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Day hikes and other non-wheeled adventures on trails.

wooglin

Making fresh tracks
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Jan 27, 2020
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Center of the Civilized World
Y'all were so mean to @Primoz I thought a new thread might be in order.

Franconia ridge today. Yes, thats Cannon out beyond Greenleaf Hut.

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Primoz

Skiing the powder
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Nov 8, 2016
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Slovenia, Europe
So that I won't be off topic this time, I will post it here :ogbiggrin:
Another day in Dolomites, and after all these years, we finally managed to run to one of nicest lakes on planet, at least for me. Waking up in middle of the night is must, first because weather forecast was promising more clouds, and maybe even some rain later on, and mostly, because it's pretty popular place, even though it's some 15km loop, and if you come there at "normal hour", there's 100s of people around the lake, and all the magic is gone for me.

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Views are breathtaking right from start of the run.

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Little rest, and enjoying those really amazing views next to the lake.

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Time to hit the trail and get back. Across the vally are Drei Zinnen mountains where we were few days back :)
 

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RJS

Out on the slopes
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Feb 28, 2017
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Seattle area
@wooglin I'm amazed in that last picture that you had a view of Franconia Ridge without a single other person in the picture! The two times that I have been up there, I shared the ridgeline with dozens of other hikers, and the top of Lafayette with hundreds of people. What a spectacular hike. The only long hike I've done in the Whites was the Pemi loop, and my two favorite views were from Lafayette and South Twin.

@Primoz Wow! I remember reading that there are very few glaciers left in the Dolomites, so it is special to see a glacially fed lake there. The Dolomites may have been the most beautiful place that I have visited, although I only saw a small piece of it and didn't see this lake. Are there any rifugios close to this lake? I hiked the first half of the Alta Via 1, and it was funny how some rifugios felt like they were out in the wild, and others had trams or roads leading right up to them. The wilderness has a very different feel in the Dolomites and other places in Europe compared with the United States. My very, very small experience is that the wilderness is more accessible but less "wild" feeling in Europe, but this is a broad generalization coming from very little actual experience. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that there are wild places in Europe that are less accessible and probably under-the-radar compared with the places that I have visited.
 

Primoz

Skiing the powder
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@RJS there's hut some 200m away from the lake, but this hut is accessible only by foot. Some other huts have wide asphalt roads to it. Most famous in that area is definitely
Rifugio Auronzo under Drei Zinnen, where you have wide road leading up to the hut at 2300m above sea, with parking for several 100 cars up. But some huts are really in middle of nowhere and there's long hike needed to reach them.
As for "wilderness" goes, I would actually say you are right, but this has more to do with size then anything else. Just Yellowstone NP is pretty much half the size of my whole country (if Wikipedia is right, Yellowstone NP is 8991 km², while Slovenia is 20271 km²). So when you have so little space, it's just not possible to have complete wild areas where you can walk for days without being in contact with any civilization. There are still totally wild areas in Slovenia and in Europe, but scale is much much smaller then in US, and feel is also different, because you literally can't get lost there, as if you walk in straight line, you are out of there in few hours... slightly different then when first road you might cross is 500km away :)
 
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Daniel

Out on the slopes
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Jun 27, 2017
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Cottonwood Heights, Utah
@Primoz Wow! I remember reading that there are very few glaciers left in the Dolomites, so it is special to see a glacially fed lake there. The Dolomites may have been the most beautiful place that I have visited, although I only saw a small piece of it and didn't see this lake. Are there any rifugios close to this lake? I hiked the first half of the Alta Via 1, and it was funny how some rifugios felt like they were out in the wild, and others had trams or roads leading right up to them. The wilderness has a very different feel in the Dolomites and other places in Europe compared with the United States. My very, very small experience is that the wilderness is more accessible but less "wild" feeling in Europe, but this is a broad generalization coming from very little actual experience. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that there are wild places in Europe that are less accessible and probably under-the-radar compared with the places that I have visited.

My experience has been that the most "wilderness" places in Europe are found in northern Norway, Sweden, and Finland plus the interior of Iceland. That said, they pale in comparison to places like the Selway-Bitterroot, Gospel-Hump, and Frank Church-River of no Return Wilderness Areas in Idaho or the Great Bear, Bob Marshall, and Scapegoat Wilderness Areas in Montana. Much of Alaska and enormous parts of Canada take wilderness regions to a completely different level.
 

luliski

Making fresh tracks
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Short and hot hike up the Five Lakes trail, which starts off Alpine Meadows Road. Caught a glimpse of what I think was the beginnings of the gondola construction.
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Also caught a glimpse of the top of the Headwall lift and Sun Bowl at Squaw Valley. Interesting to see where you’d end up if you went to low on Sun Bowl. You have to zoom in a little, but the top of the lift is top right in the photo, and Sun Bowl is the slope below and a bit to the left of the lift.
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Alpine Meadows in the distance. No snow in sight anywhere.:(
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Tricia

The Velvet Hammer
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Primoz

Skiing the powder
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Nov 8, 2016
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Slovenia, Europe
Friend delivered new running vest, so mountains in my backyard were perfect place to test it... or maybe I just needed excuse to make this loop in summer heat :roflmao: As I wasn't feeling all that fresh, I skipped 2km on flat (plus same 2km on way back) and didn't start straight from our house, but I drove to next village and started from under the mountain. Almost 3 hours later (moving time was 2.5h) and after 15km and 1300m of ascend I was back at car, feeling that even if legs were anything but fresh, I could actually have those 2km for start, and another 2km for finish and could start from house front door. Oh well next time :)

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Top of second and longest climb on this loop. 600m of ascend in 35min deserves swing or two with such view :ogbiggrin: After this, it's only about 300m of ascend on ridge to highest point.

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But on the way to there, view to one of winter ski lines opens. In summer it actually looks worse then it really is when skiing it.

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Highest point of the run. I came from left and continue to right. Marking says 2h to village below this mountain, but it took me only about 45min (on uphill) so I'm still in normal shape for these mountain timeframes, where I need to divide marked time by 2 to get realistic time :) Down on right of photo is village from where I started.

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400m of descent, 200m of ascent and I'm on top of last climb for the day. Mountain hut, where I just run by, and my village just between those 2 trees creating opening on edge of this mountain meadow.

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Photo from the bench with one of nicest views around. A bit exposed, especially when considering whole bunch of kids are normally around, and straight off the bench you crash some 30m down over these rocks, but view is really amazing. Photo is not bad, but in reality it's way better, especially when it's like it was yesterday, when in whole run I met only 3 people.
 

Primoz

Skiing the powder
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Nov 8, 2016
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Slovenia, Europe
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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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 :)

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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 :D 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 :D

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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.

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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 :roflmao:
 

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