Winter comes to Slovenia First storm leaves a nice snowpack to start with

Three weeks have passed since the Openings in Tirol gave us our first taste of the coming winter. Now finally the first snowfall dropped a nice dump at home in Slovenia. We use the opportunity and checked it out. 

With talk of one of the biggest El Niño on record, everyone had there hopes up since the first good snowfalls in the alps indicated lots of snow for an early winter in October. Then the unthinkable happened. Three weeks of temperatures in the mid to low 20s. In short, more time to go climbing then hunting for snow.

The high temperatures were not all bad. We were able to climb longer.. Here Ortar securing Gril on a tricky 7a at Ig.

Regardless of the good temperatures the days were getting short.

At times with a nice southern breeze it almost felt like summer.

And there were those days where it was like summer.

And we event went creative and made this “Portal Shot” with Anže in the middle of the night.

That all changed last week when a storm brewing over the Atlantic finally hit us. The only question last Wednesday seemed to be where all of it would come down. Swiss would get hammered but what about our little country on the other side of the alps? Would it look good to? Wind was the only worry. How far south would the high wind take the falling snow.

Sunday morning I checked the webcams. Jernej from the GrabIt boys was en route from Maribor and Gašper was already waiting for us to pick him up. The cams showed around the same amount at Kravavec and Soriška Planina aka Sorica, a small resort I really like to start my touring season at. After meeting up we quickly decided to try our luck at Sorica. A day earlier I talked to Urška and Luka, our Asahidake buddies, who would be there too. I thoght if there would not be enough at least we would see our firends :).

Gašper likes to roll in the snow.

So fluffy.

Training burial scenarios… the adult way.

And so we did. Surprisingly there was quite a lot more snow than we thought there would be. And then, even the sun came out to give us a bluebird day. The temperatures were on the minus side of zero and the snow pack had a good quality. At the top of the mountain it was quite wind blown and in the evening a crust was starting to form. A good beginning layer for a solid season I hope.

We made it to the top easily and did not even hit a stone on our way down. Hell I even took the first powder photo of the season with my phone 🙂 Turned out pretty well according to the like count on Facebook and Instagram :P. It is the cover picture  in case you are wondering.

Descent time.. would we hit rocks ?

Nope. Definetly not

Gašper making one of his first powderturns this season.

These first tries of winter are also good for another thing. Testing your old gear for failures. After a whole summer of having it sit in your apartment you need to see if it all still works. Jernej found that out in a somewhat annoying way as his old skins did not offer to much grip anymore so he had to walk. They just didn’t offer any grip, but not on the sticky side… never seen that before 😛

Ready for liftoff.

Then the sun came out.

The higher we were getting the more wind blown it seemed

A huge cornice had already formed.

Well all in all the snow was surprisingly good, there was more of it then expected and we managed our first bluebird mini powder day. If the season continues like that we will be happy campers ! Hear that mother Hole !!!

Good news is that it seems that the next front might already hit us next week ! Lets all hope for a big load… hmm that sounds kinda wrong …  somewhat mildly suggestive.