www.arareko.net

Traveling light

noreply@blogger.com (Mauricio) — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 03:41:00 +0000

So I arrived to Toronto a couple of hours ago just to be informed that the airline didn't put my luggage into the airplane, so it didn't arrive with me. Great...

After writing the proper report and complaining at the baggage claim desk, everything I could get from the airline is that they located my things and are going to ship them in tomorrow's flight, delivering them to where I'm staying, until Wednesday morning.

Excellent! No toothbrush, hairbrush, deodorant or clean underwear to change in a couple of days. Which makes me think about next travel buying cheap clothes on the road and disposing them after a couple of days of use so I won't have to worry to carrying luggage at all. Very tempting idea...

Ok, seriously, what really concerns me aren't the missing clothes, but the few climbing gear that I packed so I could use it at the very end of this trip. Perhaps I should also get a disposable set of Stoppers and Camalots while on the road? I don't think so... :-S

Free as a bird

noreply@blogger.com (Mauricio) — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 02:10:00 +0000

This photo speaks by itself...

All I can say is that this has been one of the most intense experiences of my life. Very short, but extremely intense.

So intense that I complained with Ramiro (the professional behind me) when he opened the parachute and interrupted the 30-second free fall to the ground and made the travel a light glide across the sky. Yeah, the effects of a sudden heavy dose of oxygen directly into the brain... haha :D

The rest of the pictures are here.

Massive headache

noreply@blogger.com (Mauricio) — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 02:12:00 +0000

A very strong headache hit me today while at the office. So strong that I wasn't able to look at the computer screen, thus being unable to work effectively. No medicine did the trick so I opted to shut things down and run away towards home to get some rest.

Once at home, I was welcomed by Mokka who made me smile for a couple of minutes so I could forget about the pain in my head. After a 3 hour nap, I woke up to find myself pretty much recovered and ready to go to my parents place for dinner.

More Details on New El Cap Speed Record

noreply@blogger.com (Mauricio) — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 03:09:00 +0000

On Wednesday, July 2, 2008, Hans Florine and Yuji Hirayama climbed the Nose (VI 5.9 A2, 2,900') on El Capitan, Yosemite. The team made multiple attempts in days prior, and on the previous Sunday had missed the Hubers' record of 2:45:45 by only two minutes (read the June 30, 2008 NewsWire article). However, their repeat attempt proved successful; they beat the Germans' time by two minutes to set a new record of 2:43:33. Florine and Hirayama had climbed the Nose four times over the course of the week, starting with a time of 4:48 on Monday, and paring it down to their record-breaking time by Wednesday...

Taken from: Alpinist Magazine.

More News from the Alaska Range

noreply@blogger.com (Mauricio) — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 02:59:00 +0000

On April 19, 2008, a Japanese team comprised of Kei Taniguchi and Hiroki Suzuki climbed Ham and Eggs on the Moose's Tooth. The following day, they made an ascent of Shaken, Not Stirred (TD+ or V AI5, 3,100') on the same peak. On April 23, they climbed the relatively new route Freezy Nuts (TD+: 95 degrees, 800m) on London Tower. On the 29th, Taniguchi and Suzuki summited Mt. Grosvenor (8,460') via Warrior's Way (V M5R A0, 21 pitches), with some minor variations on the upper pitches...

Taken from: Alpinist Magazine.

Groundiving?

noreply@blogger.com (Mauricio) — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 02:52:00 +0000

Yesterday we had a frustrated attempt to our first ever skydive.

Moni, Dana, her friends and I spent most part of the day in Cuautla, waiting for a bunch of jumpers ahead of us to perform their act until strong winds and a heavy rain appeared around 6 p.m. to crush every hope we had to jump off the plane.

