Autor: radoslaw.orecki

Visit Day 6: Chamonix

We waited with our trip to Chamonix for a perfect weather. We chose Thursday and we were not disappointed. Chamonix is a marvelous place where you can feel what high Alps mean. So as soon as we arrived on place we bought a day ticket for all lifts and we went to queue for Aiguille du Midi lift that took us on a great height of 3842 m.

I was on Aiguille du Midi in 2010 but this time a new attraction called „Step Into The Void” waited for me. It was a lot of fun for me but some people were seriously scared.

We spent lots of time up there especially that the sun that day warmed us nicely. So when we went down we needed to be hurry to catch up our second attraction „Mer de Glace”. Fortunately after a 30 min ride on a very nice train we were able to see and even lick the longest glacier in France.

  

After so many attractions we went back home to eat something tasty.

Visit Day 5: Montreux, Gruyères, Broc

We left two most action – packed days to the end of our friends’ visit. On Wednesday morning we took Ania and Wojtek to the airport (they flew to Poland) and we hit the road. First to Montreux where we saw beautiful Montreux riviera, castle of Chillon and of course statue of our favorite artist of all times Freddie Mercury. (You can see this statue on Made In Heaven album cover).

After Montreux we went to world famous village of Gruyères – home of Gruyères cheese and favorite place of artist Hans Rudolf Giger who is mostly recognized as a creator of Ksenomorfs for Aliens movies. In Gruyères you can visit museum of H.R Giger and drink something in bar that he designed.

After seeing Gruyères’ castle, Giger Bar and Museum we became hungry so we went to Maison Du Gruyères for some cheesy food.

For dessert that day we served ourselves a lot of chocolate in Cailler Chocolate factory in a nearby town of Broc.

Visit Day 2: Pointe de Chalune

During the second day of our friends’ visit we wanted to show them what we have best here in Geneva region, so I took them to mountains. We went to La Chevrerie and we tried to reach Pointe de Chalune (2116 m). Mountains during winter are beautiful especially for people who have never seen so much snow before. Magda and Michał needed some time to get used to the snowshoes but after some time they started to enjoy the hike and views.

Unfortunately, during our hike the weather turned bad and we needed to turn back after half of our way to the top. But going down gave us even more fun than going up. We jumped with our snowshoes off the track until we completely disappeared in snow.
Because we didn’t reach summit of Pointe de Chalune we decided to go and see a view point of Turet close to Gex, later that day.

LHCb and LHC point 6

Last weekend CERN organised open-days. Over 70 000 people visited CERN facilities and over 20 000 of them went underground  in one of six underground facilities. During this days 2 300 CERN volunteers cared about people’s safety and good time. I was one of them. I was an underground guide in LHC Point 6 which is responsible for LHC beam dumping system.

On Monday CERN opened these six underground facilities for members of personnel so I had occasion to see LHCb experiment and once again LHC Point 6 – this time with a camera.

Before LHC was created, CERN worked with LEP (Large Electron Positron) Collider. At those times LHCb cavern was the place of DELPHI experiment. Because disassembling and removing of DELPHI detector would be very time consuming and very expensive, it was decided to keep part of the detector underground and move LHCb a bit aside. Thanks to that I was able to see not one but two detectors.

Then we moved to LHC Point 6 where I was a guide during the weekend. LHC beam dumping system was created because you can’t leave circulated protons inside LHC after finishing a day of work. Protons have energy of moving train and if they hit any part of LHC they will destroy it. It is also not so easy to redirect them to some safe place because they travel with almost speed of light. So beam duping system contains three types of magnets that do this job.

First:

Kickers that extract very fast beam from LHC pipes and redirect it a bit up.

Second:

MSD that redirect beam a bit left.

Third:

MKB that spread beam from 1×1 mm (when it enters the magnet) to 30×30 cm (when beam hits block of 8 meters of graphite). Beam must be spread because even 8 meters of graphite can’t handle a moving train that hits 1×1 mm spot.

