Sometimes I read the news and think the world is getting weirder each second. But quizzes are fun, right? So why not combine the hard part with the fun part, here it goes:

What do the following men have in common?


(1)


(2)

(3)


Alrigth, it wasn't that hard, they all live in parallel universes, where reasoning and logic takes its time to arrive, in fact may never match their private ideas of the world:

(1) Jan Ulrich: Thinks as long as you don't grow yourself a third leg, it can't be doping..
(2) Mahmud Ahmadinedschad: As long as he doesnt get an interview with a jew that was killed himself by the Nazis, he won't admit that the the killing of jews took place in the second world war.
(3) Christian Klar: it's almost too weird to replicate, but let's say he wants to be amnestied for the stuff he believed and did together with his other RAF buddies because he changed his mindset. But wait, what about those articles he published recently where he talks about evil capitalism and freeing folks so they can enjoy happyness in socialism??

At this point it makes sense to cite the man himself, Winston Churchill:
The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.

Bern & Thun

First thing I saw when coming out of the Trainerzonesports in Bern after getting my skiing boots yesterday was Batman and Obelix..


Afterwards I took the chance to meet Werner, a study college of mine, who lives in Thun. I was really surprised, what a nice city Thun is. They not only have castles, the lake ...


.. and stunning views on the surrounding mountains including Eiger, Mönch and Jungrau..


but also a really nice inner part of the city with old buildings and stuff. Really worth a visit. In addtion, they also have heaps of restaurants, e.g. the italian Primavera, where I had really good homemade pasta (Torfie Caruso.. mh..). Afterwards we went to the Schmiedstube, really cosy place to get some tea or beers..


So definitley worth a visit.

adrenalin

Finally, I bought my new skiing boots at Trainer Zone Sports in Bern. Basically it's a orthopaedist specialized on fitting skiing boots. A real plus is that Chris Kohler and his father who run the shop are both dedicated skiers, so they know about feet as well as about the special requirements when it comes to the slopes. They have a broad range of boots from Lange, Tecnica, Salomon available and do everything from orthopedical paddings, adjustments of the outer boot and foaming of the inner boot.




So here's my new baby, the 2006/7 Adrenalin from Garmont, looking forward to get some action with it.

piz crispalt tour

As announced yesterday here the full report on the trip.

Ändu and I started at 8:15 at the Oberalp (~2000meters) station (Gotthard) to the north, direction Alp Tiarms. Then hiked further up in the Val Val and a steep final section up to the Crispalt (3040meters). The very last section was a bit of climbing to get to the peak, always interesting with skiing boots - but the views were well worth it.

After lunch at around 12:30 we descended in diverse conditions. The first section was somewhat steep but very rocky, so only partly skiable. Yet the east facing couloir below was almost perfectly preserved powder! As soon as the exposition of the mountain changed to soutwards, we had spring conditions (= sulz , i.e. very wet snow). After skiiing down the last part on the slopes of the ski area Sedrun we had well deserved beers & ice cream.


View of the Val Val to Oberalppass

Ändu on the saddle of the Crispalt


View from the saddle of the Crispalt

If you draw a straigt line from where Ändu skis to the top you arrive at the saddle where we stored our skis before climbing up the the peak which is the highest point in the very left of the picture. From there we skied down the rocky section below the saddle before we encountered the open & nice powder slopes..

East facing powder slopes - sweet



Further descending, below you can see the ski area of Sedrun, the following pictures are all taken in this valley while continuing to ski down to beers & ice cream ; )

preview tour oberalpass II

wow, today a second tour on Oberalpass, Gotthard area. Stunning weather, pretty good snow, almost powder on 3000 altitude meters, and spring conditions in the lower parts, full report coming tomorrow...

tour oberalppass

Yesterday, finally, my first freeride tour this season. We started in Andermatt in the Gotthard area and took the 7:50 am train to Oberalppass. From there we hiked up (around 700 altitude meters) the first peak of the day, Pazolastock (2740meters).

This is the crew of the day on Pazolastock: Markus and Dave, Dani, Matthias aka Davski, Danski and Matski ..

View from Pazolastock to the south.
From there we descended down to Plidutscha.
first powderturns of the season

After a short ascent we arrived at Maighels hut for lunch.

After lunch a short but steep ascent to Piz Cavradi (approx 300 altitude meters) - earn your turns. Arriving on the peak (2612meters) it was time to harvest. We descended on the pretty steep west side of the mountain, the steepest party around 45 degrees.

Entering the first couloir of the Cavradi descent.

In the lower parts of the couloir, the snow was surprisingly sweet. I think this gets obvious looking at the spray turn above..

Danski AK-Style

Lower part of Cavradi, in the back you can see the train line between Tschamutt and Andermatt.


Below you can see the final part of the Cavradi descent. Huge turns at Mach3. Note that the turn above and to the right of my line are already pretty big, so it was quite an amazing ride for my first freeride tour of the season.

Afterwards we descended further through the bushes to Tschamutt and took the train back to Andermatt where we had the standard beers in "Spycher bar. Wow, what a day.

