Monday, April 21, 2008

Sella Nevea - Kanin!


Last Wednesday Burek, Dadi and I decided to explore the northern side of Kanin and to see how much snow the Italians can offer. The ski resort of Sella Nevea is closed for a week already; however, there is enough snow for skiing at least until holidays for May 1. Italians like to take it easy and so we enjoyed tranquility when we ascended up the resort. The snow started right at the car and was exponentially growing by the minute as we enjoyed a "walk in the park!" When we reached the top of the resort at around 1800m, Burek's eyes shined in amazement when he gazed at the surrounding giants submerged in meters of snow. Dadi was showing his joy in more conservative ways and I was taking pictures as if I just bought a new camera. The weather was not the best and yet the visibility was O.K. Our patriotism drove us to continue towards the Prevala Pass (2067m) - which is also the border of Slovenia. And the minute we stepped on the Slovenian side the skies cleared up and all three of us were jumping around in amazement. A quick snack and we continued up, towards the top of Kanin ski resort. Prestreljenik (2498m) was seducing us with virgin white slopes; however, we quickly changed our minds when we saw that Kanin was working and that we are actually going to do some free skiing on powder:)


On Kanin, they never check the ski-passes, simply because the only way to reach it is by a long cable car that brings you from the Valley. And so we skied passionately - up and down! Burek is the master of Kanin and so he showed us all the "off-road" Kanin can offer. Even our burning leg muscles couldn't stop us.


At around 3 o'clock black clouds closed the sun and believe it or not, we had a snow blizzard in about 15 minutes! So there we were on 2300m, covered in fresh snow, swinging on the ski lift, on -6 Celsius, cracking jokes - and all I could think of is that this is probably as close to beauty, perfection, glory and happiness as we could ever possiblly get. (Now lets make something clear: I'm not saying that we are normal or that this is omething usual, we just are what we do and we love it!) And then the skies cleared up again and as we skied down in 5-10cm of fresh powder, we could speak no more! Yet we all knew that one gets so lucky only a few times in life.

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