Snow: what a welcome home

Is snow anyway to welcome me back to Ottawa after a week in Mexico?

Airlines are wierd.

I'm looking at a potential climbing trip to the Swiss alps this summer.

I don't know where I'm going to fly into, but I'm looking at either Geneva or Zurich. And, I'm looking at flying out of Montreal (since I'll be coming back just before Anticipation).

Apparently for 60K miles, I can fly YUL-GVA-ZHR and ZHR-GVA-YUL. But, if I just want to fly YUL-GVA and GVA-YUL that will cost me 86K miles. It takes the exact same flights on the YUL-GVA-YUL segment. Yet, to fly a shorter distance, using fewer seats and less gas and luggage handling will cost 40% more.

[edit for clarity: the shorter route is a proper subset of the longer. Exact same flights, just the longer one adds more stuff to the end (going)/start(returning) of the other route. ]

I don't understand.

(P.S. when are they going to convert to air-kms?)

Not cheap

I visited the climbing area at MEC today, pricing out what it will cost me to build a trad rack. Wow. And I already picked up some of the most expensive bits (largish spring-loaded cams) for cheap from Becket.

Expensive as in around a grand or so.

But... if I hold off a bit, there is an ACC/MEC night where I should get a discount... 10% isn't a big discount... but that's still a substantial savings on $1000.

And, do I want another rope? Do I want a 70m rope instead of a 60m one? (Many of the climbs at El Potrero Chico go a lot better with 70m ropes, as, I understand, do many in Europe.) But, for short local crags, the 70m is just more weight to carry up to the cliff.

Pictures from El Potrero Chico

El Potrero Chico means "The little corral". It is a circular ring of limestone walls -- essentially it was a dome, in which the center collapsed, then eventually breached the walls at the point we enter the park.

( There are a bunch of big images behind this cut. )