No more blogging for now

Due to the popularity of Facebook, I will no longer update the blog. If you haven't yet gotten around to getting a Facebook account, get your act together!

European ski safari - Elan Ski Factory and Lake Bled

No trip to Slovenia would be complete without a visit to the Elan ski factory, home of one of the world's best ski brands. They also make boats, which I never realised.



They had a few good deals, but nothing that tempted me enough to lug a second pair of skis back to England by plane (and copping an extra bagagge surchage). However, I did managed to pick up a neat hat and top!

After the Elan factory we went to Lake Bled, one of Europe's most beautiful vistas, and one of the top summer tourist destinations in the region. Sadly for us, the weather was not ideal, however we did get to see what all the fuss is about.



Lucas was happy that he got to feed the ducks!



We also treated ourselves to the world-famous Lake Bled Vanilla Slices.... hmmmm!

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.

European ski safari - Sightseeing in Novo Mesto

We spent the day travelling to Novo Mesto. Another beautiful down, on the road to Croatia. We were shown around by some of Dad's uni mates.

European ski safari - Sightseeing in Ljubljana

A day off today, so we ventured into the old town to have a look around.



Note how serious these Balkan people are about their cooking! First off we visited the townhall where Mum and Dad got married 40 years ago.



Note the large amount of yellow-coloured buildings.. a leftover of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, whose official colour was yellow.





The room on the 1st floor of the cafe (above the 'Corso' sign) used to be Dad's old flat when he was studying at University.

European ski safari - Road trip to Ljubljana

We all piled in the parent's hire car (a Volkswagen Turbo-Diesel Sharan MPV, i.e. people mover) and headed towards Slovenia via Innsbruck, then heading south to Italy.

It was quite amazing driving through this region on a sunny Saturday morning. Every second car had skis on the roof, and the traffic to all the local ski hills was absolutely chock-a-block. It's quite remarkable to be driving along at 150 km/h along Austrian A-roads to watch skiers gliding past the roadside. It was very common to see gondalas and cable cars coming right to to the roadside. Skiing in Europe is as simple as driving along a main highway, stopping off at the roadside carpark and walking to the lift. A far cry from some of the access roads to Australian resorts.



Here is the brilliant Volkswagen Sharan. 4 adults, 1 toddler, a pair of skis and a truckfull load of luggage, no worries at all. Plus it has room for two more seats in the back if you need them. Everyone in Australia who owns an SUV 'Urban Combat Vehicle' should sell them immediately and go and buy an MPV. Cheaper to run, easier to park, safer for you and your fellow road users. Mind you, with petrol prices in Australia the way they are, soon people won't have much of a choice.

We stopped off for lunch in a small town in Austria close to the border, Greifenburg. Like most places in this part of the world, it was a lovely picturesque little town.

European ski safari - Lech and Zurs

Nat ended up being bussed to Lech for her lesson the previous day, and she raved about it. So I decided that as the temperatures were now rising and the off-piste was turning a bit crusty/slushy/crappy.. it was time to get back on-piste and spend more time with the missus. Plus it helps get me in the marriage good books.

We collected our stuff from the Galzigbahn in St Anton to begin with. The ski storage and heated boot lockers here are fantastic.



This is the view from the Galzigbahn. The St Anton village is surrounded everywhere by steep mountains. There is no easy way down. It really is a ski-bum town, the average age on-hill is about 25-30. Most people wear helmets, big fat skis are everywhere and the standard of skiing on the hill is pretty good.

We caught a taxi to Lech, as a) We just missed the hourly bus, and b) there were four of us, the taxi wasn't that much more expensive.

Although we only travelled about 20 minutes, once we arrived at Lech it felt like we had gone back in time about 20 years.



Ok, so they did have cars in the Village as well as horses, but the average age on snow here is about 50. Grey haired cruisers flying about in rear-entry boots in snowsuits are everywhere. The standard of skiing is mostly.. ordinary. No wonder paedde comes here on a powder day, I would imagine that it takes a little bit longer to ski out all the powder bowls.

Lech is another world away from St Anton. Think of a 'Florida', except in the snow. I would imagine that loads of Austrians have their retirement units here. Bogner/Killy bling bling ski suits are easy to spot.