At the both end of LHC Point 6 you can see LHC circle curvature

I had lots of fun while guiding people through undergrounds of Point 6 and now I saw almost all of CERN underground facilities. Next stop: ALICE and LHC Point 4.

TenaciousD concert in Berlin

Twelfth of September I went to Berlin for a rock concert of a band called TenaciousD. This is my favorite still living band so I had waited for this moment for ages. Unfortunately I could’t share this music experience with Ania because of her health issue 😉 but one of my best friends with whom I discovered TenaciusD joined me in Berlin and we went to concert together.

To summarize it was the greatest concert in the world.
Also because of flight schedule we had two days to enjoy and see Berlin. I have never liked Berlin because it is not enough „exotic” to me. Except small part of the city center it is like my home city – just bigger.

Two days is just perfect to see all important points of Berlin. Fortunately we had just perfect weather for sightseeing so we could walk all the time.

Le Reculet challenge

There was a nice event organised by our group leader – Le Reculet challenge. One could take part in a race to the top, but there were only a few daredevils. The rest hiked in their own pace and waited for the contstants at the top. After everyone reached the cross, we took a photo and went on to a mountain hut for some yummy raclette and jolly singing. Some stayed for a night, others went down in the darkness. Fun evening indeed.

Pointe d’Andey (1 877 m)

Today I went for a brief hike in Plateau de Solaison. I chose this destination because I was intrigued by a Saint Marry statue on the top. Also, it was said to be a very fast and easy hike -exactly what I need. I started from Plateau de Solaison, already pretty high up, and followed a narrow and pretty steep footway staright to the top. There were no spectacular views on the way up, maybe except a lot of wildlife.

From the top there was a nice view on the valley with Bonnevillle (Prettytown) and the surrounding mountains. I stayed for quite some time there before descending, having a bite of a sandwich and enjoying mild breeze. It’s a pity that the clarity of air was not perfect, because normally I could see the Alps far far away. Maybe the next time.

Lac et Pointe d’Arvouin (2021 m)

Today I went to see Lac d’Arvouin and to climb Pointe d’Arvouin (2021 m) towering above the lake. I chose this route because it was a relatively fast one and lakes are always cool. Pointe d’Arvouin (2021 m) is a peak in Cornettes de Bise mountains which make up a natural border between Switzerland and France. The climbing path is on the French side though.
I started already from the hight of ~1600 m and it took 30 minutes on a mostly flat terrain to get to the lake. I admired already nice views and blossoming slopes of the surrounding mountains.

There were quite a few people picnicing by the lake. The mood around was party-like, people laughed and chatted quite loudly (especially by the chalets – mountain huts), dogs swam in the lake, children dipped their toes in a stream, etc. I sat by the lake for a while to gather strengths before climbing higher. It was really hot, so any piece of shadow was appreciated.

Since there was no official trail to Point d’Arvouin, frankly speaking I didn’t know exactly which way to chose. I could go right through col de Savalenaz or left through col de Serpentin. I chose the latter and proceeded up a moderately steep slope. When I reached the col I had some nice view both, on the lake valley and on the Cornettes de Bise mountains.

From col de Serpentin I followed a wild trail up the mountains (there were no signs whatsoever that that was a trail, but I could see people walking down that little path from the top, so I hoped it was a good sign). I thought it would be possible to go on the mountain tops to reach Pointe d’Arvouin. The higher up the wilder the footway became. In the end it really looked like a goat trail or something, but it was not really long, so I proceeded up. I was hoping to reach to a better path on the top. Well, vein hopes… Instead, what I found at the top was… a chasm! It was pretty scary, with no protection from falling whatsoever. There was also no trail to the actual Pointe d’Arvouin which was situated just ~100 m away and ~80 m up. So, yet again, although I was very close, I didn’t reach the actual top I was aiming for. But the view was nice anyway, so I spent some time in a safe distance from the chasm and looked over and back to French and Swiss side. At this height it was already nice and cool, so I took my time before following the same route to the car.

 Chasm: