Snow and fun at Slovenian ski touring camp

Print this story Email to a friend

The first Global Youth Summit event of this year took place in Slovenia with 21 participants from seven different countries. The international ski touring camp, at the beginning of March, was held at the Komna plateau above Lake Bohinj. 

When the participants, Slovenian guides and staff arrived at the Planina na Kraju hut (1,510 m), they were met by an incredible four meters of snow. "The first two floors of the hut were almost completely covered with snow, while the neighbouring house had only one meter of its roof visible. (...) The Slovenian guys said that they haven't seen so much snow in the last 30 years," writes Laszlo, one of the participants, in an article about the camp on a Romanian Alpine Club blog.

The sun did not make much of an appearance during the week, but the group was able to get out ski touring on the second and third day, with Kal (2,001 m) being the highest summit reached. For some participants it was one of their first times ski touring, for others it was a chance to get to know a mountain landscape different to the ones in their home countries. 

During the third night it started to snow heavily and within the next couple of days a total of 1.2 meter of heavy snow had fallen. This meant that the avalanche risk was very high, and therefore it was not safe to leave the area around the hut for the rest of the week. 

Instead the guides used the opportunity to allow the group to practice testing snow conditions on the terrain, avalanche beacons and simulating avalanche rescue situations around the hut.

Other activities included a team skiing race around the hut organised by the Norwegians, building a fat snowman and a lot of snow shoveling, including making a tunnel into the hut's front door. 

Other elements that kept the spirits up were plenty of good food and getting to know other mountaineers from across Europe. The participants came from Romania, Serbia, Spain, the UK, Norway, Sweden and Slovenia. Some of them have already planned to come back and ski tour in Komna, hopefully with slightly less snow.