Long before I first got to know about Sun’s acquisition of MySQL, I had booked this year’s prime skiing holiday. That’s going to be the week right after the Integration Kickoff in Menlo Park, on 3-9 February 2008. And it’s a special type of skiing holiday: It’s Boys Only, i.e. I’m going with my 13 year old son Alexander to Pitztal in Austria.

We’re going to the Ötztaler Gletscher, the glacier where Ötzi the Iceman, a well-preserved natural mummy of a man from about 3300 BC (53 centuries ago) was found in 1991.

Determined not to end up like Ötzi, Alexander and I will get extensive off-piste training under the direction of a certified Austrian mountain guide who according to his web profile has climbed “Cho Oyu, Elbrus, Mt. Mc Kinley, Ojos del Salado, Mustagh Ata, Pumo Ri and Aconcagua” and is heading for Shisha Pangma (8013 m) later this year. We’re walking uphill with furs under our skis so we won’t slip down. The main summit to be reached is the Wildspitze, at 3772 m Austria’s second-highest mountain next to Großglockner. Learning how to climb off-piste terrain and how to use various glacier equipment (such as beepers for finding skiers buried in avalanches) during the day, we’ll be relaxing at the Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten in the evening. It’s huge sauna and wellness area makes it just a tad more luxurious than the spartaneous Dortmunder Hütte or Johannishütte, where I’ve spent earlier adventures with the DAV Summit Club, the tour organiser owned by the German Alpine Association (the world’s largest alpine association).

Der Berg ruft! [1]

[1] The mountain calls.

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