More than a mirage: wine springs from oasis vinyard from Robert Leslie on Vimeo.
afewthingsivedone | notsomuch a blog, more a braindump - a library of thingsivedone so that I can remember
Tuesday, 25 November 2008
More than a mirage: wine springs from oasis vineyard
Monday, 17 November 2008
Windhoek bucks the shanty trend
Youtube
The Namibian capital Windhoek is managing to stay one step ahead of the flood of people coming to town from the countryside. However both space and resources are running low with chronic unemployment.
The Namibian capital Windhoek is managing to stay one step ahead of the flood of people coming to town from the countryside. However both space and resources are running low with chronic unemployment.
Windhoek bucks the shanty trend from Robert Leslie on Vimeo.
Free cash for Namibia's poorest
Once a month, the people of Otjivero are being handed 100 Namibian dollars each as part of a unique social experiment. The hope is that the grant, the equivalent of only $14 US, will help lift them out of poverty.
Yahoo
Yahoo
Free cash for Namibia's poorest from Robert Leslie on Vimeo.
Cameras and guns target Namibia's big cats
Yahoo.com
Game spotting and game hunting are both big business in Namibia. Farmers, struggling to make money from cattle, are no longer shooting predators like Cheetah and Leopard - they are selling them to wildlife parks or even calling in the hunters.
Game spotting and game hunting are both big business in Namibia. Farmers, struggling to make money from cattle, are no longer shooting predators like Cheetah and Leopard - they are selling them to wildlife parks or even calling in the hunters.
Cameras and guns compete for Namibia's big cats from Robert Leslie on Vimeo.
Volunteers fight last minute battle for Virginia
The state of Virginia hasn't voted for a Democratic president since 1964 but this time may be different. Over the final campaigning weekend and as John McCain addressed a rally in the area, Obama volunteers hit the streets.
Volunteers fight last minute battle for Virginia from Robert Leslie on Vimeo.
Obama's fires up supporters at final rally
Presidential front-runner Barack Obama issued a barnstorming call for change at his final campaign rally in Manassas, Virginia on Monday as he vowed to fight to honor his late grandmother and America's other "quiet heroes."
AOL
Obama's fires up supporters at final rally from Robert Leslie on Vimeo.
The wait is over: America casts its vote
Americans crowded polling stations on Tuesday to vote in their historic election, with front-running Democrat Barack Obama fighting to be the first black US president and Republican John McCain hoping for an upset win.
The wait is over: America casts its vote from Robert Leslie on Vimeo.
Early gains secure White House for Obama
With the key battleground states of Pennsylvania and Ohio going his way early on results night, the presidency was all but secured for Barack Obama. The 47-year-old Illinois Senator becomes the first black president in America's history.
myslopes: Alpe d'Huez
Ski feature for Snow Magazine
Published November 2008
Web link
Instructor and seasoned Alpe d’Huez ski guide Robert Leslie can’t help returning to the funny-looking French giant. Here's his take on the Shrek of the Alps – and its soft and warm underbelly.
Be nice to Alpe d’Huez. Being best known for a summer bicycle race is no way for any self-respecting ski resort to carry on. But Alpe d'Huez [ADH] doesn't like to show off, and neither would you if you looked like that. A relic of the days when square was beautiful, it's like Lego bricks thrown at random into the lap of the Huez Alpine plateau. No amount of wood cladding is ever going to turn it into a Kitzbühel. But not having Austrian charm or the reputation of, say, a 'Val' or a 'Cham' is Alpe d'Huez's saving grace. Like the ugly one at the party, no one gives it a second glance and yet, strangely, you end up wrapped around each other at three in the morning, swearing undying love and singing at the moon. I’ve spent two winters here and countless holidays, and can’t stop going back: here are just a few reasons why.
They say he can talk to marmottes. High mountain guides are not trained, they just are - born to the mountains and raised like Romulus and Remus by local fauna. Stephane says little but when he does you listen. 'Ski in my tracks' he says as we skim across hair-line yet fathomless crevasses in the Ecrins National Park, a short drive from Alpe d'Huez. 'Wide stance' he says before effortlessly skipping down 45-degree Combe du Cerisier, off the back of the Chateau Noir black. All this with a role-up in his mouth, sticks in his left hand - right hand calling in a chopper by text message. A man who has guided me through whiter than white-outs, shown me an impossible couloir directly beneath the Pic Blanc cable car - in thick fog, and wrestled a chamois with his bare teeth. We salute you, full-on mountain man.
Beware: shallow gene pool. When ski resorts are built, they consume primitive Alpine villages like spewing supernova. But if you look closely you can still see evidence of these settlements and the 'locals' that once - and still - live there. In Villard Reculas and Vaujany it is possible to catch a fleeting glance. Often dormant in winter time, they can be seen pottering between cow sheds and local bars, where the aim is to pickle their organs in Pastis - often the only way to make it through the long, dark winter. By March the locals have even sychronised the bar opening times with the feeding times of their cattle. A combination of a reduced diet of petrol-based eau de vie, fatty meats and cheese - together with a shallow local gene pool, makes these people particularly hardy. Simon [pictured] has rarely left Vaujany and that's where you'll find him, lighting the fire in the Hotel Rissiou at about 5pm. If you see him, tell him I love him.
The top of pic Blanc - 3330m with two ways up and a million down. From here you can see the curvature of the earth, gorge yourself on off-piste that will blow your mind or embark on pisted runs of infinite length and vertical drop. A 35-minute hike away are the drop-in points for the Pyramide, a tricky entrance into an inviting north-facing snow bowl, or the misnomer of 'Col de l'impossible'. Yes, it's tough - I've seem large men reduced to small girls on the 40-degree scree traverse - but once you're in, men are once more men [and women women..] and epic glacial powder fields are yours [pictured]. I'd walk a day for each one of those turns. In the other direction there’s the Grand Sablat or the hike across to the Etendard. I could go on – and on. Tip: if the queue for the Pic Blanc cable car gets too long, zip past and jump on the Marmotte 2 and 3 to the ridge and then get the chair up to the top.
You can forgive a person almost anything if they know their way around a stove. Alpe d'Huez is unkempt, disorderly and clumsy but knows how to rustle up mountain fodder. I've spent two seasons as a ski guide. Sounds fun but the job is usually little more than ushering guests from mid-morning coffee to lunch to afternoon tea stops. As a result, I've consumed more cheese and ham-based products than is legal. My vote goes to the Combe Haute at the bottom of the Sarenne Gorge. Order the chilli con carne without even looking at the menu - after 16km of black run, it's the best fuel for the furnace. Oh, and the waitresses wear lederhosen. Chilli and lederhosen... I believe that's what heaven looks like. And if you, like me, like a nice bit of cake, head for Les Airelles [pictured] in the Monfrais sector where I challenge you not to stay for seconds.
You can’t blame her – she was born that way. And it’s because Alpe d’Huez is ugly – butt-ugly – that you don’t get the money set, nor the vertically-collared, over-toothed, fop-headed crew chuntering around town in battle-ship sized cars. Some say the best thing to do in Alpe d’Huez is leave, but that’s to do the old girl a disservice. Because, peel back the concrete, timber-clad shell and you’ll find delights – like catching an old boot on the end of your line and finding a smiling fish lurking inside. In ADH’s bars, you get the sense that everyone else is in on the secret too – giving each other a barely noticeable wink and nod as if to say: ‘yeah, me too…’ The bars are fairly dispersed and there are only two clubs – keeping the hardcore hedonists away but leaving a friendly buzz. The Zoo bar provides an easy-to-linger atmosphere, with many themed nights to get the depths of your wardrobe well and truly rummaged. Yeti is good for live music and Smithy’s for tex-mex-fuelled carnage.
There can be nothing worse that the horrors of half term, with its interminable queues and packed pistes. This is where ADH comes into its own, blessed as it is with escape routes to quieter parts. Cut out and keep: take the ‘roller coaster’ chair over to the Signal de l’Homme and Auris and don’t come back till you’ve skied the lot; go high – to the top - and don’t come down until the glacier is graffitied with your tracks; go to Montfrais via Oz or the Les Rousses red and stay there – there are said to be 1000 ways down the Montfrais and Vallonnet chairs – find them all. Then slide back to the start, smug.
Champclotury may sound like a painful medical procedure but it’s in fact one of ADH’s best-kept on-piste secrets. I know, it’s only a blue and it’s only short – so what’s all the fuss? Well, for a start, no-one ever skis it leaving it corduroy flat long after the rest of the runs down to OZ have been carved up. It’s perfect in pitch for high speed ‘hooning’ GS turns and, on a powder day is the perfect launch pad for a series of incredible lines down through trees, over small drops and steeps and back down into Oz village. Oh, and the Perce Neige is a great little family-run restaurant just at the start of the run. There, now you know.
Pisteurs: they’re the ones with all the cool kit, the very latest freeride skis and packs full of high explosives. But if you want to sun-set ski, then these are the guys you need to beat at a game of cat and mouse. The hiding is the easy part – usually somewhere off piste with a bottle of wine while these trained trackers ‘sweep’ the pistes for stragglers at the end of the day. Then the mountain is yours and as the low sun beams through the Grenoble valley smog, it projects a dazzling blush of pink onto the side of the Les Rousses – meaning ‘the red ones’. More wine, no little song and often a go at fire-spinning [pictured] before a memorable ski back down in the quiet half-light. Only once have I been caught by the ‘bomb-chuckers’ on this last run down but I already had a fair wind in my sails and warmth of wine in my belly - and wasn’t to be stopped.
Published November 2008
Web link
Instructor and seasoned Alpe d’Huez ski guide Robert Leslie can’t help returning to the funny-looking French giant. Here's his take on the Shrek of the Alps – and its soft and warm underbelly.
Be nice to Alpe d’Huez. Being best known for a summer bicycle race is no way for any self-respecting ski resort to carry on. But Alpe d'Huez [ADH] doesn't like to show off, and neither would you if you looked like that. A relic of the days when square was beautiful, it's like Lego bricks thrown at random into the lap of the Huez Alpine plateau. No amount of wood cladding is ever going to turn it into a Kitzbühel. But not having Austrian charm or the reputation of, say, a 'Val' or a 'Cham' is Alpe d'Huez's saving grace. Like the ugly one at the party, no one gives it a second glance and yet, strangely, you end up wrapped around each other at three in the morning, swearing undying love and singing at the moon. I’ve spent two winters here and countless holidays, and can’t stop going back: here are just a few reasons why.
They say he can talk to marmottes. High mountain guides are not trained, they just are - born to the mountains and raised like Romulus and Remus by local fauna. Stephane says little but when he does you listen. 'Ski in my tracks' he says as we skim across hair-line yet fathomless crevasses in the Ecrins National Park, a short drive from Alpe d'Huez. 'Wide stance' he says before effortlessly skipping down 45-degree Combe du Cerisier, off the back of the Chateau Noir black. All this with a role-up in his mouth, sticks in his left hand - right hand calling in a chopper by text message. A man who has guided me through whiter than white-outs, shown me an impossible couloir directly beneath the Pic Blanc cable car - in thick fog, and wrestled a chamois with his bare teeth. We salute you, full-on mountain man.
Beware: shallow gene pool. When ski resorts are built, they consume primitive Alpine villages like spewing supernova. But if you look closely you can still see evidence of these settlements and the 'locals' that once - and still - live there. In Villard Reculas and Vaujany it is possible to catch a fleeting glance. Often dormant in winter time, they can be seen pottering between cow sheds and local bars, where the aim is to pickle their organs in Pastis - often the only way to make it through the long, dark winter. By March the locals have even sychronised the bar opening times with the feeding times of their cattle. A combination of a reduced diet of petrol-based eau de vie, fatty meats and cheese - together with a shallow local gene pool, makes these people particularly hardy. Simon [pictured] has rarely left Vaujany and that's where you'll find him, lighting the fire in the Hotel Rissiou at about 5pm. If you see him, tell him I love him.
