Kočna (cca. 2500m)

Dadi called me on Saturday and proposed a serious ski trip, which I simply couldn't resist. We drove to the magical alpine village Jezersko (my first time), which is completely surrounded by high mountains. Actually some of the best Slovenian extreme skiers come from there; no wonder - they have a ski polygon around them and can ski practically to their doorsteps:)

 
It was really cold in the morning and one could quickly forget that spring was knocking on the door. We left our car at the end of the road, where serious snow started and began ascending through the forest. The trees ended at around 1300m, where terrain opened and I saw ruins of monstrous avalanches that were raging in the previous months. The scene was quite scarry and I quickly figured the north side of Kočna is never a joke. The plan was to enter the Povnova Valley, which is steep but quite wide and comfortable for skiing. Its only problem is the entrance at the bottom, with high cliffs and a few extremely steep ravines, which offer almost vertical climbing and neck-breaking skiing on the way back. Because of difficult terrain we were slow to advance and when the valley opened up, we had nearly 1000m of climbing left. This time I really pushed the limits of my physical form and I was exhausted when I reached the top of the mountain. Overall we made almost 1700m of climb and I nearly fell asleep, seduced by the warm sun at the top.

 
The skiing at the top was very steep but quite fun, since we had perfect hard snow and even some soft powder for bonus.

 
The problem was more at the bottom, where I suddenly found myself on an icy platform, where I started to uncontrollably slide downwards. I somehow managed to stop, but I knew that if I made another bold move, the situation could quickly get srious. I called Dadi, that was around 50 meters below me, to come and give me a hand. He reached me with his ice-axes, took my crampons out of the backpack and carefully put them on my feet. The situation was solved when I had my ice-axes in my hands. I descended the icy platform on foot, put on my skies and continued my descent. I skied the easier route to the left, which turned out not to be so easy, since the slope (55+ degrees) was hanging above a cliff. Dadi said such crossing is quite dangerous with a snowboard, so he rather chose the steep ravine, which had an inclination of around 60 degrees and a short section which was practically vertical (cca. 80 degreees). He descended with an ice-axe in his hand and was doing all right, until he lost control at the very end, made a couple of spectacular summersaults and landed in soft powder at the bottom. Everything ended well.. but we learned a couple of good lessons: 1. Be aware of ice! 2. Never go to mountains alone! 3. Terrain with more than 60 degrees is usually not skiable, even for master Dadi! Apinistic skiing: (IV, S5. Dadi: S6+)