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 Dwight
Peck's personal Web site
Winter
2002-2003
Very
eventful, but in a quiet way
As
round the world some of them were trying in vain
to convince the rest of us that it would be a fun
idea to go bomb a lot of the folks down in Iraq, D. Peck and friends spent the
fall and winter hiding out in the safest place they could think of.
Two
day siege of the Tearoom de la Plage You
may not find this interesting 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.
8
February 2003: Prof. Pirri sets out from Marchissy (880m) for the Tearoom of the
Plage (1320m) in fairly deep snow, but with little hope of making it all the way
in the meagre time allotted.
Self-sacrificial
Dr Pirri aspires only to making himself useful by breaking enough trail to enable
a successful assault on the Tearoom de la Plage ['Tearoom on the Beach"]
in his absence on the following day. Dr
Pirri and his hiking partner, 8 February 2003, topping out at the Les Fornets
meadows, halfway up to the ridgeline, posing for photos, and then dashing back
down to watch interviews with the Rummy-Man on the
BBC World Service news. [Fox News is available in Europe, but only by direct feed
to psychiatric wards, for those few patients for whom mind-bending psychotropic
chemicals are no longer working.] 
Dr
Pirri unwisely walking out of his snowshoe in a narrow combe . . . 
.
. . and then plunging into a hole. Required by his quaint notion of self-sacrifice.
A
renewed attack upon the Tearoom 
Benefiting
largely by Dr Pirri's work the day before, on 9 February 2003 Prof. L. Durham
follows his track from Marchissy up near Fornets, to join the Sentier
du Coq traversing up into the cliffs under the Tearoom de la Plage. And
behaves strangely on a fallen tree.
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With
some avalanche danger along the Sentier du Coq, Prof. Durham takes the short way
up through steep forest right under the Tearoom de la Plage.
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The
Tearoom de la Plage, a three-sided picnic spot on top of the cliffs overlooking
Lake Geneva. 
Prof
Durham, at the tearoom, breaks out all the little Saran-wrapped pasta lunches,
peasant bread, and mozarella. With scarcely a thought to the hard work put in
by Dr Pirri the preceding day that made this Tearoom success possible. 
A graphic
representation of the two-stage assault of the Tearoom de la Plage, in this the
50th anniversary year of the climbing of Mount Everest by white guys, in even
worse conditions. The team's success at the Tearoom is dwarfed in mountaineering
significance by those early Everest exploits, which overcame much greater heights
and much greater obstacles and had not the benefit of Prof. Durham's pre-packed
mozarella and tomato lunches.
Dr
Pirri's track followed the green route above, and Prof Durham's is the blue one.
More photos of the Tearoom de la Plage can be seen
here.
 Feedback
and suggestions are welcome if positive, resented if negative,  .
All rights reserved, all wrongs avenged. Posted 30 March 2003, resized 12 October 2008.
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