Now we will have to go back next Saturday to do the jump very early in the morning, so neither crowds or weather get in our way. At least our place is very well reserved now. Another week of wait... :(

Florine, Hirayama Break Nose Speed Record

noreply@blogger.com (Mauricio) — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 04:47:00 +0000

On July 2, 2008, Hans Florine and Yuji Hirayama climbed the Nose on El Capitan in 2:43:33, besting the previous record by just over two minutes. Florine and Hirayama held the iconic route's speed record from 2002 until last autumn, when Alex and Thomas Huber broke it twice, establishing 2:45:45 as the new time to beat...

Taken from: Alpinist Magazine.

It's personal: Tweitmeyer set to run solo Western States 200 to boost special trail status bid

noreply@blogger.com (Mauricio) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 04:49:00 +0000

Tim Tweitmeyer is poised to run 200 miles to deliver a message to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in support of special status for the Western States Trail.

The five-time Western States Endurance Run winner and Auburn resident plans to run a route starting Friday that crosses the Sierra Nevada range using four major trails – the Tahoe Rim Trail to near Squaw Valley, the Tevis Cup horse ride trail through the high-country valley, the Western States Trail down to Auburn and the Pioneer Express trail from Auburn to near the California Capitol...

Auburn Journal - It's personal: Tweitmeyer set to run solo Western States 200 to boost special trail status bid

Bioinformatics Career Survey 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Mauricio) — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 04:44:00 +0000

Mike from Bioinformatics Zen created a bioinformatics career survey.

The expected results should provide an interesting picture of how people is performing in the field, so if you're into it, please take a some minutes to fill it out.

So Close: The Nose in 2:47:30

noreply@blogger.com (Mauricio) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 04:45:00 +0000

On Sunday, June 29, 2008, Yosemite speed climber and historian Hans Florine, with Japanese partner Yuji Hirayama, climbed the Nose (VI 5.9 A2, 2,900') on El Capitan in 2 hours, 47 minutes and 30 seconds, nearly reclaiming the world's most coveted speed record. Their new time is the route's second fastest, barely missing the mark—2:45:45—that the Huber brothers set in October of last year (read the October 9, 2007 NewsWire)...

Taken from: Alpinist Magazine.

More Details on Baffin's "Long Way Home"

noreply@blogger.com (Mauricio) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 21:34:00 +0000

During six weeks from April to June 2008, German alpinists Stephan Glowacz and Robert Jasper, together with photographer Klaus Fengler and cameramen Holger Heuber and Mariusz Hoffman, traveled by snow machine from Pond Inlet to the northeastern coast of Baffin Island, Canada, where they made the first ascent of "the Bastion" via Take the Long Way Home (5.13 A4, 21 pitches, 2,300'), one of Baffin's most difficult, before literally taking the long way home—skiing and kiting 350 kilometers back to the safety of Clyde River...

Taken from: Alpinist Magazine.

Cancelled: Western States 100

noreply@blogger.com (Mauricio) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 04:19:00 +0000

Read it in the ULTRA list as well as in Scott Dunlap's blog. The Western States Endurance Run has been cancelled due to the smoke, fires, and access difficulties taking place along its course.

Very sad news for all those ultra folks who prepared like crazy for this lifetime testpiece but better for the safety of everyone involved. Cheers to all.

Google Developer Day 2008 - Mexico City

noreply@blogger.com (Mauricio) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 04:45:00 +0000

Spent all day at Centro Banamex attending the Google Developer Day 2008 with Cicloid and other friends from the Open Source movement in Mexico.

This is the first time that the event is organized here and it was a total success. A lot of people attended and all the conference rooms were at full capacity. Congrats to the organizers.

Morning was about a couple of keynote sessions where we heard a brief history of the Internet, Google, their evolution and future trends, then a quick description of the products/areas where Google is opening their platforms/APIs: Gadgets, Gears, Web Toolkit, App Engine, Data API, YouTube, OpenSocial, Android, Maps & KML.

