CodeClimber

I do rock climbing, mountain climbing, ice climbing, but this year I started another type of climbing: road climbing, that is, going up a mountain pass with a bicycle. And that's how I spent my summer ‘08 holidays: along the Sun Route.

If you are interested in the trip report, continue reading.

This winter it's getting too warm and the ice falls are not safe to climb, or at least not as fun. But apparently it's warm only on this side of the Alps: last weekend I went cross-country skiing in Engadine and here is what I saw on my car thermometer as soon as I entered the valley: I think it's the lowest temperature I ever experienced while not doing iceclimbing or mountaineering. PS: Pardon the blurriness of the picture, but the display is in the middle of the dashboard, right in the middle of the steering wheel, and I took...

It's a sad news for all Kiwis and mountain climber worldwide: today Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to climb Mt. Everest, died today at the age of 88. All the words of the World will not be enough to say something about this great man, that 55 years ago achieved a result that is still only a dream for many other men now: just that he will be missed To know more about this great mountaineer, explorer and philanthropist you can have a look at his article on wikipedia: Edmund Hillary.   Edmund Hillary, Everest

Back in the '72, the Monty Python's Flying Circus had this sketch about a fictitious climbing expedition by International Hairdressers. This was a comedy show, but how long before the holy Sagarmatha becomes a "hiking peak" that everyone with US$ 30K can climb? [via peakr] Technorati tags: everest, climbing, rant, peakr

Digg, del.icio.us, DotNetKicks, StumbleUpon, Reddit and many other are all social bookmarking sites where users "save online" their bookmarks. So other users can see the bookmarks, and see which are the "hot" pages about a certain topic. Some of these sites also allow users to "vote" for the bookmarks, creating a sort of "popularity contest" where the most voted pages, posts or news should be the most interesting to read. But all these sites are technology focused (dotnetkicks, digg) or very generic (del.icio.us, StumbleUpon)  so it's difficult to find articles about niche topics like climbing. So, a French climber/developer, Francis Dierick, decided...

Last week I found at a bookshop here in Wellington a book I had been looking for since a few years: Extreme Alpinism: Climbing Fast, Light and High This book was written by Mark Twight, "Punk Climber" in the '80s, and now President of Grivel North America (for those how are not into mountain climbing, Grivel is one of the best alpine tool factory in the World). And the book is about training for mountain climbing. I'm reading it now and I just found a sentence that I want to share: The goal of training for alpine climbing can be summed up in...

Last September I spent a week climbing in the beautiful island of Kalymnos, Aegean Sea, in Greece.
And last month I wrote an article about my rock-climbing experience in this "climbing paradise" for the May 07 edition of Vertigo, the monthly e-zine of the Wellington Section of the New Zealand Alpine Club.

Read the article...

Just drive a few kilometers, go to the first beach (or ridge, or lake or river or whatever is a few kilometers from your home), sit down, relax and look at a beautiful view. Just make sure you didn't sit down next to a bunch of sea weeds, or you'll end up being bitten by the nasty sandflies

In New Zealand, climbing routes are graded using the Australian rating system, but in Italy (and around Europe, except UK) we use the French grading system, that, as all grading system, is quite difficult to understand unless you have a large number of routes you can refer to for comparison. A while ago a friend of mine sent me an email with a non technical reading of that grading system: 1 - Everybody can do it 2 - Everybody should be able to do it 3a - You do it without rope 3b - You start feeling the need of a rope 3c - Max grade on which you can find...

I just came home from the Paramount Theatre in Wellington, where I watched the first part of the Wellington show of the Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour. If you are in Wellington, are into outdoors and don't have plan for next Tuesday, May 1st, you DO have to buy a ticket for it. Here the programme of the second part. Here is a small sample of the action you will get:  Unfortunately this is the only rock climbing action I can get here in Wellington Technorati tags: rock climbing, Banff Mountain Film Festival, Wellington

  I just read an article by Jeff "CodingHorror" Atwood about a comparison between Software Projects and Rock Climbing. As someone might have guessed from my domain and from the logo of my blog, I'm a rock climber Some comments on the original post say that, with the right justifications,  probably anything can be compared, more or less, to software projects. I think this is correct: words are a very powerful tool if used by someone that knows how to use them. But let's focus on the original software project - rock climbing metaphor. First let's say...

Tomorrow morning I'm leaving for the first real trekking here in New Zealand: I'm going to walk the Queen Charlotte Track in the Marlborough Sounds. I'll be walking for 4 days inside nature, bush, on unspoiled beaches, and, hopefully, under a warm sun. The track is 71 km long, with the 3rd day being the longest (24km, 6 hours walk at easy pace) and the 2nd one being the shortest (11Km, 3hours). If you are interested to know more about that track the official track website have a nice track guide with maps, elevations, approximate times and so on......

After one month in Wellington, yesterday I had my first climbing session: I took part in the "Baring Head Rock Hop" bouldering competition, 2nd competition of the NZAC National Bouldering Series.

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Unfortunately I cannot do ice climbing here in Wellington (well... I cannot do real rock climbing either in Wellington). Today I was looking for some climbing videos on YouTube and I just found this one: not real climbing, it's a cartoon, but  really really funny.     UPDATE: Since many newsreader don't display embedded objects, this is the link to the video Ice Climbing