European ski safari - Krvavec
The next day we skied at Ljubljana's local ski hill, called Krvavec. The hill is about the size of Mt Buller in terms of altitude and vertical, although the skiable terrain is a lot less.
For those who don't know, Mt Buller is my local mountain in Australia, a 3 hour drive from Melbourne.
You take a gondola from the car park to the snowline.
Apparently in a good year you can ski along the fire trail all the way back to the gondola, but I can't see that happening very often in the future.
Unfortunately, we lucked out completely with the weather. If we had gone the day before, it would have been a beautiful 'spring' day with blue sky and sunshine.
Unfortuately for us, a new front was rolling in, resulting in the top half of the mountain being completely immersed in fog. It was as bad as anything I've ever skied at Mt Buller.. visibility of about five meters.
As a Buller veteran, I wasn't that put off..although if you're on a new mountain (which wasn't well signposted) it can be a bit off-putting. I was skiing with the missus...who was absolutely shifting herself in the conditiions..her eyes were as big as saucers! For our first run I said "I'll just ski two turns and you can follow me".. to which she screamed back with terror "TWO TURNS!!! One turn!".
Anyway, we decided to cut our losses and just keep to the old single and double chairs on the lower half of the mountain. Snow base was about one meter.. hardpacked with man-made dust on top..i.e. not good! Even though the conditions were ordinary, the missus enjoyed herself on some of the steeper pistes, and finally made a miracle breakthrough...that skiing gets easier as you go faster. I've been telling her this for years but I guess its one of those things you have to work on yourself.
As the day progressed the fog descended lower and lower, until by 1 pm the entire hill was covered in fog. We decided to head indoors and stock up on some apple strudel (I got addicted whilst in Austria) and a Zlatorog...Ljubljana's local Lager which is absolutely brilliant.
We then downloaded and about an hour later I picked up a horrendous ear infection which still hasn't cleared..but that's another story.
Overall, it was nice to visit a real 'local ski hill'. Prices were about 28 Euros a day for lift tickets. Half the people on the hill were local school kids doing gate training. The on-mountain ski hire was very friendly, as were the local restaurants, despite my complete lack of Slovenian language skills.
It was nice to visit a small, local hill that didn't have delusions of grandeur...unlike most Australian resorts.
For those who don't know, Mt Buller is my local mountain in Australia, a 3 hour drive from Melbourne.
You take a gondola from the car park to the snowline.
Apparently in a good year you can ski along the fire trail all the way back to the gondola, but I can't see that happening very often in the future.
Unfortunately, we lucked out completely with the weather. If we had gone the day before, it would have been a beautiful 'spring' day with blue sky and sunshine.
Unfortuately for us, a new front was rolling in, resulting in the top half of the mountain being completely immersed in fog. It was as bad as anything I've ever skied at Mt Buller.. visibility of about five meters.
As a Buller veteran, I wasn't that put off..although if you're on a new mountain (which wasn't well signposted) it can be a bit off-putting. I was skiing with the missus...who was absolutely shifting herself in the conditiions..her eyes were as big as saucers! For our first run I said "I'll just ski two turns and you can follow me".. to which she screamed back with terror "TWO TURNS!!! One turn!".
Anyway, we decided to cut our losses and just keep to the old single and double chairs on the lower half of the mountain. Snow base was about one meter.. hardpacked with man-made dust on top..i.e. not good! Even though the conditions were ordinary, the missus enjoyed herself on some of the steeper pistes, and finally made a miracle breakthrough...that skiing gets easier as you go faster. I've been telling her this for years but I guess its one of those things you have to work on yourself.
As the day progressed the fog descended lower and lower, until by 1 pm the entire hill was covered in fog. We decided to head indoors and stock up on some apple strudel (I got addicted whilst in Austria) and a Zlatorog...Ljubljana's local Lager which is absolutely brilliant.
We then downloaded and about an hour later I picked up a horrendous ear infection which still hasn't cleared..but that's another story.
Overall, it was nice to visit a real 'local ski hill'. Prices were about 28 Euros a day for lift tickets. Half the people on the hill were local school kids doing gate training. The on-mountain ski hire was very friendly, as were the local restaurants, despite my complete lack of Slovenian language skills.
It was nice to visit a small, local hill that didn't have delusions of grandeur...unlike most Australian resorts.
posted by PG at 3:07 PM
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