|
 Dwight Peck's personal website
Summer
2005
harmless fun in small installments
You
may not find this terribly rewarding unless you're included here, so this is a
good time for casual and random browsers to turn back before they get too caught
up in the sweep and majesty of the proceedings and can't let go. Once
every three years the employees and hangers-on of the Ramsar
Convention on Wetlands put their lives on the top shelf of the linen closet
and work begrudgingly round the clock preparing for the majestic Conference of
the Parties, with next to no holidays at all for some of them, or at least one
of them. Last time, in 2002, we managed to get up to a
little mischief, but now, as we hurtle towards COP9 in Kampala, Uganda, in
November 2005, it gets harder and harder every year to remember why we're doing
this.
Anthills
of the Jura
We
begin the festive summer season with a collection of monumental anthills of the
famous fourmis des bois, for which we are justly famous. The occasion was a BBC
film crew coming down to memorialize our prodigious piles of detritus, so we've
made our own little documentary in May 2005. [And subsequently added a few daunting
ones from Uganda.]
"Karst
and other subterranean hydrological systems, inland"
The
Slovenian delegate tries to plumb the depths, June 2005
A
Ramsar visit to Evian, France, and the Pré Curieux
The
Col des Essets in Switzerland
The
Cabane Barraud, seen from the Col des Essets on the back side of Les Diablerets,
17 July 2005
| Kristin's
visit, August 2005 | Hikes
around Les Diablerets
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A
fun- and rain-filled long weekend in the Diablerets region, early August 2005
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| Vers
l'Eglise near Diablerets | Lac
Retaud and Arnensee | Bretaye
and Ensex in the rain | |
The
Rawilpass at long last
Great
to be back, it's been nearly twenty years, how time flies!!!
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Kristin,
Joe, and Teny at the Rawilpass, mid-August 2005
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| Jaun
and Euschelspass | Iffigenalp,
2005 | Blattihütte
and Rawilpass | |
The
Castle of Spiez
Adrian
von Bubenberg welcoming guests to his castle on the Lake of Thun
Engstligenalp
and the Ammertenpass
Kristin
bobbing and weaving amongst the Wildstrubel's glaciers, August 2005
The
Vanoise National Park, Haute Savoie, France
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Refuge
at the Col de la Vanoise, glacier on La Grande Casse
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| Downtown
Champagny | Aiguille
de laVanoise | Visit
to Chambéry | A
lovely long weekend, despite the weather, in nearby France
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Foggy
September hikes
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Elke
looking for mushrooms
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| Joe
in fog again | Rob
in fog again | |
Summer's
over here in Switzerland, the chill is in the air. No more short shorts, get out
the woolies; that's fine, too. Bring on the snow. What's
up next?
It's hard to tell where all this is going . . . having blown out -- for
about the 10th time -- our anterior cruciate ligament ("ACL") in late
September, most short-range planning is on hold. But Kristin visits in late October,
one's darting off to Uganda for the first half of November and booked to visit
Kristin in Boston in the second half, and then a truly dedicated effort to use
up all that unused vacation time during Kristin's visit over the Christmas season.
Beyond that ... well, it would be presumptuous to try to guess. "Man proposes,
God disposes", which means it's pretty much up to the weather and the ligaments.
Feedback and suggestions are welcome if positive, resented if negative,  .
All rights reserved, all wrongs avenged. Posted 8 October 2005, revised 5 May
2008, 29 August 2014.
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