totally unrelated question to mountains, but I noticed that the last 2 posters are a Slovene and a Croat, my question is, are the languages close enough for you to understand each other (like Russian/Ukrainian) or are they different?

I don't know how similar are the Russian and Ukrainian language, but Slovenian and Croatian are quite similar. Still it is sad that young people can less understand each other as my generation, because we lived in a common state for so many years. I believe that Sasa can understand well Slovenian, but that's because of his passion for mountains.

Yes Vid you are right. I can understand Slovenian very well. It is not only because of the mountains, I really like the language so everytime I'm in Slovenia I try to memorize as much as I can and I even try to speak, as much as I can. I've read dozen's of books on Slovenian, I've been subscribed to 'Planinski Vestnik' (a monthly magazine of Slovenian Mountaineering Society). But I have to disagree that our languages are quite similar. In a way they are quite similar but I know that people who haven't been in touch with Slovenian are really having hard time to understand at least 50%. But for example Croatian and Serbian languages are 98% the same.

What I heard is that most linguists consider there to be one language called Serbo-Croatian, which is spoken in various dialects throughout Serbia, Bosnia-Hercegovina and Croatia...as a rule the Serbs use cyrillic alphabet and the Croats the latin version and in Bosnia the use both.


I've met some Slovenian climbers in Yosemite...I must say that Serbian (or Serbo-Croatian) is much easier for me to understand as a Russian speaker than Slovenian. Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe Slovenian is a west-Slavic language, more related to Czech and Polish than to Serbo-Croatian.

i nursed microfracture and lateral meniscus tear surgery, but the percacet and vicodin was grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreat.