Sunny weather
Jul. 15th, 2003 03:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
azziriaIt’s very very hot here this afternoon, real ‘Mad dogs and Englishmen’ weather. My office has no air conditioning so my colleague and I are trying to make do with an electric fan - a far from ideal situation. The only thing that is helping me to keep a sense of proportion is that I’m following the Tour de France on the Eurosport website, and those guys are cycling over mountains in weather like this.
The weather is making me think about holidays, and remember some brilliant days out in the Alps. When it’s this hot we try to get up really early and set off, so that we get most of our climbing up done in the relative cool of the morning. Then we plan to come down to some mountain hut or other in time for a light lunch and several cold beers, all taken at leisure, then wander back down to the campsite/car when it starts to cool off a bit in the late afternoon.
This sort of heat is always a real problem caving too, especially in Austria on expedition. You leave putting your gear on until the last possible moment, because it’s so hot on the surface rocks, and as soon as you’ve geared up you start to sweat really badly. Then you dash to the entrance and abseil down - but down the cave it’s cold (about 2 degrees centigrade in Austria) so within a few minutes all the sweat is making you freezing cold.
There’s one place near where we cave in Austria where one of the main footpaths goes past a cave entrance that blows cold air out. If you’re really hot, it’s bliss to go and sit in the blast from the entrance for a few minutes until you cool down - just like sitting in front of an open fridge door!
Can’t wait to go on holiday... *sigh*
The weather is making me think about holidays, and remember some brilliant days out in the Alps. When it’s this hot we try to get up really early and set off, so that we get most of our climbing up done in the relative cool of the morning. Then we plan to come down to some mountain hut or other in time for a light lunch and several cold beers, all taken at leisure, then wander back down to the campsite/car when it starts to cool off a bit in the late afternoon.
This sort of heat is always a real problem caving too, especially in Austria on expedition. You leave putting your gear on until the last possible moment, because it’s so hot on the surface rocks, and as soon as you’ve geared up you start to sweat really badly. Then you dash to the entrance and abseil down - but down the cave it’s cold (about 2 degrees centigrade in Austria) so within a few minutes all the sweat is making you freezing cold.
There’s one place near where we cave in Austria where one of the main footpaths goes past a cave entrance that blows cold air out. If you’re really hot, it’s bliss to go and sit in the blast from the entrance for a few minutes until you cool down - just like sitting in front of an open fridge door!
Can’t wait to go on holiday... *sigh*
