Thermal inversions are a great part of life in valleys. Whilst you’re living down in the glacial trough you’re waking up every morning to the knowledge that you won’t see the sun for the next few days… until the wind shifts.
If you’ve got the time during daylight hours though you have the option of going up to the mountains. It’s at this point that you can enjoy the sun. As you walk in the Jura at the moment you’ll find that there are long plaques of ice and they’re slippy whilst in direct sunlight. In the shade traction from normal shoes is possible and walking is not that complicated.
There are different types of ice, that which is transparent, where you see the leaves and other objects, that which is white, from too much oxygen and then the mixture where it’s a little of both.
Many families were walking today, some were struggling and others treated the landscape like a giant playground. Some people spoke French, others, German, Italian, Spannish and more. It was international.
Sometimes when I walk there are hardly any sounds and it’s good, a break from London and student life.
The Klettersteig Rider 3.0 is a dual system via ferrata kit. It has a carabiner like standard via ferrata kits have and a “rider” system. The “rider” system fixes to the via ferrata cable and progresses with you. As you get to a part where you need to switch you move the rider system up first and then you move the carabiner.
What I like about this system is that if you slip or lose grip of the rungs for any reason you will only fall the length of the connector rather than the length from where you are to the most recent pig tail. This reduces the fall distance by a considerable amount.
The Via Ferrata where I would most like such a system is Leukerbad. On the Leukerbad Via Ferrata when you get to the last third there are few handholds so you rely on finger and arm strength to progress and you get tired. With this system you would relieve that strain to some extent. It would make me feel more at ease.
At 229 CHF from at least one online shop this kit is expensive. You can get Via Ferrata sets for between 60-115 CHF as a beginner. This kit is interesting for people who, like me, have practised Via Ferrata for years and use their kits every weekend in summer. Via Ferrata sets can last for years so if you estimate that you will use it from 3-5 years the price is acceptable.
An alternative is the Austrialpin Hydra via
The three common forms of climbing are Rock, climbing, via ferrata and bouldering. Rock climbing is an excellent and amusing sport that requires living in the right place, having the right equipment and knowing the right people. I enjoy the sport but have not found a group to go with. Via Ferrata as I love to call it is Rock climbing for tourists. The equipments and routes are set out and prepared so that those with the correct experience, head for heights and equipments can explore the landscape in an interesting and dynamic fashion. The last of these is bouldering. Bouldering is a form of climbing without ropes. In the wild it requires finding a bit of rock and studying the rock to find a route.
On Sunday I noticed on Facebook that a new indoor climbing place was opening in Gland. Totem Escalade is an indoor bouldering place where you can practice climbing indoors. As autumn and winter approach this is welcome. It is based by the bowling in Gland, next to where a night club used to be. It has a central structure off which are four climbing surfaces with coloured paper to mark the grade of the climbs. As you progress you can attempt harder and harder routes.
Bouldering is physically demanding and develops upper body strength. You need to use your arms, fingers and back muscles to hold on and make progress along the route you have chosen. As you try a number of routes a number of times so your strength will begin to fade. After two hours of enjoyment my hand muscles were done. I can still feel them as I write this blog post.
I love that a climbing wall is so close to Nyon. For years I have been looking for this. Now that I know about this climbing wall I will be a frequent visitor. I want to improve my technique and I want to increase my strength so that for the next via ferrata season I will be that much more comfortable.
It is not rare for me to do a timelapse from La Barillette. Several years ago I tried a timelapse with a 360 camera where you saw clouds forming overhead and in a spherical video. I also filmed a timelapse of the Paléo parkings filling up. This time I went up the Jura in the hope of filming Autumn colours but as I got to the top my project changed.
The problem with filming Autumn colours is that you need to be there at the right time of day and with the light coming from the right direction. The light was coming from the wrong angle so stopping in the woods would have allowed me to get three or four frames before moving on to the next location.
When you’re in a car this type of filming is not interesting. It’s more interesting to get to one location and get a greater diversity of shots. The other advantage is that you can always head back down and get the shots you thought were still interesting.
As I looked from above and assessed the situation I saw that clouds were forming and dissipating. I thought that I may eventually find myself in a cloud with poor visibility. I was more interested in capturing the formation of clouds. They did form, but then they dissipated, and then they formed again but more sparsly before dissipating again.
This is fantastic when you’re filming time-lapses because the change is noticeable without being accelerated so you can imagine what it would give if you did speed it up.
The challenge with timelapse is knowing whether something will take minutes, hours, days or even longer to capture. I have one idea that I assess would take six or seven hours which I will not discuss at this stage.
Usually when I film timelapses I set the camera up so that it records one or two frames every so many seconds. In this case I just started recording. I did not know on what timescale the actions would occur so it gave me greater flexibility in post production.
The footage was sped up from 800 percent to 5000 percent. The clouds that were vanishing was fast. The river of clouds flowing down the valley was slower and thus sped up more. The other challenge is to decide how tight or wide you want the frame to be. With the trees and the river of clouds it’s hard to know whether to have a tighter shot where the action may render the frame boring sooner or wehter tom have a wide shot where the action only takes up half the screen.
In the end this is about gaining experience rather than getting things right first time. It’s about learning to see and anticipate how nature will behave. If you get it right then it can be of great beauty. If you get it wrong you ignore it and think of a new idea.
