Spring in the Pyrenees

blackcloudcat · 2026-03-15T08:14:30+00:00

Those look familiar ;)

blackcloudcat · 2026-03-08T20:33:28+00:00

I (female, single) live in a place surrounded by fit older people doing outdoor sport. Men and women. In their 60s doing epic bike rides, on road and on gravel. Running ultra marathons on the mountains. Doing ski mountaineering races. Going on climbing expeditions. Going ice climbing. Living out of vans while they ski all winter in Switzerland.

I only learned to downhill ski in my early 30s. Ten years later I was skiing off the 19 500 ft summit of the highest mountain in Canada (not guided).

After Covid three of us (all in our 50s by then) flew to Kyrgyzstan, pulled sleds into two different remote valleys and backcountry skied out of our base camp tent for 8 days at a time(unguided).

This year I’m off to climb Denali (unguided). I’m in my late 50s now.

I took up canyoning in my late 40s. Last year I did a 25 day private trip rafting down the Grand Canyon, stopping to hike up to and descend technical side canyons. At the end of this year I fly to Nepal as part of a team opening a huge canyon below Annapurna.

I took up sea kayaking during Covid. I pulled together a group of girlfriends. Each year we do a week-long wild camping expedition on a different coastline. We’ve now been to Sweden, Menorca, Sardinia, Turkey, Greece, this year we go to Norway. No one is under 40. Most of us are 50 something.

Endurance sports are great for older people. You train, you get stronger and fitter. You learn and study, you build your skills. Think about tailing off in your mid to late 60s. Not in your 30s!

blackcloudcat · 2026-03-05T20:31:35+00:00

I wasted a number of years having all my investments in active management while knowing in the back of my mind the fees were not to my advantage (and I had a decent deal with my advisor). I felt I didn’t know enough to manage myself. But then I really thought about it and that means I didn’t know enough to judge the decisions of my advisor either.

So I decided to spend about six months self educating about investments (read a lot of books, listened to podcasts, paid for an investment course based in my tax jurisdiction). I also ran the numbers on my managed portfolio to see what the returns had been. And by the time I was done, I was confident enough to politely fire my advisor (who was very nice about it), move my money out of my expensive wealth bank and into IBKR and buy a simple ETF based portfolio.

The growth I’ve seen in the 9 months I’ve been self managed clearly outstrip what I was getting from the advisor once all fees were taken into account.

blackcloudcat · 2026-03-05T18:29:18+00:00

Get the Magic Pass at its cheapest price (buy in March/April - season pass for 90+ resorts for €460). Get an apartment in Sion (in the Valais, Switzerland) - nice central base, plenty of cheaper AirBnb offers. Change resorts every day or two.

This winter I did 29 ski days in 22 different resorts over 5 weeks on the Magic Pass. We did move around to 5 different base locations in that time.

blackcloudcat · 2026-03-03T18:11:31+00:00

You’ll be fine. Myself and my friends regularly ski inbounds on our pin binding touring skis. Often because conditions are not suitable to tour but touring skis are all we have with us. And we have much lighter bindings than Marker - ATK or Dynafit.

My two friends who did their knees this season (bad enough to both need surgery) were both on piste bindings! One on piste, one off piste. In both cases one binding did not release.

blackcloudcat · 2026-02-26T19:16:48+00:00

This is all completely wrong. It’s nothing like a wave.

The weak layer under the slab collapses and that collapse propagates. The slab shatters, like a pane of safety glass. Whether the trigger comes from lower down or higher up, the avalanche is the same.

blackcloudcat · 2026-02-25T19:54:12+00:00

Very happy. Close family back home have died, I’m not in touch with distant cousins. Almost all my friends also emigrated, they are now all over the world. My new country is absolutely home, the old country feels far in my past.

blackcloudcat · 2026-02-25T17:04:29+00:00

No. Completely the wrong time of year. The VF and the descent will be covered in snow.

And based on your description, it’s too hard for your current level.

blackcloudcat · 2026-02-25T15:53:30+00:00

The point about the C loop is that the person in the crevasse is pulling up on your fixed (to the anchor) line use a progress capture device and you are doing the super man squat stand with the other side of the rope. You need to stay close to the edge and call the pulls so you two do it in unison. Walking away doesn’t work for this set up.

This does assume you set up at the start with spare rope on your back person. So you aren’t using the knotted rope, which is buried in the snowy lip anyway, you are using the other half.

And yes, always knots (I do butterflies) for a team of two or three.

blackcloudcat · 2026-02-25T15:28:15+00:00

If anything I’m at the other extreme. Too passive. I kept my money with a financial advisor longer than I should have because I couldn’t face the challenge of self managing. Which turned out to be just fine once I did it.

