Lets visit Glen Nevis and Ben Nevis

Lets come with us to Glen Nevis and Ben Nevis. Please, don't forget to dress properly according to the weather forecast. (Yes its really -23)

Impressions from Loch Lomond

Impressions from Skye

It was March. Expectable for locals (but not for us :-)), the snow was at the 300m level, when we reached the Island of Skye. We found a cozy hostel which I would like to recommend here: http://www.skye-hostel.co.uk/ with breathtaking views on the mainland (if you wait until the clouds fly open). The landlord owns Eriskay Ponies. These are a special breed of ponies from the Island of Eriskay. Only a limited number of this breed exist worldwide. Believe me, it is a ferry tail feeling waking up and having these horses run in front of your window.



The weather got crazy as soon as we put away our things. The following two pictures show the view from the hostel's with just a few minute difference. When we woke up the following morning.. the snow was surrounding the hostel. We figured out that hiking on Skye will be an adventure :-)

The Cullin mountains on the island of Skye (Hebrid Islands)

We made quite a few hikes during our Scotland expedition. Maybe even more then some of us anticipated :-) I, however, want to spend some time talking about our 1.5 days in
the Cullin mountains.

Looking on the topographic map you may get the same wrong impression as I did.. "There should be no problem in defeating these small hills that are not more than 900 m high." I actually planned a hike for our "LOCH" expedition that would reach one of the tops on the southern part.

However, here is the 101 Geology about Cullins:
Cullin mountains are part of the Inner Hebrides and are a reminder of the time when volcanoes dominated western part of Scotland (The same time when Scotland separated from the North America). Since that time much changed. The repeated appearance and disappearance of glaciers caused the landscape to get the real 'Alpine' look. Also, caused by the much softer sediments underneath the old lava massive landslides unique for the entire Britain may occur. ..
.. You probably already got my point.. Cullins are not going to joke with you.


When we reached Cullin mountains it was about 0 Celsius, the weather forecast estimated -23 against wind at the 900 m elevation, the person at the information center just crossed himself when we asked about some advice for hikes.. However, we (or I ?) did not give up. When I think back, I am glad I was pushy and we could make these walks.

Here are examples of the way we saw landscape those days. The weather changed every 10 minutes.















Second day we only did a hike in 2. Cecilia left and Jens took day off :-) The weather was just great and the 9 hour hike was worth just having this amazing view.

.. But believe me.. its much nicer watching these pictures from the warm of my bed..

SCOTLAND 2008

I returned from Scotland jsut 3 days ago. I spent amazing time with 3 of my friends from Germany, Czech and USA traveling through Scotland - always surprising and unpredictable place on the Earth. We are short of money but we have amazing stories :-) These two pictures show something typical: hairy cows and ever changing weather.. More will come hopefully soon.

Alps ski resorts - Schladming

It has been already 8 months since I moved to Austria. This was after more then 3 years which I spent in the US Great Plains. After such a long time on the Plains, the mountains of Austria are for me as a Paradize. Already before I came here I told myself to take advantage of this landscape: hike, ski, snowshoe etc... Sofar I introduce to my regural readers (I hope I have some) areas in the Wien vicinity which I consider good for day or twoday hikes. Now, its time to tell you something about where to go for skiing.

Last week I spent in Schladming, ski resort maybe an hour southeast from Salzburg. The main advantages of Schladming-Ramsau area? The price, location, ski conditions, mix of nations.. I recomend coming here as we did, bunch of people renting an apartment (for instance http://www.bruckreiterhof.at/). We ended up paying around 45 Euros per person for three nights. I think .. pretty good price. Also the skirental may get much cheaper if you make an online reservation (i.e. https://www.sport2000rent.at/de/rent/). Finally, dont forget that it may get much cheaper to buy 2 or more days skipass than to buy only single day passes. The panorama picture shows the ski area above Schladming at around 4 pm by my friend Zoltan (www.bartalis.com), the sunsets are amazing. At 4 30 its already dark. The following picture was taken by one small restaurant down by the slope at around 5 pm.

