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Between December 27, 2006 and April 7, Slovenian alpinist Miha Valic ascended every 4000-meter peak in the Alps. The official UIAA listing includes eighty-two peaks; Valic set out to climb them all, during winter—an attempt never before tried—in eighty-two days. During his planned time-period, Valic climbed seventy-four peaks, and twenty days later he completed the marathon.

Multiple parties have attempted the same goal in spring and summer conditions, without success. Before the official 4000-meter UIAA list existed, Martin Moran and Simon Jenkins of England completed seventy-five peaks in fifty-two days. Another attempt in 2004, by Patrick Berhault and Philippe Magnin, ended with an accident after sixty-five peaks. Last spring, Franz Nicolini and Michele Compagnoni took on the challenge until bad weather shut down their operation after twenty-five summits…

Source: Alpinist Magazine.

It’s not like I don’t have the desire of going out to do the usual stuff (running and/or climbing), it’s just that I feel like resting. Sometimes it feels so good. Damn stretching routines…

Despite of the clinic being announced as a “quick course for marathoners”, it was more focused on the stretching routines for athletes in general. That wasn’t necessarily bad, we had the chance to practice the exercises with Jim in person, who happened to be a really nice guy, open to all kinds of questions and a real guru in his area.

After such a good stretching session, I’m so relaxed now, that my body is urging me to go to sleep as soon as possible

Having spent the last few years obsessed with free routes on big walls in the Himalaya, Morocco, Mali, Madagascar and Alaska, Eliza Kubarska and I spent March in Mexico, where we completed the popular sport testpiece Subiendo El Arcoiris (5.13b or 8a, 300m, 10 pitches), Basaseachic National Park, Chihuahua, Mexico. The route was first climbed free in 2001 by Stefan Glowacz, with Klaus Fengler photographing. Holger Heuber and Gunda Fruhwald climbed just behind Glowacz, but Heuber was unable to free Pitch 3. However, Kurt Albert and Hans Martin Gotz repeated the line only a few days later; it has seen only a handful of free ascents since…

Source: Alpinist Magazine.

The Road goes ever on and on down from the door where it began. Now far ahead the Road has gone, and I must follow, if I can, pursuing it with eager feet, until it joins some larger way where many paths and errands meet. And whither then? I cannot say…

- Bilbo Baggins

Somehow, Mariana happened to know how I’ve been feeling the entire day…

After almost 2 hours of running, our water bottles went empty and I started to suffer from overheat and dehydration. I was feeling really bad. Fortunately, by that moment we were getting back to civilization and I happened to found a place where I bought some fuel: Coca Cola. Yeah, a single can of the iced liquid and I was back to the trail in a matter of minutes, running like a madman in hope of returning to the safety of the car and home.

We finished after a bit more than 3 hours and ran 22.6 km of the route. Not so bad for an extremely hot day, huh?

I’ll put it short: New Zealand is an awesome country with a lot of incredible places. You got to go!

Here’s a brief trip report of what we did during the last 2 weeks:

• Mar 24: Arrived to Los Angeles and spent a night there because our flight to Auckland got delayed.
• Mar 25: Flew to Auckland (losing a whole day because of Time Zone changes) and began our city adventure while driving a rented right-sided car (driving in New Zealand is just like in the UK, crazy stuff…).
• Mar 27: Made a 1-day quick tour of Auckland. Visited some of the important places (for us).
• Mar 28: Flew to Queenstown, rented another car and immediately got into a helicopter which took us to Milford Sound (making a stop at the top of a glacier!). There we had a ferry tour all along the fiord, then flew back to Queenstown by airplane just before dusk. Really exciting day, it was an all-in-one!
• Mar 29: Ran half a marathon going from Wakatipu Heights to Kelvin Peninsula and back. Spent the morning at Queenstown, then departed to Wanaka, making a stop at the AJ Hackett Bungy in the way (I didn’t jump, in case you were going to ask…). Assisted to a very folkloric movie premiere at Cinema Paradiso in Wanaka, the movie was The Black Sheep (terrible movie).
• Mar 30: Got soaking wet in a Patagonian-style rain (fortunately without the furious winds) while attempting to hike to the Cascade Saddle at Mt. Aspiring, just making it to the Aspiring Hut because of the really bad weather and null visibility. Spent the night at Wanaka.
• Mar 31: Drove all the way through Haast Pass on our way to Fox Glacier in the West Coast. The weather didn’t got better.
• Apr 1: Tried to visit Fox Glacier but because of the remaining bad weather we opted to go to Franz Josef Glacier. The visibility was much better, so we made a short hike there. Drove all the way up the West Coast, making a stop at a beach near Hokitika to watch the beautiful sunset, then headed to Arthur’s Pass to spend the night.
• Apr 2: Had an incredible day hiking all the way to the top of the Bealey Spur in Arthur’s Pass. The weather was much better, so we had great views of the mountains! Returned to Arthur’s Pass to spend the night.
• Apr 3: Went all the way East to Christchurch, making a stop at Castle Hill for a short and unplanned bouldering session (bouldering there is really hard but awe-inspiring, gigantic sloppers!). Visited Christchurch during the afternoon and had nice dinner there. Headed South and spent the night at Geraldine.
• Apr 4: Drove to Mt. Cook and made a half-day hike through the Hooker Valley. The day was great and we had awesome views of the incredible mountains and glaciers. Went to Twizel and spent the night there.
• Apr 5: Returned to Queenstown and spent the afternoon there.
• Apr 6: Spent the morning fooling around Queenstown. Returned rented car at the airport and began the tortuous series of flights for coming home. Arrived to México the same day (Time Zone changes again).

Oh yeah, it was a quick but fully-featured trip to New Zealand! Here are all the photos, in case you want to take a look of the whole tour. Now lets get back to normal activities…