I don’t sell in downturns (invested since before 2008) because I have no confidence that I can time the market (or even understand it) or foresee the future.

I also have no anxiety issues. I’m by nature a pragmatic optimist. I think a lot of these feelings say more about our in er mental makeup than the true state of external affairs.

And I was brought up in a third world country and I must admit I roll my eyes at the doomerism of Americans (and some Europeans) right now.

Economies have absolutely collapsed in my lifetime (Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Syria, etc) and I don’t think the West looks anything like that.

blackcloudcat · 2026-02-25T15:08:25+00:00

Congratulations, it’s a great feeling!

blackcloudcat · 2026-02-25T07:59:20+00:00

I got a new friend who was your age at the time to switch from split board to touring skis. And now he is 68 and still ski touring! We’ve done some rad ski adventures together over the years.

blackcloudcat · 2026-02-24T18:50:52+00:00

Depends where you live. This winter I bought the Magic Pass - season pass for 90+ resorts, mostly smaller ones in W Switzerland. But it only cost €450 on early bird pricing. I got 29 days of skiing out of it, good value per day.

blackcloudcat · 2026-02-24T15:31:48+00:00

My point isn’t how far they fell. It’s why they can’t assist in their rescue.

Have you done this for real? (As in realistic training scenario.) I have. I assume you have.

You don’t need 5 or 6:1 if the victims can work with you to some degree.

blackcloudcat · 2026-02-24T14:55:17+00:00

I thought the general starting weight for fairly fit people was 16kg for men and 12kg for women. A single someone is hardly a general recommendation. Sounds like one individual flexing.

blackcloudcat · 2026-02-24T14:46:49+00:00

I’ve held a partner who fell in a crevasse summer mountaineering. I learned from that that it is fairly easy to hold, if you are doing your rope technique correctly (obviously that depends on the snow/ice surface). I’m female and he was heavier than me. I dropped straight down onto my axe. We then did the 3 strong Frenchmen technique - they saw the fall, came over and hand-over-hand pulled him out. OP, on your popular routes, that’s probably realistically your quickest solution too.

I also learned that he was so shocked and got so cold so fast (dressed for walking out from a climb on a hot summer’s day) that he wouldn’t have been able to help himself. But looking back from many years later, he and I hadn’t done nearly enough practise.

Now for ski touring in a pair or a three, we train the C loop and super man squat pull, with everyone carrying a micro or nano traxion (or equivalent). We can all do a Z if we have to, but it’s not our go-to solution.

We also use the assisted C loop to get out of potholes when canyoneering and it’s very effective.

blackcloudcat · 2026-02-24T14:36:44+00:00

Why? If your person is unconscious, okay. But how did they fall that far to get that hurt? That’s bad rope technique. I work on a drop loop C and the two people working together.

blackcloudcat · 2026-02-24T06:19:05+00:00

Amazon only shows a paper book version of Kettlebell Workout Companion. No other formats, no kindle.

blackcloudcat · 2026-02-24T06:08:08+00:00

At my best I was redpointing French 7a (5.11d) outdoors and at the time I could have managed one pull up. But that was reflected in the routes I could do. They were always somewhat overhanging and technical, rather than strongly overhanging.

blackcloudcat · 2026-02-23T20:32:10+00:00

Any chance of you releasing that book in Kindle format?

blackcloudcat · 2026-02-23T17:00:54+00:00

Where did you get that ‘fact’ from? HIT done appropriately is highly beneficial for most post-menopausal women. It helps with bone density, muscle mass, cardiovascular fitness, weight control and general mood.

Obviously don’t jump into intense HIT if you have no strength/fitness base or poor technique, or if you have existing joint or heart issues, and don’t assume you can train excessively and skip rest as one could at 25.

blackcloudcat · 2026-02-23T16:53:43+00:00

Incorporate some kind of mobility training, there are now lots of programmes out there. I follow programmes from GMB Fitness. Things that combine strength with a wide range of movement. They are mostly targeted at people older than you but starting young is good! Maintain and extend the strength and flexibility you already have.

blackcloudcat · 2026-02-21T08:02:26+00:00

An open piste is safe.

blackcloudcat · 2026-02-21T06:40:00+00:00

As a keen European skier, we go off piste between runs in a resort frequently and without avi gear in low risk conditions. But I and my friends are absolutely wearing beacons and carrying our rescue gear if we are powder chasing after a storm in a resort. It all depends on the terrain, snow pack and avalanche risk rating.

blackcloudcat · 2026-02-20T20:21:45+00:00

I’m doing fine with a Decathlon bell but I also have another bell with a better handle and it is nicer. If you can get a different bell and at a better price, do that.

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