The terrain is, quite frankly... pretty great. You may not have the loads of steeps that St Anton has but there is fantastic wide-open fall-line freeways perfect for crusing and for high speed carving. Having said that, the steeper sections look fantastic as well.



Some of the wide open crusing available on the Roter Schrofen (right).




Lech Village, with the Rufikopf peak in the background (right). This peak is serviced by two cable cars.

We had lunch at a mountain-side wood-log restaurant to the skiers right of the Schlegelkopf. Lech might be the place for millionaires and royalty, but the price and quality of the food at this place had to be seen to be believed. Bruce paid about 14 Euros for a fanastic garlic chilli prawn dish with biggest, juiciest prawns I had seen in over a year. We ordered four dishes and we struggled to finish them all. Eating on mountain in the Arlbeg is cheaper, and better than eating in my (old) hometown in Oxfordshire.

After lunch my wife and her friend took the bus back to have a massage, so Bruce and I headed up the Rufikopf to ski part of the 'White Ring' to Zurs.

Looking towards Zurs from the top of the Rufikopf (left). Pistes 38 and 39 are in the foreground. Some of the off-piste in Zurs, above the Trittkopf cable car unload (right). Some hiking required!



I only skied one side of Zurs, and from an on-piste point of view, I found that several of the runs cut across the fall-line. A lot of the runs were just big cat tracks. The other side of the valley looked a different story though.

Funny story with the Trittkopf cable car. Bruce and I arrived at the end of the queue, so we were well prepared to take the next one. Everyone squeezes into the cable car.. its chockers... and just Bruce and I are left on the platform. The skiers in the cable car turn to us and say ..

"Come on.. you can squeeze in".
"Its OK, we'll take the next one."
"Come on."

By this time even the towie is urging us to jump on, so we relent to peer-group pressure and squeeze our way in.

Now, the Trittkopfbahn isn't the newest bit of kit I've seen on the hill. So when it comes to a shudderring halt after about five minutes.. and we are gently swaying about 100 metres above the mountain, I'm not too worried. The cable car starts moving again...

..and then comes to a shuddering halt about 30 seconds later. Even the locals start mutting amongst themselves.. and its at this point I begin to get a bit worried, and think that maybe I should have stuck to my guns and waited for the next car.

Luckily it started up again after five or so minutes and all was well.

This pic is taken from the bottom of piste #7, looking back to Zurs. Unlike the other pistes we had skied, this one offerred wide open high speed carving fun... and the video footage would have been great if Bruce wasn't the world's most imcompetant cameraman.

European ski safari - Stuben

Today I finally managed to meet up with the legend himself, paedde. For those who don't know, paedde is a fixture of the australian ski forums who every year drives us crazy with his amazing photos of his worldwide ski safaris. For the record, paedde is actually Swiss. He kindly allowed us to join his merry band for a tour of the Stuben area, which is the next village along the road after St Christoph.

The temperature was a little warmer than yesterday, but as long as we stuck to the shaded areas the snow quality was still great. Thanks to paedde's knowledge, we still found plenty of fresh stuff!

The scenery out the back of Stuben. The photo with Paedde and Lorenz also has the slopes of Zurs visible in the top right.



Also part of the group was Mark102 (from the ski forums) along with Dave and Phil, two snowboarders from Tasmania.



Paedde setting off on a nice section to the skiers right of the Albona II chair.



After this we headed out to the far edge of the Stuben area. After a small traverse we found a nice wide-open powder field that still had some fresh lines.

Here is paedde setting off, followed by Lorenz.



All going well for Lorenz until he came unstuck crossing paedde's tracks and performed a great faceplant. Lorenz lost one ski just above his fall. Unfortunately for him, his other ski slid about 200 metres down the hill. It took him a while to get his stuff back together.



Mark102 enjoying some fresh lines.








Lorenz managed to dust himself off and still find the good stuff.












We decided to leave paedde's group just after lunchtime, partly because the party had become split up, and partly because I was knackered! I think my small case of man-flu from earlier in the week was returning. We returned to St Anton for some on-piste action but I was quite frankly, shattered, and ended up downloading early in the day.

Still, it was well worth it! Once again a big thanks to paedde for showing us around the Stuben area. Some really memorable skiing, for me at least.