Check out rockthepowder for a full foto report of the tour (around 50 pics!) - its really worth it. Browsing the homepage go to the subsection "ski" and then the gallery Pazolastock - Piz Cavradi. Currently you find a direct link on the frontpage

The tour was organized throug backcountry.ch , so go check it out, too.

webradio

still, my favorite station is dublab , although it's just a "classical" radio, one stream, no funky gadgets, just music from L.A.

on the other hand there's pandora . don't ask me why it's called after pandoras box, up to now I don't have the impression that evil stuff is coming out of the selfmade stations. I think lastfm is kind of the same thing but haven't checked that out yet.

now there's musicovery ( ok, didn't findt it myself but on Gunter's blog ) . first impression after 5 minutes of listening: a lot more mainstream than pandora. seems like amazon is pushing target cd sales..

climbing group

so, yesterday was the last time the climbing club of university met, but we managed to collect each others email adresses and make up a group on google. (somehow I get addicted to google services: blog, groups, desktop search, froogle, ..) . It's called klettertreff basel and you can find (and maybe join it here .

vierkant tables

It is not my plan to let the propaganda label become the biggest part of the blog, but this note has kind of a recent motivation, as Florian is currently exhibiting his tables in Lörrach. for directions and opening times check here . the tables are on display till the 20th of February 2007.

You can find (and order..) his stuff on the vierkant homepage . All tables are handmade, and can be individually adjusted in terms of size and material of the top plate (e.g. different sorts of stones or wood ). here's the direct link to the gallery . As you can see in the pic below it's really high quality stuff, and prices are fair, just drop him an email.

pulpo

A lot of people around me are doing a lot of cool things, so I think it's more than fair to introduce the stuff in this blog.

So go check out pulpo . They make really good stuff to get your bath or your warderobe or life in general organized. Funky colors, really stylish, and nonetheless functional. I bought the white "oh deer" warderobe and like it a lot (although, shame on me, I didn't put it on the my wall yet - figured it's not worth the trouble before moving out soon..). Also I'm sure Patrick will deliver worldwide if you can convince him that you won't be able to live with his stuff. And if you know a cool shop that needs a add on to its sortiments, let him know.

zac meeting & zofingia

Yesterday I went to the meeting of the Zaeslin Alumni Club that consists of scholars of the Zaeslin program at the university of Basel. I find it's a good thing to keep up the spirit of the program this way, as from my view it is one of the highlights in the courses offered in Basel.

Later on we proceeded to the mexican restaurant "la fonda"near Marktplatz in Basel. we arrived at 8pm, food arrived at 10pm approximately, I think they're kind of overdoing it with the mexican lifestyle..

I wasn't able to visit the "konzärtli" (= little concert) of the Zofingia Basel (which is a traditional students fraternity) this year but made it to the afterparty in the "Breo". Met lots of folks from university but the additional free beers became obvious in the morning..

beck: the information

i just bought beck's new cd (make sure to check out his homepage..) . yes, did not download it from i-tunes or zunes or whereever. it's because, well, you got those really cool stickers to design your own cover..



besides, it's again really good music, like on his previous cd "Guerolito" (actually that is the remix of the Guero cd ) . and somehow I'm still attached to that nice feeling you get when you take out that silver sparkling cd and put I in the player...

where's the snow?

friends of mine started a really cool website called backountry.ch . it's all about the fun stuff in life related to mountains: skiing, skitouring, climbing, hiking and biking. basically a plattform to organize trips and post reports of past trips. and most important it's not in the spirit of those all-so-cool sometimes brainless kids that think mountains are a playground. rather it's organized by folks that are all members in the SAC (swiss alpine club). go check it out.

So far so good. The only problem this season is right here:


the mindful observer will note two major problems with this graphic. 1. the darker areas are way too small 2. the darker areas are only associated with a max of 1.20 meter of snow. so how are you supposed to go skiing off-piste if there's still stones lying around with 1.50 meter in height?? By the way, the above graph and much more interesting stuff about snow conditions and avalanches can be found here .

the real world

I guess playing with model trains used to be a clean hobby for the longest time. well, reality is catching up.. ( found on spiegel online )

masterthesis: done

My master thesis if finally out. the magical moment was on monday 29. january, I guess I will remember this day for quite a while.

Now I'm looking forward to a nice break including skiing and some travelling before I start working sometime in April. So right now I'm in the process of wrapping up my stuff at university and checking where to apply for a cool job.

climbing at k7 in basel

finally managed to go to the climbing course this monday ( february 5.) after I have missed two sessions due to focussing completely on finishing my master's thesis. to my surprise it worked out pretty well ..






well, up to this point ..

figure the wall was slippery or something ...

starting thoughts

A mission statement to start with isn't a bad idea I guess. so some questions and answers for myself and anyone who's interested:

Q: Your native language is german, why the *** is this blog in english?
A: I figure everyone I know and who reads this kind of speaks english, but lots of people around the world I know don't speak german.

Q: you already had TWO blogs, why didn't you continue those?
A: well, I started of with tom_vancouver . but obviously I dont live in Vancouver anymore, so I came up with the weitblick blog . then I got lazy posting. also myblog.de wasn't that reliable, actually almost all my Vancouver postings got lost because the sever crashed . so when I decided to start a new blog I found google / blogger to be the more reliable choice.

Q: "fernsicht" ?
A: the translation to english is something like: clear views. a perfect day on the mountain, sunshine and a view to the end of the horizon. that's the spirit of the blog.

Q: so you only write about mountains?
A: probably a lot. but not exclusively, there's other interesting stuff in (my) life, you know ..

Q: I want to be your target audience, what do I look like?
A: I guess you got to know me at some point in life and someplace on this planet and know your still interested what I'm up to or what web-pages and stuff I find to be funky.