Julian Alps :: Diary

Another 40cm of fresh fell last night, again not the lightest of powder but 40cm is still enough to warrant you hurling yourself off things!

There are drops galore here in Kanin and because of the volume of snow we’ve been getting the bigger ones are just starting to see a little bit of traffic. No matter what is said between boarders and skiers it’s still super impressive to see someone launch themselves off a 60 footer.

I played around on a couple of drops (all well shy of 60ft!!!) and Sarah tried hitting a wind lip a couple of times but the highlight of the day was the off piste under the large cliffs. Shaded from the sun this run holds better snow for longer, although there are a couple of monstrous holes to be avoided (there’s a cave up here with a 1000m vertical entrance somewhere!) the small drops, rocks to pop off, wind lips and its length make this the best run on Kanin.

To avoid the busier slopes of Kanin we headed over to Sella Nevea for a days teaching.

One of Sarahs friends from Penrith is mid way through a TEFL over here and fancied an introduction to boarding so after an evening in the Pink Panter (to numb the senses) we made our way over the pass. After the initial 15 minutes of waiting to get in the gondola we made our way over to the two easier slope at the top of the resort where as always it was dead with only a couple of dozen people on both runs.

Fair play to Simon, after a number of crunching falls he was turning both toe and heel side, getting on and off lifts fine and even managed the red run back to the base station twice.

There has been a bit of a dusting of fresh but we’re expecting more over the next few days.

What started out as a grey day on Kanin turned out to be one of the best so far this year.

After first fearing that we would be stuck in the holiday crush (culture day apparently) and then worrying that the light would be flat and the snow heavy we were proved wrong on all counts. The grey sky had obviously put off the holiday makers as the car park was nearly empty and then as we reached the mid station in the gondola the clouds broke to fresh snow and empty pistes, ah we love Slovenia!

We had hoped to session the new boxes and rails in the park but the fresh snow had almost covered them from view so we headed off piste to see what the new snow was like. What had looked like a dusting from the valley turned out to be around 20-25cm of fresh, not the lightest of powder snow but still pretty good.

There was another film crew in resort, taking advantage of the fresh snow and shooting some guy skiing a medium cliff under one of the chairs. Not to be outdone by some Slo skier and his film crew I dropped it once they had left. Not the greatest of ideas really, one of the photographers had made himself in a nice hole to shoot from, obviously I managed to land in it kneeing myself in the face and breaking yet another goggle lens! Ah well you’d never guess from the photo.

Moody skies, occasional sun and fresh snow. Another great day on Kanin.

The latest addition to the JulianAlps crew -

Sarah just has too much time on her hands!

An entertaining day in Tarvisio.  The snow is getting a little heavy and although there is plenty of fresh higher up the valley bottoms are starting to suffer a little from heavy, wet snow and the occasional bit of rain.

We made the most of it and rode both ends of Tarvisio. The park is looking in good shape but as we wanted to get to the higher runs we just rode on by.  I’ll maybe take a look next week. We also discovered a couple more runs from the ridge line down into the town that looked pretty good. Maybe I’ll get the chance to check them out also.

 This photo was taken from the village on the ridge line above Tarvisio looking into the valley behind the resort.

I decided to take a look at the easy off piste valley between Kanin and Sella Nevea today. The snow on the Italian side of the mountain is faring better than that on the Slovenian although it was a little wind blown and crusty in places. The valley route would suit anyone of an intermediate level and is a far more enjoyable way of getting to Sella Nevea compared to 30 minutes in the van.

Another nice day and with more snow forecast tonight the whole region seems to be getting more than its fair share of snow and sun.

After taking a look at the state of the car park in Kanin (it was rammed) we decided to head up to the Vrsic Pass in search of peace and fresh tracks. We found both in abundance. During the whole day I would guess that no more than 4 cars drove past and our only company were a couple of ski tourers heading up to Mala Mojstrovka.

Fantastic terrain with small cliffs, plenty of trees and an awesome rock garden to play in.  I decide that it was about time Sarah progressed from small, beginner kickers and drops to something a little more substantial, to her credit after a couple of false starts and bottling it on the run in she had a crack at a 10ft drop.

All in all she had a far better days riding than me, our first kicker proved a little steep on the run in and I only managed to hit it once! 

Blue skies again as we headed out for Tarvisio. A day riding the trees, looking for an off piste route down to the road in Cave and a quick shopping trip to the fun fish mongers in town (should you want to you can pick your fish from the selection swimming around in huge tanks).

Sadly one of the main pistes was close due to a race day so we headed off along the ridge line to look for new lines and fun places to play.

  There are a number of routes off the left side of the ridge back down into Tarvisio but after 20 minutes study of the local map we managed to find a nice 40 minutes ride down the right side, to the road that would take us home. A definite last run of the day for our next guests.

Whilst looking around the village at the top of Tarvisio and admiring the view we also found the most superb rail.  It just might take a while before I’ve plucked up the courage to session it. Watch this space!

  Small monastery an village on the ridge above Tarvisio

Again on the route home we were treated to the most awesome alpenglow, sadly my camera work isn’t up to much so you’ll just have to trust me when I say that the top 300m of the rock walls above Log Pod Mangratom were bright pink. 

A quality day in Arnoldstein, pretty hot but the snow seems to be lasting well.  Didn’t really get the opportunity to check out many of the tree runs back down to the base station but they all looked to be in good condition with plenty of coverage.

After a leisurely couple of hours riding we made our way back over the pass into Slovenia, stopping for a coffee and photo session at the (now frozen) Pridel Lake.