The top of pic Blanc - 3330m with two ways up and a million down. From here you can see the curvature of the earth, gorge yourself on off-piste that will blow your mind or embark on pisted runs of infinite length and vertical drop. A 35-minute hike away are the drop-in points for the Pyramide, a tricky entrance into an inviting north-facing snow bowl, or the misnomer of 'Col de l'impossible'. Yes, it's tough - I've seem large men reduced to small girls on the 40-degree scree traverse - but once you're in, men are once more men [and women women..] and epic glacial powder fields are yours [pictured]. I'd walk a day for each one of those turns. In the other direction there’s the Grand Sablat or the hike across to the Etendard. I could go on – and on. Tip: if the queue for the Pic Blanc cable car gets too long, zip past and jump on the Marmotte 2 and 3 to the ridge and then get the chair up to the top.
You can forgive a person almost anything if they know their way around a stove. Alpe d'Huez is unkempt, disorderly and clumsy but knows how to rustle up mountain fodder. I've spent two seasons as a ski guide. Sounds fun but the job is usually little more than ushering guests from mid-morning coffee to lunch to afternoon tea stops. As a result, I've consumed more cheese and ham-based products than is legal. My vote goes to the Combe Haute at the bottom of the Sarenne Gorge. Order the chilli con carne without even looking at the menu - after 16km of black run, it's the best fuel for the furnace. Oh, and the waitresses wear lederhosen. Chilli and lederhosen... I believe that's what heaven looks like. And if you, like me, like a nice bit of cake, head for Les Airelles [pictured] in the Monfrais sector where I challenge you not to stay for seconds.
You can’t blame her – she was born that way. And it’s because Alpe d’Huez is ugly – butt-ugly – that you don’t get the money set, nor the vertically-collared, over-toothed, fop-headed crew chuntering around town in battle-ship sized cars. Some say the best thing to do in Alpe d’Huez is leave, but that’s to do the old girl a disservice. Because, peel back the concrete, timber-clad shell and you’ll find delights – like catching an old boot on the end of your line and finding a smiling fish lurking inside. In ADH’s bars, you get the sense that everyone else is in on the secret too – giving each other a barely noticeable wink and nod as if to say: ‘yeah, me too…’ The bars are fairly dispersed and there are only two clubs – keeping the hardcore hedonists away but leaving a friendly buzz. The Zoo bar provides an easy-to-linger atmosphere, with many themed nights to get the depths of your wardrobe well and truly rummaged. Yeti is good for live music and Smithy’s for tex-mex-fuelled carnage.
There can be nothing worse that the horrors of half term, with its interminable queues and packed pistes. This is where ADH comes into its own, blessed as it is with escape routes to quieter parts. Cut out and keep: take the ‘roller coaster’ chair over to the Signal de l’Homme and Auris and don’t come back till you’ve skied the lot; go high – to the top - and don’t come down until the glacier is graffitied with your tracks; go to Montfrais via Oz or the Les Rousses red and stay there – there are said to be 1000 ways down the Montfrais and Vallonnet chairs – find them all. Then slide back to the start, smug.
Champclotury may sound like a painful medical procedure but it’s in fact one of ADH’s best-kept on-piste secrets. I know, it’s only a blue and it’s only short – so what’s all the fuss? Well, for a start, no-one ever skis it leaving it corduroy flat long after the rest of the runs down to OZ have been carved up. It’s perfect in pitch for high speed ‘hooning’ GS turns and, on a powder day is the perfect launch pad for a series of incredible lines down through trees, over small drops and steeps and back down into Oz village. Oh, and the Perce Neige is a great little family-run restaurant just at the start of the run. There, now you know.
Pisteurs: they’re the ones with all the cool kit, the very latest freeride skis and packs full of high explosives. But if you want to sun-set ski, then these are the guys you need to beat at a game of cat and mouse. The hiding is the easy part – usually somewhere off piste with a bottle of wine while these trained trackers ‘sweep’ the pistes for stragglers at the end of the day. Then the mountain is yours and as the low sun beams through the Grenoble valley smog, it projects a dazzling blush of pink onto the side of the Les Rousses – meaning ‘the red ones’. More wine, no little song and often a go at fire-spinning [pictured] before a memorable ski back down in the quiet half-light. Only once have I been caught by the ‘bomb-chuckers’ on this last run down but I already had a fair wind in my sails and warmth of wine in my belly - and wasn’t to be stopped.
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