After a nice lunch provided by the organizers, I attended the following talks in the afternoon: Google App Engine by Paul McDonald, iGoogle + Google Gadgets by Bruno Bowden, From Mashups to Mapplets and Google Maps API by Pamela Fox. Speakers gave superb presentations and were very open to answer every question the attendees had, even after the sessions.

It was a productive day where we learned a lot and which opened the doors to new development possibilities :)

Trio Fires New Black Canyon 5.12

noreply@blogger.com (Mauricio) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 03:43:00 +0000

On June 7, 2008, Jason Nelson, Jack Jeffries and Cody Sims added a new route to the pantheon of hard traditional free lines in Colorado's Black Canyon of the Gunnison. Pent Up (5.12c, 7 pitches, ca. 700') ascends the west side of the South Rim's Chillumstone Gully, just left of Count Your Lily Pads (III 5.10 A2). In hopes of reconnecting with his home crag after a winter spent in the Mexican Potreros, Nelson decided to scout potential routes he had noticed in years past...

Taken from: Alpinist Magazine.

Mokka goes climbing

noreply@blogger.com (Mauricio) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 01:14:00 +0000

It's been some time since we did some route climbing. Today we went to Las Mesas and took Mokka with us. Oh yeah, the dog was quite happy with the trip, so happy that she jumped straight into the river without hesitation when we had to cross it!

She panicked out a little bit when I left her with Cova and the gang so I could climb on the back side of the cliff to setup the top-rope. She did whatever possible to scramble up the hill so she could be closer to me until she was stopped by 5 meters of really vertical rock. As soon as I went down the cliff everything went to normal as she understood that the game consisted of everybody taking turns to go up the rock then down.

Despite the rain that came so early at noon, we had a great day, doing some easy climbing and enjoying nature :)

You can take a look at the pics here.

Playing with Wordle

noreply@blogger.com (Mauricio) — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 03:21:00 +0000

Neil blogged about it and it seemed like an interesting thing to try.

Of course I didn't had any place from where to grab personal tags for creating a cloud. When I started this blog, tags weren't even used and I was very lazy to adopt the concept when they appeared. Also, I've given del.icio.us a couple of tries before, but it never really convinced me of switching from the "old school" Mozilla-based bookmarking system.

So how did I solved the problem? A couple of easy tricks (which are not the subject of this post): imported my Firefox bookmarks into del.icio.us, then manually cleaned a couple of the auto-generated tags that had nothing to do with myself, copied them into a text file, parsed the lines with an easy Perl script to print the number of occurrences for each tag and voila!

I finally pasted the results into the Wordle interface and this is the result, I called it arareko's world:

Great Trango Testpiece Finally Climbed Again

noreply@blogger.com (Mauricio) — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 03:02:00 +0000

A four-man team has made a rare complete ascent of the ca. 5,000' Norwegian Buttress on Great Trango Tower in Pakistan, a route that had gone unclimbed since its first ascent in 1984. Norwegians Stein Ivar Gravdal, Bjarte Bo, Sigurd Felde and Rolf Bae climbed the northeast face and topped out on the east summit (20,463') during May and June of this year. The party spent twenty-seven days on the ascent and took three days to descend...

Taken from: Alpinist Magazine.

Haute: 120 Miles, One Day, Unassisted

noreply@blogger.com (Mauricio) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 03:01:00 +0000

At 1 a.m. on May 2, 2008, French Alpine Club ski mountaineers Stephan Brosse, Lionel Bonnel and Laurent Fabre left from a church in downtown Chamonix to ski the famed Haute Route to Zermatt. Their objective was to cover the 28,220 feet of elevation gain and 120-mile, partially glaciated traverse in fewer than twenty-four hours, without using any technical assistance. Loaded with the appropriate gear, the trio ran to the Argentiere Glacier, where the Haute Route normally begins. Twenty-one hours and eleven minutes later, Brosse and Bonnel were celebrating success in front of a church in Zermatt. Overcome with exhaustion, Fabre had abandoned the challenge that afternoon...

