Friday, July 16, 2010

Climate change indicator

16 April: on our way into the Gauli glacier area, on a ski-mountaineering trip, we had to cross the Bächlilücke, a rocky col between two glaciers. This involves climbing three sets of ladders on the east side (see photo) and downclimbing an even greater distance to the glacier on the western side. In 1980, the guidebook says, you could still walk over this col on snow, without taking your skis off....

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Ash Saturday

First photos of the Eyjafjallajökull volcanic ash in Swiss airspace? Maybe...

Saturday, 17 April: solo ski-tour to the Wildhorn (3248 m), the highest peak of the Wildhorn group in the Bernese Alps, topping out early afternoon. (OK, so we were slow.) This was the day that the volcanic ash from Eyjafjallajökull was predicted to reach Swiss airspace. Indeed, to the southwest of the peak, faint cloud bands were visible in the sky (above the low-level cumulus). Was that the ash? I sent these images to MeteoSuisse for their opinion but, so far, unfortunately, no reply ....

View from Wildhorn summit



Detail with enhanced contrast



On Monday and Tuesday the following week, Zurich was treated to smoky skies and moderately spectacular sunrises:-




References

Report on MeteoSuisse website about the ash cloud's arrival in Swiss airspace (German only)

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Like a great ring

From alpinist/physicist John Tyndall's "Expedition of 1856" to the Bernese Oberland:-

We descended to the glacier and proceeded towards its source. As we advanced an unusual light fell upon the mountains, and looking upwards we saw a series of coloured rings, drawn like a vivid circular rainbow quite round the sun. Between the orb and us spread a thin veil of cloud on which the circles were painted; the western side of the veil soon melted away, and with it the colours, but the eastern half remained a quarter of an hour longer, and then in its turn disappeared."

Sun haloes and sun dogs can be seen anywhere in the world, but they seem to be especially frequent in the Bernese Oberland. Often they are associated with the veil clouds that come in ahead of a warm front. Here are two from this spring.

Bächlital, April, with circumzenithal arc at the top of the picture



Wildgärst, February





References

Tyndall quotation from John Tyndall, The Glaciers of the Alps & Mountaineering in 1861, published by Everyman, 1906, reprinted 1911

Related post: Marcel Minnaert's Light and Colour in the Outdoors

Blüemberg revisited

Rediscovery of a ski-touring classic in central Switzerland

February 13: Ho hum, it's Blüemberg again. You decide to tag along because your friends suggested it, but you've been there before and you couldn't remember much that was interesting about it. You got up at 5am in the grey city and you dragged your ski-touring kit down to the station to get the 6-something train. Then a little cable-car takes you above the fog deck - and what is this place? That has to be the Lidernen hut, but never did it look like this before...

Lucky you accepted the invitation, or you would have missed out on the drumlin terrain ...


... the sleeping hummocks (what's under that snow?)....


... the view opening out as you climb higher...


... that noonday climb towards the cirrus...


... the view out over forever ...


... somewhere there was a summit ...


... then skiing down past this misplaced mesa ...


... but, no, we must still be in Switzerland.


Turning down that invitation would have been a mistake. Thanks, Andreas...