I was hoping to have enough energy to at least watch fireworks, but I am totally whooped and will sit in my living room with the window open and listen to them from a distance. Not sure what the Germans think about the Americans and our fireworks, but I am sure they are used to it by now.
I am drained of all energy because I just landed from Italy after spending 6 days hiking and climbing in the Dolomites. This mountain range is the most beautiful mountains in the world, and I have climbed a lot of nice mountains. This area is famous for via ferrata which is Italian for iron way. Instead of rope to climb, you clip into iron cables hardened into the mountain. At each bolt, you unclip and reclip above or below and continue on. You will only fall as far as the next clip which would still be very bad, so good balance and staying within your ability is critical.
I attached a few photos to give an idea of what it was like. Oh, and for those that got stuck working today, I feel you. This was work for me too, it was what we call an "environmental trip" for my job in the US military. Thanks for the experience Uncle Sam.
I am on left. That rock behind us is what we climb via ferrata on. From our position at 6000ft. it climbed to almost 9000ft. It was about a 10 hour day up and back.
This is Mike, my troop, leading me through a tough section. That is a 1000ft drop straight down below us.
We came off the rock peak on the left about 2 hours prior with 20 ft of visibility and massive down pour. The weather was changing every second of the day.
Me pointing that I found the trail on the other side of this mountain top lake. It had house size ice bergs in it.
This trip was worth not seeing fireworks for one year.