And regarding the rest? Thats half of our skiing crew. Martina, Mike, me and Fida.

San Francisco

This american most photographed sructure and symbol of San Francisco was built alrady in 1937. At that time many bridge engineers questioned if its possible to built a bridge over the 2,042 m strait with swirling tights and currents. The bridge faced very strong oposition. Apart from other bridge engineers, also ferry agencies complained, department of war was afraid that the bridge would interfere with the ship traffic, people in general complained that such a structure would destroy the beautiful look of San Francisco.

Seventy years later the Goldgen Gate become the most photographed structure in the US. The amount of tourist crossing Golden Gate brings the important dollars to the San Francisco treasury.

AGU (American Geophysical Union) 2007

The American Geophysical Union conference takes place in the sunny city of San Francisco every year shortly before Christmas. Around 10 000 people from all around the world come to present their research projects focusing on issues in geography, geology, space engineering, hydrology, biogeoscience, atmspheric science etc. I also was lucky enough this year to participate in this enormous event. I would like to encourage young scientist from all around the world to search for a way how to come and present their research. They might be surprised by the new suggestions, ideas, critics and more importantly by the oppurtunities, which can this conference bring them. So dont hesitate and go to http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm07/ to check the past conference. It was the Nobel Prize winner Al Gore who brought a further attention to this conference when presenting one of his talks on Global Warming last year.

VIEWs from Tatra mountains

Temperature dropped rapidly. It was probably the last chance to hike Alps without crossing snowfields this passed weekend. I suggest lets wait for snow and let the snowshoes and skis do their job. Meanwhile I prefer going through older pictures and searching for some spectacular ones. I want share few of these. These were taken by Lucie Knizova, my cartography friend from Jicin, the Czech Republic.

the drastic weather changes in Rax II

The previous picture show the touristics signs in fornt of Karl Ludwig house in Rax, Alps this saturday afternoon (13th of October). Temperature -5 C, strong and cold wind. Very surprisng weather considering that it was almost 15 down in the valley. We reached the hut just on time , the fog was getting more dense with every minute.



And these picture? Thats just the morning the next day. Bright blue sky with not even one cloud. Amazing. But still cold. The top of Hochkuppe stayed frozen as on the first picture until late afternoon, though the rest of Rax was already warm.

Hiking in Alps in this time of the year is about something completely different.

-- ACCOMODATION--

There are dozen of huts in Rax. You will always have place to sleep, so to bring tent does not really make sense. For further information about huts you can go to http://www.alpenverein.at/portal/index.php under huttenwege and huttenfinder. Great tool which will give you fool describtion of each hut with open dates. You usually pay around 5 to 7 if you are member of Alpenverein organization and maybe 2 or 3 Euros more if you are not a member.

What Can The WEATHER do within one day in Rax, Alps

Badlands, who would like to live here

I promised a while ago to post some more info about my holiday in USA. Here is a small section about Badlands. I think that the pictures speak the best but let me just tell you a short story as well. Badlands in summer that means 100 - 120 F, thats more than 40 Degrees Celsius, and lot of wind which is sometimes warm as well. You really dont feel like leaving the car, but if you do so, you will get a nice reward. Staying among the dunes far from the road, you can get that feeling of the first pioneers crossing this land. You may wonder how could some of these settle here? I wonder especially since I know that lot of them were Czechs.



For those interested how did Badlands appear: Aprox 37 to 28 millions year ago this land was well watered and much warmer than today. Uplift raised the land around 5 millions years ago and the White River which was passing through eroded a scarp, the beginning of what is now called the Wall. Since than every bigger rainstorm chewed away part of the Wall. This is one of a typical stories in old arid and semiarid regions in western and southwestern USA.

