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A few weeks ago I explored the Via Ferrata du Moléson and these are the images I came back with. [flickr-gallery mode=“photoset” photoset=“72157626944582830”]

St Hilaire du Touvet is a place I have always thought of as one where in Septembre there is an adventure film festival. What I found out on Saturday is that it has two interesting via ferrata. There is an easier one which you can explore as a novice and a more challenging one you can try if you like to overcome your fear of heights and fragile looking rock ascent. I tried the latter and enjoyed the challenge. At first you park your car at the summit before walking down for half an hour. You meet a fork and start heading back up towards the start of the via ferrata. The path is not as clearly marked as it could be so we ended up scrambling up what is a river when the rain is falling. It was dry on Saturday. The first part of the via ferrata is easy. You have a vertical climb with some contact with the rocks. There is some loose material so wearing a helmet is useful. There is a split where you can choose whether to do the hard or very hard via ferrata. For the easy one you go down to where the waterfall has dug itself a small pool. Beware the slippery rocks. After that I don’t know what the via ferrata is like as I did not explore this option. As you go to the left so you start a more challenging bit of the via ferrata. You climb for a few minutes before getting to a beautiful crack in the rock at the base of which is an overhang. The overhang is a physically challenge. It’s also a nice way to overcome your fear of heights. I passed the obstacle suspending myself from my arms. I might as well have a little fun right? My feet were floating in mid air. The next part is hard (extremelly difficult by Via ferrata norms). You’re at least 20 meters off the ground and you’re heading straight up. The rocks do not look that solid although there are a lot of hand holds and foot rests should you prefer to use these than the metal path. The ascent is hard and there are few places to rest. You go from one side of the crack to the next and back. There is a nice resting platform at one point, to the side from the via ferrata. Here you can rest for a bit, gather some strenght before the last 30-40 meters of ascent. From here you traverse to the left and reach a ladder. It faces outwards so you’re looking at the landscape. As if this ladder wasn’t enough of a mental challenge you have the reveral to get back on to the rock. This is not a natural thing to do. From this point on the via ferrata is normal as you make your way up to the parapente take off point. [flickr-gallery mode=“photoset” photoset=“72157626884432498”]

La chapelle D’abondance is a nice via ferrata split into three parts. The first part is not so hard, the second part is harder and the last part is meant to be very hard. The walk from the parking to the first section is short at around 15 minutes. The via ferrata itself took about 2hrs going with people whom had not yet practiced this sport. We did experience rain on this visit to the via ferrata so some of the rocks were slippy, as were the cables. This did not present such difficulties though. Here are some images from the trip. [flickr-gallery mode=“photoset” photoset=“72157626727945869”]

I went to Fort L’écluse again this weekend. This time was different as I went after a work shift. The views were still good. [flickr-gallery mode=“photoset” photoset=“72157626705656121”]

Today I explored the Via Ferrata near the Fort D’écluse. It is an easy 30 minute drive from Geneva therefore can be done in the morning before an evening shift or in the afternoon after a morning shift. As a side note you can see the TGV coming into and leaving Geneva. [flickr-gallery mode=“photoset” photoset=“72157626620791854”]

The weather was good today and spring is here. As a result I headed back to the Valais for the first Via Ferrata of the season. I felt a little nervous at first as I had not done any via ferrata for a few months but that fear soon left. The walk up to this via ferrata takes up 30-45 minutes depending on your level of fitness. Once you get to the bottom of the ferrata you ascend with the river to your right. There are two bridges that must be crossed and the waterfalls are impressive. Today the amount of water was low due to the lack of rain. At this time of year it is better to go up a little later in the day to take advantage of the sunlight. I didn’t. The sun was on the other side of the valley. It is a nice easy via ferrata without too much height, hardly demanding physically and divided in to three parts. The first part to the waterfalls is easy going, walking along a path. Once you get to the waterfalls you have your first via ferrata climb to the first of two bridges. You cross the first bridge and walk to the second bridge. From the second bridge you walk along for a bit, to the cave with teddy bears people have left there. From this point the via ferrata starts properly. You have a traverse to the left, then up a bit, then to the right. Looking down you get a feeling of height but you are not that far off the ground. Chains are there for you to grab on to. After the chains you start going straight up again for a bit, traverse to the right again before the final ascent to the top of the via ferrata. There is a walk back to the car from the peak through arcades carved in to the rock. You have two buvettes to chose from and a tree adventure park. I think that after via ferrata the tree adventure would not provide enough adrenaline to be fun. [flickr-gallery mode=“photoset” photoset=“72157626508513366”]

Feedly is an application that takes google reader’s feeds and displays them in a more appealing manner. The browsing experience is more enjoyable as a result. The first item is displays on a splash page as ou see on the left. Flick to the right and you get a list of articles. This list fits articles to fill the screen. You must flick to the right to get to the next article. Click on the article and the text goes full screen. You can  then bookmark articles, like them or share. Sharing is the standard tweet, mail, copy url, open in browser and mobilize. Feedly navigation is done via the bottom left corner of the screen as you see in the image to the right. Click on this and you get a list of feeds you have subscribed to. This is the google reader list. Reading of feeds can be either by individual rss feed or by category. The number of unread posts is visible to the right. Active feeds can be read individually.   One of the most interesting features of feedly is it’s ability to auto-generate smart lists of interesting blog posts according to popularity/buzz, whether they were saved for later, essentials, latest and more. Buzz allows you to see which of the posts are most interesting according to popularity within the RSS feeds you and your contacts are subscribed to. There is no ability to comment on articles at this moment in time and integration into google buzz is not possible yet. As a result you can quickly skim through articles but should you want to offer an opinion you will have to resort to another app. Everything that Feedly offered to it’s users on computers and laptops is now available to it’s users via the mobile application. As a result your user experience will be the same across both platforms. With the iPhone version of this product you can read all articles while on the move, on trains in cars, or when waiting for a queue to move forward.

Transport Tycoon, the popular game, is now available as a portable application file. This means that you can install it on a USB key and play the game from anywhere. This comes alongside the openTTD which is an open source movement to keep the game around for us to enjoy. The aim of the game is to create a transport empire using, trains, trucks, buses, planes and boats. As you build more networks so you gain more money and your services can expand. It is a management game to help you see the hours away in your free time.

After two years of online interactions I finally met certain Geneva twitter users. The tweetup took place at the Bristol Hotel in Geneva. There was a good group of people and they were what you would exepect from a tweetup. It was organised by bristolgva and here is some of the related twitter conversation linked to the event.

Traxx.fm is a music station I’ve been familiar with for over a year but only recently downloaded and used as an iPhone app. It was developed by a friend in Geneva. The fitness centre where I go uses traxx.fm for background music. The advantage of this online live streaming option is that you have 20 themes and the playlists are compiled from a number of sources. As a result there is a wealth of music to be discovered without the drawback of over-exuberant presenters. There are also no commercials. If you pay for the HD version you are helping to fund them. The reason I like the app is that it offers what last.fm used to offer to its users before being bought by AOL, continuous music you could start listening to and enjoy for the next three hours or more.