I spent quite some time on mtb last week, but not so much in running shoes, so for Sunday, I decided to make one nice trail run loop in my winter playground
Mountains behind our house are perfect for all sorts of ski touring in winter, from nice easy ones when avi forecast is at 5, to super steep stuff when conditions are right. But when there's no snow, there's plenty of trails for running or hiking, and even for mtb, if you are more into that kind of stuff (I prefer xc trails and nice flow downhills not steep roots and rocks, so it's not really place for me
. And nice thing is, you can get anything you want, from 4 or 5km loop with some 400m of ascend, to 20+km loops with several 1000m of ascend, depending how you feel, and for most trails you can cut them short or make them longer on the fly if your mood changes between run or hike.
Even if you have never been here, it's hard to miss the right way, with all the markings, but regardless of this, you still need to know where you are going, and no matter how good marked trails we have, there doesn't go day by, when mountain rescue wouldn't be flying to rescue mission of someone who either got lost, or thought they are in better shape they really are, and picked something what was way over their head.
About one third of trail is behind me and that little green patch on far end was top of first little climb and behind that hill, some 400m lower is parking with my car.
Part above this tral has some of super fun and super steep lines in winter, but yesterday, I decided not to go to top, so I just made it halfway up and then run back on this trail crossing the mountain. For running it's actually more fun this way, as trail is really nice and easy to run, while going to top is more of a hike with some easy climbing then running.
Checking for my winter lines... Without snow, this looks pretty scary, but with snow over this, it's not all that bad. Right couloir is probably most popular slightly steeper line in winter, and pretty much everyone go into that. With III+ it's pretty much bottom line where alpinist skiing starts. Left couloir and part left from that couloir are where real fun is, with lines from V to VI+. While skiing down that part is real fun in winter, when looking those thing up without snow, makes you wonder how the hell did I came up (I have way more problems climbing such things up, then skiing them down) and then down with skis
Second mountain on that ridge more to east, which also has some really cool skiing lines in that wall. Right part of photo is when you don't feel like skiing steep stuff
With right conditions, it's place for fun high speed turns all the way from top to bottom in some 10 turns
Wall part on left of photo has line, that I would say was most demanding line I have ever climbed and then ski down. Going down was real fun, climbing up was on limit of my climbing capabilities and it really didn't feel all that comfortable with almost 1000m of air under my butt
Panorama view from top of last climb of the day. This is also easiest mountain for winter, and I normally ski from here when avi conditions are really really bad, or if I go just for short skimo session before or after work, as it takes only some 45min to top of this mountain from parking lot (with light skis) and then 7-8min skiing down so you can make whole loop under 1h.
This area is on border between Slovenia and Austria, and border goes just on top of mountain where I took previous photo. Officially if you want to cross border, you need negative covid-19 test or you need to be vaccinated, but with trail running shoes on, these conditions don't count, and as biggest criminal I managed to cross the border without all required conditions... not to mention I didn't go to 14 day quarantine when I entered Slovenia 15sec later, also without being vaccinated or tested