Taken from: Alpinist Magazine.

Norwegians "Go Small" in Ruth Gorge

noreply@blogger.com (Mauricio) — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 02:59:00 +0000

From April 7 to May 3, Eiliv Ruud and I made attempts on several routes in Ruth Gorge. Though we climbed some outstanding classics, our best memories are from Kuriositeten (AI5 M3+, ca. 800m), our new route on the shorter mountain between Mt. Bradley (9,100') and Mt. Dickey (9,545'), aka Peak-747. Alaskan climbing luminaries Kelly Cordes and Joe Puryear confirmed that there were no previously recorded ascents of this line...

Taken from: Alpinist Magazine.

Testing the new Ensembl

noreply@blogger.com (Mauricio) — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 03:04:00 +0000

Just subscribed to the "beta test" program for the next Ensembl 50 release. So far the new website interfaces look good...

More info: here.

20:02: Caldwell Frees Magic Mushroom in a Day

noreply@blogger.com (Mauricio) — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 02:55:00 +0000

Less than a month after making the first free ascent of Magic Mushroom (VI 5.14, 2,900') on El Capitan with Justen Sjong (read the May 19 and May 20, 2008 NewsWires), Tommy Caldwell returned to lead every pitch free on June 8 in 20:02, with his wife Beth Rodden belaying (and power-jugging) in support...

Taken from: Alpinist Magazine.

A furry neighbor

noreply@blogger.com (Mauricio) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 23:21:00 +0000

Mokka found this tarantula while I was having lunch and she was playing with her toys in the backyard garden. I think she actually was digging a hole or moving something between the plants, because it isn't that common that such a big spider can appear in this neighborhood.

It was weird and funny to watch the dog slowly walking over the grass following a big black furry thing that moved in front of her nose. I think the spider was more afraid of Mokka, but in the end, each of them continued their way without making a lot of trouble. Of course, I picked up the spider and left it in a safer place, such as the nearby forest...

The rest of the pics can be seen here.

Running in the rain

noreply@blogger.com (Mauricio) — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 15:02:00 +0000

Last night, Gil, Caro, Dana and I ran the 5 km version of Carrera Nocturna in the University streets.

The race started at 9 p.m. despite the heavy rain that fell in Mexico City. As always, it was an entertaining course and the runners had a lot of good attitude. We finished soaking wet but with a huge grin in our faces because of the pleasant journey.

Congrats go to Caro & Gil who finished in one piece their first (and hopefully not last) race! :D

More Alaska News from the Giri-Giri Boys

noreply@blogger.com (Mauricio) — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 22:52:00 +0000

The Denali enchainment of the Isis Face and the Slovak Direct by three Japanese climbers (see the May 27, 2008 NewsWire) was not the only success the Giri-Giri Boys found in Alaska. In April, before their historic enchainment, Fumitaka Ichimura, Yusuke Sato and Katsutaka Yokoyama made an impressive first ascent on the unclimbed northeast face of Bears Tooth (10,070'), climbed Wake Up in the Ruth Gorge, attempted Mt. Hunter's acclaimed Moonflower Buttress and ascended Denali's West Buttress. These impressive achievements, however, were tempered by the tragic loss of two friends on Denali's Cassin Ridge...

Taken from: Alpinist Magazine.

Entire Tordrillo Range Traversed

noreply@blogger.com (Mauricio) — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 22:49:00 +0000

Over nine days in May 2008 Andrew Wexler and Dylan Taylor and I made a 100-mile, full-length ski traverse of the Tordrillo Mountains in Alaska. Our traverse traveled from south to north through the Tordrillos, climbing 38,000 vertical feet and making ski descents off the four highest peaks including Mt. Spurr (11,069'), Mt. Torbert (11,413'), Mt. Talachulitna (11,150'), and Mt. Gerdine (11,258')...

Taken from: Alpinist Magazine.