And so I'm still feeling nostalgic for Slovakia, skiing and snow . . . .


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Ski day -- blistering and blinding snowstorm at the summit. The High Tatras are quite a respectable mountain range. It's too bad the visibility was so poor -- I caught glimpses of distant valley views. Skied with Peter, Livia and Buhoš, all Slovaks from Trenčin, and Hamid, a Persian-Russian from Trenčin.

Too exhausted to follow the late night

It snowed all night. I have never really experienced what I would call "powder" by Colorado standards in Europe, so I was excited. I decided it was a prime opportunity to switch to snowboarding -- my first time in Europe. I got my rental board, with my brand new Croatian-made boots and these side-bolt click-in bindings I had never seen before ( Read more... )

An excellent day skiing. The snow was not perfect, but there were patches of soft stuff on every slope. I covered a lot of ground. I had these 170 cm, round-tipped skis with a huge sidecut. It was hard to even fit them in the gondola slot -- I carried them with me inside the first time, looking like a total rube, I'm sure. But they felt good, ( Read more... )

A long drive today to the best ski and spa resort in Austria, as far as I know. I will ski. And snowboard. There is fresh snow. There is a snowboard world cup race of some sort all weekend, with awards on Monday.

Happy New Year!

OK, so I was supposed to have this road trip to Berlin. We would pass through Prague and pick up two friends, then continue for a 3-day weekend. As most planning goes with Slovaks, of course, this did not happen. The replacement? A scenic trip out into the woods of South-Central Slovakia with a few various (and extremely hospitable) Jankos for ( Read more... )

My first day to ski in Slovakia. It's not a big mountain, but the scenery is beautiful and the snow is better quality than what I had skied in Austria.

A beautiful sunny, fall drive through changing tree leaves. My first glimpse of the snow-capped High Tatra mountians near Poprad.

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Bad Gastein, Austria, December 1, 2001


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