off to Martinique

not summiting Volcan Osorno

While in Puerto Varas for BNP13, I tried to summit the nearby Orsono volcano (2652m) but it did not work out… Indeed, Huella Andina, the guiding company, chose to postpone the climb by two consecutive days for fear of snowfall (which did not materialise) and ended up choosing the windiest day of the week. In the meanwhile, Zhu Yichen had joined me and we all three were at the start of the trail (at about 1000m) at the earliest, starting hiking by 4:30 under a magnificent Southern night sky on top of us, with a rich Milky Way. And the Southern X. Obviously all by ourselves. The wind was strong then but quite bearable and the trail of powdery ash quite smooth till we reached a small hut to put crampons and add one more layer, around 1600m.

When we started again the wind had strengthened with the incoming dawn, rising to a point where we could hardly stand up to it, and our guide eventually decided to turn back, as it was only to get worse in the remaining 600m to the top, confirming the earlier prediction of 70km/hour winds… Yichin was of the same opinion and hence we reluctantly turned back down to the bottom of the slope, with the wind mostly on our back and a pleasant steady gradient descent. (Although my tights are still sensitive three days after the climb!) Surprisingly I was not feeling particularly cold (and with the right face protection my nose was not close to frozen, which happened on Monte Rosa in 2016). Even after seeing my best North Face mitt been blown away within a second of loosing grip of it! (Anyone with a spare left hand down mitt?! Because it had to be the left hand, of course!)

Obviously, this was quite disappointing as I had planned the climb for weeks, brought all the layers to face a potential -20⁰ windchill, was in good enough shape, did not feel any altitude effect, and we did not even reach the glacier. It was most frustrating as the summiting attempt would have worked so nicely in either one of the previous two days, but these are the rules of the mountaineering game, especially in an oceanic climate as in Southern Chile. And with narrow windows as those allowed by attending a one week conference. At least we were back to the BNP conference in time for the morning coffee break! I wish the conference participants hoping to summit later had better luck.

hasty changes of plan (and of hemisphere)

As we [the entire family] were about to leave for La Réunion for a two-week vacation, the local authorities decided to start a severe lockdown over the whole island. Which makes sense given the large number of cases and the low proportion of vaccinated inhabitants that led to the saturation of the health system, to the point of flying patients to Paris for treatment. And which would have meant [for us] being stuck in our Airbnb except for sport activities on the nearest beach, but with no chance of trail running or hiking to the local tops or into the magnificent calderas. (Besides being rather unethical by putting local non-vaccinated people at risk.) Hence we cancelled the trip at the last minute (with great service from Air France and a full loss with Airbnb.) After first considering Iceland, which sounded fully booked, we then switched to a trip to Corsica, where surprisingly there were still available plane seats and cars to rent at the airport. And less surprisingly hardly any place to rent! After a whole morning of failed attempts, we eventually secured two rental places, the first one turning out to be quite nice. Last time I visited the island there was in the summer of 1980, where I hitch-hiked from Normandy to join high school friends for a month of camping, snorkeling, and wind-surfing! (And not much progress in reading Kant’s Critique I had taken as my beach book!)

ABC in Clermont-Ferrand

Today I am taking part in a one-day workshop at the Université of Clermont Auvergne on ABC. With applications to cosmostatistics, along with Martin Kilbinger [with whom I worked on PMC schemes], Florent Leclerc and Grégoire Aufort. This should prove a most exciting day! (With not enough time to run up Puy de Dôme in the morning, though.)

Mount Baker in the sky [jatp]