January 9; Kicking off the cross-country season ⛷🇦🇹

With snow covering Europe's mountains once again, it's time to get back to our favorite outdoors activity ☃️

Happy Sunday,

Ellie and I just got back from our favorite way of kicking off a New Year; a week of blissful cross-country skiing.

Skiing with Ellie on a sunny day at Hochrindl in the Carinthian Alps

This year we decided to spend the New Year’s skiing week in Austria, mostly because it was the easiest location logistically. There’s a daily flight to Vienna from Varna on Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast, only 40 mins from Shumen, where we always spend time at Christmas with Ellie’s family.

Marked in blue are the spots where we skied last week, in the Gurktaler and Gerlitzer Alps and on Dobratsch mountain in the Austrian land of Carinthia.

We’d take that flight in previous, pre-Covid years, to connect onwards to our usual ski destination of Sweden, but this year we decided not to risk layovers and complicated entry rules in yet another country, and simply keep it to Austria.

One ski hut in Hochrindl had a cool display of old skis with retro photos of old-time skiers on the walls.

It was an excellent choice by all means. We of course Googled a bit about cross-country skiing in Austria (called langlaufen in German), and knew there’d be plenty trails, but what we discovered upon arriving exceeded our expectations substantially.

Amazing views of the Gurktaler Alps from Turracher Höhe

Historically, cross-country skiing is a big thing in northern countries, that are relatively flat and get lots of natural snow in winter: Scandinavia, Russia, Finland, and Canada. However, we found out that Austria, much like the US, has adopted cross-country skiing extensively in its mountainous areas that get plenty of snow.

Nearly all villages in the valleys of the Austrian alps have their own trails, and when there’s a lot of snow, they get connected through continuous grooming, so you can ski for dozens of kilometers on end.

Every single ski resort area in the Austrian Alps has groomed cross-country trails, both classic- and skating-style, and most of the towns and villages in the valleys have municipal trails that require no ticket. In the ski resorts, they usually have a vending machine at the trailhead, where you buy a day pass for anything between 3 and 6 euros per person.

When you cross-country, it doesn’t really matter what the weather is… quite cool on overcast days as well

We’d experienced this positive surprise about the quality and abundance of cross-country infrastructure earlier, in the US, where we found similar conditions at Mammoth Lakes and Palisades Tahoe in California, and in Girdwood in Alaska, wishing we had something like that back home here in Bulgaria, where our mountains are also solidly covered in snow December to April.

But sunny ones are still the best ☀️

Unlike downhill (alpine) skiing, cross-country is all workout and very little hassle. The entire set of skis and poles weighs less than two kilos, and the ski shoes are almost like normal shoes, that you can drive and walk in. Wherever there’s a trail, you pop open the trunk, get out your gear, and you’re skiing in less than three minutes from arrival.

X is for X-Country ⛷😎

The sport itself is a lot like jogging, with the bonus of even more muscle-stretching, and very gratifyingly, covering bigger distances with the same effort (about 2x/3x depending on your skill and trail quality).

Some trails offer truly jaw-dropping views. The cross-country trail on Dobratsch mountain above Villach is located at the top of the Rote Wand, a 400-m abyss overlooking the Gail valley. The mountains on the other side are in Slovenia (left) and Italy (right) 🤩

Nowadays, with climate change making regular snow outside of mountainous areas in Europe an unpredictable rarity, it seems like mountains are the places where all cross-country skiing will move to. Which is good news for Bulgaria, as we have lots of potential for trail development here.

Snow can be unpredictable in mountainous areas: one day we left home and came back to 50cm of fresh powder, which meant a lot of digging at midnight to be able to park the car 😂

Currently, if you want to cross-country ski in Bulgaria, there are only three locations that get sporadic grooming; the 3km biathlon training loops in Bansko (Banderitsa Meadow) and Borovets (behind Yastrebets gondola lower station), and the 700m trail at Salzitsa Hut on Vitosha mountain, taken care of by the army skiing club.

There were copious amounts of Schnitzel and mulled wine in Austria, obviously, but our biggest find this time was the Carinthian specialty called Käsnudel, large pastry, filled with cheese or meat, a bit like dumplings.

There is also a trail in Pamporovo, starting at around the Malina hut village, which theoretically is more than 20kms long, but we’ve never seen it groomed. Same goes for the two 3km loops on Vitosha mountain near the Vitosha Tulip downhill run; they get groomed once a year at most and aren’t reliable.

One really cool thing I got to do on this trip, is to finally try out my membership of Star Alliance’s pilot biometric airport program at Vienna airport, where you use your face instead of a printed or mobile boarding pass. You pass through security and boarding at the gate only by looking at the camera!

However little these are, now that we kicked off the season, we’ll be going around the Bulgarian cross-country locations a lot in the next 2/3 months, so if you want to, you can join us. The Basecamp ski store in Sofia offers cross-country gear rentals, so do let us know if you want to join us some day soon and we can go together!

Join me and Ellie next time we go cross-country skiing!

Thanks for checking in today and talk to you next Sunday! 😇

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