ISPO took quite a tool on me again. A day before heading to Munich I had been following the developement of a storm that was supposed to hit my home town of Maribor with almost a meter of snow. Jernej would be visiting some relatives near the border 50 km off, and Smole and the grab-it boys were up for some local powder action to. If the snow came…
It was 20.00, late… I was still at ISPO. I unexpectedly ran into my friend Manu whom I had not seen since the Stubai opening and well you can imagine the rest. Regardless of Michi trying to convince me to do the standard ISPO party mayhem and just stay for the after party’s I checked my phone, to check if the stormfront would hit Maribor. It would hit. We would have the rare opportunity to ride powder at home. I was not about to let that slip. I headed off to arrive at home at 3 am after a horrible extreme weather drive of 7 hours. Only 4 hours later we would be heading to one of our home resorts, but it would not be Pohorje Resort.
The rest of the night passed and in the four hours the storm had shifted to the east. That meant that there was only one resort high enough to have temps low enough to allow some proper pow. Kope. Since the resorts surrounding my home town of Maribor do not go higher then 1600 m it would still be quite a gamble.
With the boys form our local GrabIt freestyle club we set out early in the morning for Kope. A small resort from the Yugoslavian era where I actually learned to ski. And I have not been back for a long time.
Located on the ridge line of the Pohorje mountains the resorts highest point is only at around 1500 m. That ment treelines. But would there be enough snow. The answer was a resounding YES. Also the resorts layout makes it possible to ride endless trees to the north side with a short hike back to the main quad chair on a small road in the middle of the woods for another run.
Boy did we rip that day. Unfortunately Jernej was not able to meet up and when he saw the pictures he already regretted not moving is lazy ass :P. The day just did not end. After riding all day without a brake and ISPO I was so exhausted that after returning home I fell asleep in the bathtub to dream of more powderdays like this one 😛
Next up it is time for the big trip of the season. As the weather in Europe went to into a short spring. Gašper Slak, Žiga Papler and myself went on one of those powdertrips of a lifetime. We were off to JAPAN.
