Julian Alps :: Diary

Another fantastic day on Kanin, beautiful blue skies and still a chunk of powder to play in.  Although the temperature on the mountain was reported at -6 I think it was probably +1 or 2 degrees. 

Only the front of the mountain has been opened since the last snow fall so there will be plenty to play on when the backside eventually opens.

May head over to Sella Nevea tomorrow to see how the snow has fared on the shaded side, I’m hoping it should be excellent and will have had very little traffic.

Had the most superb days riding on Kanin.  Blue skies, 2m of powder and not too busy.

 After a couple of hours putting down fresh tracks we spent a little time hunting out the perfect place for a medium kicker. A couple more hours of shovelling and we were ready to rock.  What I had thought would be an ideal size for me to session and Sarah to learn on proved to be a little on the large side.  With only minimal speed you were still travelling about 15m down slope and up to 5m height.  Credit to Sarah she still had a crack at it although there is a fairly hefty bomb hole with her name on now.

All in all, another superb day. Possibly one of the best I’ve ever had.

Interesting day, Kanin was closed so we decided to head over to either Sella Nevea or Tarvisio.  The pass into Italy was well cleared on the Slovenian side, the plough man must have been out all night! Sadly I can’t say the same for the Italian side, about a meter and a half of snow and a narrow, single track without passing places, just glad we didn’t meet anyone coming the other way, 2 miles of reversing up a mountain pass would not have been the ideal start to the day!

Decided against Sella Nevea as the road had seen even less plough action than the pass and I couldn’t be arsed to play with snow chains, Tarvisio it was.

 Although pretty low in altitude the snow in Tarvisio was still pretty good, around a metre of fresh right down to the town, a couple of lifts still closed so we just stuck to the piste and tree runs above the town.  I had my first run in with the piste gestapo, waiting until I’ve almost finished a nice little kicker onto a hut roof before destroying it! Swines.

Sarah had an interesting take on how to ride deep powder and after making several huge holes I decided to leave her swimming her way down. 

Despite the efforts of the piste patrol a good day was had with plenty of tree runs, first tracks and deserted pistes.

Kanin tomorrow, if it’s open that is.

Matt

50cm has turned into 2m of fresh.  Kanin was closed today, too much snow to move around and only two piste bashers!

Trip over to Sella Nevea but the huge snow flakes falling made visibility poor -  looking forward to the clouds clearing and a bit of blue sky again.

Italy and Austria seem to have fared well, Travisio claims to have snow down to the valley floor for the first time this season and the Nassfeld website reports nearly 2m of fresh on the tops and just under 1m in the valley.

50cm of fresh and counting!

Yet another large temperature inversion, cold in the valley, hot on the mountain.  Nice views but not overly good for the snow. Almost spring conditions with the piste being in good condition but getting quite slushy.

Sarah and guests came back early from riding today as the visablity on Kanin had dropped to only a few meters.  Shame really because last nights snow means that the piste are in superb condition and the off piste that was hard and icey is slowly starting to come back in.

 Lets hope it’s sunny tomorrow and continues to snow tonight! 

Better late than never.

 A happy New Year from Bovec.

Those poor Slovenians didn’t know what hit them! JulianAlps dance team in full effect !!!

Although we’ve not really had much fresh snow to speak of the conditions on Kanin and in the neighbouring resort of Sella Nevea are still probably up there with the higher resorts in the Alps.

 Guests this week have ridden Kanin, Sella Nevea, Nassfeld and Tarvisio.  Although Nassfeld is pretty much fully open the base isn’t great and most of the riding is on artificial snow.  The chair linking Tarvisios two areas has yet to open meaning a bus ride between the two.

 Temperatures have dropped and I hope that the next snow will see all of the resorts fully open.

Images from two days showing the main piste on Kanin.