Red Corner: Baikal Winter Games

by Neil Woodburn on

As if I didn’t provide enough reasons in yesterday’s post to visit Siberian Lake Baikal in the wintertime, here’s another: Winteriada.

Winteriada, the International Baikal Nordic Games Festival now in its fourth consecutive year, attracts 3,000 athletes to the frozen shores of Lake Baikal to compete in over 30 sports. This year it kicked off on Thursday, February 23rd with a soccer and volleyball tournament. Keep in mind that daytime temperatures average about 20 degrees Fahrenheit and games are played outside on the snow, or atop the ice-covered lake.

Athletes compete in such traditional winter events as skiing, dog sledding, ice fishing, ice climbing, ice skating, and a 4-wheel drive race. Not-so-traditional events for the middle of the Siberian winter include golfing, lake swimming, diving, ice-cart racing, and mountain biking atop the frozen lake. Apparently, there is no lick-the-flag-pole competition this year.

Perhaps the most unexpected event is a full length marathon, also on top of the ice. Last year’s leader, renowned German runner Udo Meller, lost his way and was eventually chased down and eaten by wolves. Well, not exactly eaten, but he did wander far enough off course to lose the race to local Irkutsk scientist Arkadi Kalikhman, a 57 year-old doctor of Physics and Mathematics who completed the course in just under three hours and nine minutes. Having crossed the finish line with all ten toes, he is a double-winner in my book.

In Utah!

by Erik Olsen on

Did I mention that I was in Utah. Why, yes I am. In
fact, I just got back from a gloriously warm and wonderful day snow boarding at Park City.

Man, I have
NEEDED (and I mean this, like, physically needed) to get out West, and this is the perfect antidote. So, yes, I flew
into Salt Lake the night before last, made the drive up the canyon, and then did some cross country skiing at the White
Pine course near the city. I put my ipod on and listened to an audiobook from audible.com as I put in about 10k.

Then this morning I was up and on the slopes at Park City by 9 am. They’ve
got a sweet 92" base. Got myself a nice rental board and before I knew it was cutting delicious turns at the top
of Silverlode. It was a very fine day of boarding with superb, though packed, snow and relatively thin crowds.
I’ll post some pictures once I can find a card reader. I foolishly forgot my reader back in New York. I’ll
also try to do some more posts about the conditions here once I’m back online.

GADLING'S TAKE FIVE: Week of February 21

by Erik Olsen on

It’s that time again, time to highlight some of the more
interesting Gadling posts from this last week. And it was a rather rich week, I’d say, especially when you consider
that we put up another podcast for your ear budding pleasure. But let me start at the beginning with this week’s
list:

5. Blimp Travel: This was a post I
found over at Popular Science and it really fired me up. I’ve long been puzzled why we haven’t been able to ply the
skies slowly in a dirigible. I mean, the technology has been around for a while, and yet, no blimp rides. Did the
tragedy of the Hindenburg ruin blimp travel? Well, perhaps not. Looks like someone may be building blimps for us after
all.

4. Tiki Mania: To be honest, I had only
heard of this whole Tiki business through Neil, whose post on Tiki Mania made it clear that the current Tiki revival
(revival? When was the last great Tiki boom, again? Oh, the 60s) is something to pay attention to, at the very least
for the promise of delicious fruity drinks.  But seriously, little did I know that the Tiki craze has its own magazine, blog, and, a band called Ape.

3. Calypso:
Adrienne, you might have read, is spending some fine time in Trinidad, and are we jealous! Well, she’s somehow found a
nice connection down there and is sending some excellent dispatches on life in a place most of us have never been. They
are really superb, and we are grateful. I’d like, in fact, to direct you to this wonderful post on Calypso and Soca
music. I read it last night, and then the daylight come and me wanna go home.

2. Tunisian Star Wars Locations: Sorry, I’m,
about a big a Star Wars geek as they get. I’ll not get into the details, but trust me, I’m out there in a galaxy far far
away. And so that is why I enjoyed Neil’s post on Tunisian Star Wars locations. What can I say? I’d go there just to
stand in the sand and say: These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.

1. Gadling Podcast: Joshua Davis: I really
enjoyed chatting with author Josh Davis about his new book Underdog: How I survived the World’s Most Outlandish
Competitions (not to mention the forthcoming film on his sumo exploits). The podcast here is our first since we spoke
with Fabien Cousteau about his shark submarine, and I think you’ll really enjoy it. Josh is a great guy, and his story
will make you shake you head in wonder. 

Brown Snow Falls

by Erik Olsen on

A rather odd story our of Colorado
that is either a sign of the apocalypse or of the second coming, should the messiah arrive in the form of Willy Wonka.
Or perhaps there are other explanations. Still, here’s what happened.

It seems that in a wide area of
Colorado, snow has been falling that
some people are describing as dark "chocolate brown", and it plopped down in great muddy blobs onto hikers
and skiers alike who were, one would guess, rather surprised. If this happens often, I suppose we’ll all be dreaming of
a brown Christmas. No matter. The obvious explanation, notwithstanding the second coming of Mr. Wonka as mentioned
above, is the high altitude mixing of snow and dust from storms in Arizona.

It is, of course, unusual for
such dust to mingle and fall in Colorado, but there’s nothing to panic about folks. We promise.

Ski Video Blog

by Erik Olsen on

In a mere two weeks, I will be on the slopes of
Alta, or perhaps Snowbird, enjoying my first day of skiing this season. It has been a long dry, skiless year for me,
which is quite unusual and downright tragic when you think about it. I mean, I’m used to a dozen or so ski days a year,
but in the last couple of years, as professional life asserts itself, that’s been reduced to jut a handful. Sad.

But no matter. I was inspired as I started my mental planning for this imminent trip to bring along a video
camera and perhaps do some video blogging from the slopes. What inspired me was this rather fine series of video blog
posts from Ridertech, a company and Web site that I
had never heard  of before, but which produces some rather decent videos, even if they make too liberal use of
Google maps video. But here we are on a quiet Friday, and you may be planning your own ski trip soon, and you might
just find these little video bits as enjoyable as I did.