Ergan ski-mountaineering race, Turkey

Ergan ski-mountaineering race in Turkey was an evaluation world cup race. The mountain is located near the town of Erzincan, deep in the eastern part of the country. I wanted to make this race, and the generous offer from organizers to cover for accommodations and some of the transportation sealed the deal.

Slice and Dice

Slice & Dice, photo Andre 

Without exaggeration, the sandstone Moab area is the crack-climbing heaven on Earth. 
My experience is limited to five trips only–I have scratched the surface. I figured I will share some pictures and beta.

The short list of my favorite and most memorable climbs:

Mt Olympus ski-mountaineering race

Early in the season, and after skiing the small but beautiful Falakro mountain, I was very motivated to take part of the Mt Olympus team race in Greece. But the entire week before the race I was feeling under the weather and low in motivation. The save came in the face of a young man from Sofia, Svetoslav (Svet), who had an abundance of motivation and shared some with me.
We left Sofia on Sat morning for the 6.5 hour drive to the small town of Elassona. By 4 pm we met with the friendly organizes. Distance-wise it is the equivalent of driving from LA to Yosemite .
The race course was supposed to be tough with 3000m of vertical gain and 4 peaks. It turned out to be very tough with over 3200m (10,500 ft) of vertical gain. The most any of us had done in a race.

Presolana race in Clusone, Italy.

Brilliantly organized race. It was the biggest race for me so far with over 300 racers, and literally thousands of spectators on the mountain. The Presolana race is part of the world cup circuit and of the Italian national cup. The 50 ISMF athletes got a 10 min head start. I was in the main group of 200+ racers.

Mt Baldy 10,070 ft (3070m), Los Angeles

Mt Baldy is one of the greatest gifts of LA and I could never understand, though I never minded it, why there are no hordes of people on the trails on any given day. Like there are on the beaches of LA.
In winter Mt Baldy is meant to be skied.

Its only 1.5h drive from the city when traffic is ok. And traffic is rarely bad going away at 6 am. Parking is at 6000ft, for the popular trail that goes up by the sierra club ski hut. 

UCLA Campus Buildering

Bunche-Crunch

The UCLA campus offers excellent buildering opportunities.  Buildering being the word for the (illegal) activity of climbing urban structures. Students and researchers who are trapped in the concrete campus environment might be tempted to explore that environment in creative ways. Fortunately for climbers there is no need to look too hard to find perfect splitter cracks and neat traverses.

Bunche-Crunch!

The best crack at UCLA, and  the "supercrack" of the campus. Roger Suen discovered it and named it. And he led the firs reported ascent. The crack is located on the east side of Bunche Hall, next to and on the left side of the walkway. It is perfect hands all the way, about three stories tall, and it takes 3-4 yellow camelot-sized cams (2inch) for lead protection. Belaying on top is a bit tricky. We slinged a couple of air vents. They don't all look super-solid so I recommend slinging at least two. A few long slings are needed.

Mt Johnson, South Lake Area

Mt Johnson (3923m/ 12871ft) is my favorite peak of the South Lake cirque. And I think, South Lake is my favorite play area in the Sierra Nevada for ski mountaineering. This is like picking out the best climbing area in Indian Creek...! Just about any drainage off hwy 395 offers exceptional skiing, but nowhere are the choices so many, so accessible, and the views so rich. There are Mt Agassiz, The Palisades, Mt Goode, Hurd Pk, Mt Johnson, Mt Gilbert, Mt Thompson. All within a day or a half day roundtrip from the car.
Even better than skiing just Mt Johnson is linking it up with Mt Gilbert for whats possibly the best short linkup in the area.
We did that with Andre in the spring of 2010.