Later in the year, when Autumn comes we can expect the clouds to behave like this. It’s the “Soupe de Pois” as some call it. I have at least two or three ideas to experiment with and two of them can be done from the comfort of home.
I did see something exceptional on the way back down. A herd of five chevreuils as I drove down afer I finished getting my timelapse footage. That’s the most I’ve seen at once when driving.
In the 1990s when satellite distribution of television content was in it’s infancy we got a satellite dish and I would watch the Discovery Channel from the start of the broadcast day to when the programmes were played for the second time that day.
By watching so many documentaries I learned a lot about the world. I watched Mythbusters, Lonely Planet, Modern Marvels and many many other documentaries. It is only ten years later that I stopped watching Discovery. By that time I was no longer in the family home and so documentary viewing was more restrictive. Whilst at the University of Bournemouth and the University of Westminster I did take advantage to watch as many documentaries as I could find. The dissertation I wrote during my third year of studies was about the documentary genre. I had an academic reason to watch these documentaries. It was no longer a hobby.
Aside from the selection of Discovery channels and University VHS tapes documentaries can also be found on national and European channels. I am thinking of Temps Present, Passe Moi Les Jumelles and other factual programmes and current affairs content. These documentaries fit within a specific format to be broadcast at the same times every week.
We then have artistic documentaries like those broadcast on Arte, shown at independent cinemas, festivals and more. These documentaries are not adapted for mainstream viewing. They fill a niche. They are sometimes hard to watch and other times so niche that aside from those with that passion or interest no one will ever watch them.
The Discovery Channel network broadcasts set documentaries at set times on set channels for a set number of hours per day. Viewers can either watch documentaries as they are broadcast or on demand. As PVR arrived viewers could shape their viewing habits around their lifestyle rather than the other way around.
Discovery channel documentaries have two serious flaws, that as a documentary professional cannot stand. The first of these is commercial breaks. When I watch content I want to watch it from start to finish. I don’t want it to be interrupted because it means that for two or three minutes I have to find something else to do. This could be a serious trigger to people having a laptop or tablet with them when watching TV. The second very big flaw with Discovery TV documentaries is sensationalism and repetition.
I found that when watching hour long documentaries on Discovery television channels more than half of the time is spent repeating what has happened and what will happen with very little content left over. You will spend an hour watching a show that could have been over in just 24 minutes. This is an excellent way to lose viewers.
Netflix is a video on demand platform. This platform makes available all of the content it has licensed to it’s customers. This content is ready to play within seconds and has no adverts. This is great for content creators. It means that they can spend more time moving the story forward. There is no need to worry about viewers starting to watch a show half way through. It means that if you have a 42 minute slot you can spend 52 minutes telling the story. This is great for content creators.
The flaw of Discovery Channel documentaries and commercial television in general is that they make mediocre content and then add adverts every few minutes. This means that a mediocre programme will be watched from one commercial to another before the channel is changed. They live under the misconception that sensationalism and excited narration will keep viewers. It has the opposite effect, at least on me.
Netflix allows you to watch the BBC Blue Planet and Planet Earth documentaries with no adverts. This gives documentary makers an advantage. Imagine watching Planet Earth documentary episodes that are 52 minutes long with an extra 15 minutes or more of adverts thrown in. For this reason Netflix is an excellent documentary distribution platform.
‘Make what people want to watch and the rest goes with it’. I don’t think that has changed at all. My job every day is to make what people want to watch.â€
I have written several times about my notion that documentaries are encyclopaedias. Planet Earth and Blue Planet documentaries are a perfect demonstration of this. Each episode is about a specific biome. By watching each documentary your knowledge and understanding of the world around you increases.
Compare this to the sensationalist hyperactive content that the Discovery channel network places in between adverts. Their content is so sensationalist and so condescending that I switch programme within minutes, if not seconds, of tuning in. Through having to appeal to a mass audience the Discovery Channel documentary network fails me as a viewer. Their content is too unpleasant to watch.
I want to learn, I want good camera work, good editing and good narration. When documentaries have all of these features I will watch them. I want both the content creator and the content distributor to treat me with respect. Although Netflix is not perfect it does a better job than Discovery.
Climbing in Bramois is a pleasant and practical experience. This is a climbing area with numerous walls and routes. There are single and multipitch routes ranging from 3-4 up to 7 and 8. The climbing area is within a gorge with nice rock on both side and a river running through the middle.  This area has over 150 routes from which for you to choose from. The routes vary in length from 10-40 metres for single pitch routes.
When I was there I climbed around the Africa wall. There are quite a few 5a and above routes. Some of these routes are more instinctive than others. There is one particular route where we had a tendency within the group to go too far too the right and then had to go left and then make it up to a crack. Once the complicated bit was negotiated the rest of the climb was easy. I am still getting used to climbing on rock rather than on an artificial wall or via ferrata.
I later went to another wall a few minutes walk away and that climb was more interesting because it was up a chimney and some bits were mild overhangs that could be negotiated with observation. That wall was fun to climb.
For more information about the climbing walls you can visit this site. The advantage of this climbing area is that multiple groups can be present at once and climb without getting in each others way. You have a variety of climbing routes and experiences and getting around is easy if you don’t mind walking up and down short trails. I will be tempted to climb around this area many more times in future. The climbing season is coming to an end for this year but I do plan on climbing here again next year. With the people whom I drove to the site we climbed until the sun had left the valley.