This section provides information and pictures of my hobbies.
In its most basic definition, Hiking is simply Walking for recreational purposes.
Hiking could be your average Sunday walk through the park or it could be a three-week expedition through the mountains.
There are many words often used for Hiking depending on the Hiking conditions, hike length and terrain. Trekking,
Backpacking, Bushwalking, Trailing and Mountaineering are just few of the terms that could be seen as Hiking Disciplines or Variations.
In their most basic forms, these activities all boil down to walking.
At a more advanced level, Hiking could be seen as a starting point for learning Survival Skills, Camping, Mountaineering, Rock Climbing,
Navigation Skills, and a variation of other outdoor techniques.
A well-rounded and experienced hiker is an outdoor expert with the physical fitness level, knowledge, and mindset needed to deal with anything nature can throw on his trail.
I go hiking on a regular basis during the week ends.
These hikings are organized by Schampavie which target is do avoid all kinds of roads.
They rather go trough woods and fields then reaching the destination by roads.
In the summer time, I go to the mountains where I go for hiking by means of a detailed map and compass.
Via Ferrata (Italian for "iron way" in German "Klettersteig”) is a type of mountain climbing route which has a safety system permanently installed,
making the climb suitable for persons without prior climbing training and using minimal equipment.
The climber is attached at all times to a steel cable which runs along the entire route; no climbing rope is generally required. Steel rungs, ladders,
bridges and similar installations are used.
This helps to keep the physical difficulty of the climbing well within the ability of reasonably fit first-time climbers, while providing access to high,
vertical faces and extreme mountain terrain which would otherwise be accessible only to experienced, roped climbing parties.
It needs to be said that you need a minimum on technical knowledge about via ferrata before starting a route.
Without this knowledge this sport can be very dangerous especially for little kids.
Via ferrata systems have been popular for decades in Europe, where over 300 routes are open to the public.
History:
The equipping of mountain routes with climbing aids started in the late 19th century to reduce the difficulty of hard sections of popular climbs.
After the First World War, military routes with fixtures, such as the Alpini Way in the Sexten Dolomites were used by mountaineers.
Then, beginning in the 1930s and continuing after the Second World War, the Bochette Way in the Brenta Dolomites was developed to shorten and ease the time
consuming approaches to the popular Brenta climbing routes.
This attractive and exciting "Way" was discovered by mountain walkers who found they could now travel a route which before would have needed considerable climbing skills.
Following the success of the Bochette Way further paths were developed and old First World War paths were repaired throughout the Dolomite region.
Today there are a lot of routes varying in length and difficulty equipped with climbing aids that have been fitted with great skill and effort.
A sport that can be done indoors on plywood climbing structures, or done outdoors on cliffs up to thousands of meters high, rock climbing comes in several different forms today:
Traditional rock climbing
Traditional climbing is the sort of climbing you typically see in movies and in nature documentaries. Connected by a rope, pairs of climbers wearing harnesses scale a rock
face carrying racks of specialized equipment.
As they go, the climbers place wedges, nuts and other forms of protection from their racks into cracks in the rock.
The rope is hooked to these pieces of protection so that, if a climber falls, the rope catches them.
Sport climbing
Sport climbing is like traditional climbing in most respects, except that the protective pieces are permanently bolted into the rock.
The climber doesn't have to carry protection with him/her or place it along the way. This makes sport climbing safer, faster and less expensive than traditional climbing.
Free solo climbing
Free solo climbing is like sport climbing except you use no rope. If you fall, you die.
This is the most dangerous way of climbing which, indeed, gives you the most adrelanime shot ever.
Indoor climbing
Indoor climbing is like sport climbing, except that climbers scale indoor climbing structures made of plywood or concrete and hold onto artificial handholds/footholds bolted onto the structure.
The fact that it is indoors means that the height of the structure is limited by the height of the ceiling in the room.
However, there are no weather problems and it is easy to unbolt the handholds and footholds to reconfigure the wall.
Ice climbing
Ice climbing is like traditional climbing except that the climber is scaling an ice formation (such as a frozen waterfall or a glacier) rather than a rock formation.
Specialized equipment that can screw into the ice is used instead of the wedges, nuts and cams used on rock formations.
Bouldering and buildering
Bouldering is like sport climbing, but you are climbing on boulders (or the sides of chimneys and buildings) rather than on cliffs and crags.
Because the maximum height of a boulder is typically 2 meters or so, bouldering is often done without ropes.
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This hobby started a few years ago when a friend gave me a construction box of the ‘Lila Dan’ (see picture).
He bought it to build the ship himself but it was quite obvious this was not something he could bring to an end.
I started to build the ship and this is how it all started. I finished the ship, started a new one and soon I became
member of a club specialized in statistic wooden model sailing ships.
The club is specialized to start a project from gathering information about the ship and gathering the plans of the ship.
Construction plans of ships can be found in museum and/or specialized stores.
Every 2 year, the club organizes an exhibition to promote this hobby.
For more information, click the link below (SMA) and you will be forwarded to the web site of which I am the webmaster.
The site is made in Dutch.
I also created a complete web site which is dedicated to ship building and which explains more about navigation history and sailing ships.
Click the link below (Modelbouw) to visit the site.