Climbing the Krivan

This is a picture from the top of Krivan. Krivan, literally translated means banded, got this name because of its characteristic shape. View from the top are amazing as you can see on enclosed picture. And small task for you readers. Do you know what is the name of the small glacier lake in the background?

Climbing Krivan may be exhausting :-) (picture 2)

Tatra mountains, Slovak Republic

Let me introduce you to a few magic places close to Wien. Tatra mountains, the highest mountains of the Slovak Republic; once the highest mountains of the Czechoslovakia. Tatra mountains are the highest range in the Carpatian Mountains which range down to central Rumania. Tatras beautiful hiking and climbing possibilities.


This trip was special not only because of hiking which I love, but also because that fact that I got to see my friends from the Czech Republic Lucka and Tomas after 3 or 4 years.

GOLD

While being in US this Sptember my boyfriend Eugene and I went to BlackHills (South Dakota) to do some placer mining.. we also stopped in real mines to get some inspiration. Where are we know and how much gold did we finally get? Lets wait a bit and you will get the story..

Extreme weather monitoring at the Technical University of Vienna
These articles were published on 29th of July 2007 at the Terra Daily News about Planet Earth and Science and Development Network. These further describe products which we produce and investigate here at the Institute of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing at the University of Vienna. Links to the originally articles are provided below.


http://www.scidev.net/content/news/eng/african-mapping-highlights-risk-of-drought-and-flood.cfm
&
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Extreme_Weather_Monitoring_Boosted_By_Space_Sensor_999.html

West African Instruments

Let me just shortly introduce you some of West African Instruments which I saw and heard first time in my life on the African Festival in Wien (source of information: Mamadou and Wikipedia). These were introduce by a musicion Mamadou Diabate who came to Austria from Burkina Fasso in 2000. Since then he recorded serveral albums and presents West African music in European countries. So here we go:

Balafon = pentatonic or heptatonic (that means that its scale does have 5 instead of common 7 distinct notes) resonated frame xylofon (thats the thing which you can see at the background of the second picture), usually has 17 - 21 keys. This instrument is typical for Guinea, Mali, Senegal, and The Gambia.

N'goni = string instrument, something like lute. (on both pictures). This instrument is several houndred years old. Originally, was played by young men during hunting ceremonies. There exists various types of N'gonis instruements, which may have from 4 to 10 strings. N'goni is probably the most popular instrument in Mali.

Doundoun = the generic name for a family of West African Drums (picture will come later)

Ensemble IYASA (Simbabwe)

I had this incredible music experience yesterday which I have to share with you!! As part of the African festival, the ensemble IYASA from Zimbabwe came to the Donau Insel to perform as well. Ensemble IYASA has been touring Europe for 4 months and this is one of their last performances. These young guys and girls from the Inkululeko Yabatsha School of Arts performed a full of energy dance and singing show for more than 1.5 hours. They literally brought people around to the african continent with them. I don't have words for that... please come to see them.

African Festival 2007, Wien, Austria

African festival started at Donau Island this Friday. Its a 10-day long event full of music, dance, food, fashion... Various groups fighting against racism in Austria also present them selfs. So does the radio Africa. I only picked one out of the enormous amount of stalls presenting crafts from Libya to South Africa and provided picture of it below. This Kenyan lady from Stuttgart is presenting craft, jewelry, decorations, and various items made originally in Kenya and Tanzania. Every piece looks absolutely authentic.

Rathaus Festival, Keith Jarrett

There is a summer Rathaus (Townhall) festival these days in Wien. That means that every evening around 9 30 when you browse around the the main townHall you will here some jazzy or classic notes coming from there. Dont hesitate and stop by, thats probably some big concert being broad casted from NY, Berlin, etc. Though the concerts are not live, they have a touchable great atmosphere.


Yesterday, Keith Jarrett concert was presented. Until few days ago I did not actually know who is Keith Jarrett. For those of you who are in the same shows, check this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPqK1JJOFxw&mode=related&search=
This american piano player can improvise for 2 hours bringing you feel of piano music you have not had before.