The wonderful sport of skiing Today I am going to share one of the loves of my life with you. Prepare yourself for a pretty personal story :) . As you probably know skiing is a slovenian national sport. And in that view I have been a great patriot almost since I could walk. I took my first skiing steps on rogla at the age of 2 and a half years. Naturally I can't remember many details of the occasion but amazingly enough I can still remember some blurred pictures of riding in the safety between my fathers skis. But the true feeling of freedom came when our family visited vogel and started skiing on my own. I still remember clearly how fascinated I was with the fact I can turn to the directon I desire and how fast you can go on skis. Of coarse I also quickly found out how it feels when you accidently cross your skis and than turn into a snowball coming down the slope, losing ski poles, hats, gloves and skis in the process. After a week on vogel we went skiing every year for at least a week to bigger ski centers with my family and friends. The next milestone in my "skiing career" came when my dad took me to "turna smuka" or tour skiing. Basically the difference is in the fact that there is no ski lift to take you to the top of the moutain and there are also no prepared pistes so you can chose your way down a virgin slope. Although carrying around 10 kg of equipment uphill can't always be described as "pure joy", the feeling of being in a magical & relaxing place like moutains can.

And it was quite enyojable for me at my first turna smuka to "kotovo sedlo", because my father carried the majority of equipment for me. I think I can be excused for not carrying all my stuff and not beeing able to come to the top because of the fact that I was only 8. ( will add pictures when I find them :) )

Next memorable event to me was the skiing school, which our primary school organised in fifth grade. I still can't belive how much fun we had with my friends and how many crazy things we did there. The most memorable is riding "trains" which is skiing one after another in plow style so the whole group forms a train. By rule such activities always end in the whole group falling into the snow, which should preferablly be soft.

I than started to take skiing steeper and more difficult slopes. I consider the "turna smuka" to kredarica as a step into the world of big boys tour skiing. I can still feel the choking feeling of puting a 12 kg roucksac on my back and how much will it took to carry it all the way to kreadrica which is located around 1600 m higher than we started our trek. That is like going to top of a normal building around 80 times. And yes, at the age of 14 or 13 I definetly discovered that I am quite stubborn. After around 7 hours walking I was very tired but also very pleased with achieving my goal. Although it was freezing ( literally under 0 C ) in the room we were sleeping on kredarica I slept like a baby. The next day we skiied back to the walley and I must say that no skiing in organised ski centers can be compared to it.

But that didn't stop me from doing that. Sometimes it just feels great to be a bit more laid back and enjoy only riding down without having to walk uphill. Especially if you are in company of good friends. ( this post will be continoued with new pictures and description of how I got to know powder skiing, caRving & how I started to ski on ski borads or really short skis and some interesting stories of falls, near falls and hanging over from trees over a cliff...) In the meanwhile don't forget to enjoy the snow to the fullest!