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Theme: Snowboarding in Slovakia (in English)(roman, 15.10.2007)High Tatras (Vysoke Tatry), Lower Tatras (Nizke Tatry) or Small Fatra (Mala Fatra) are the main mountain ranges in Slovakia, Europe. The highest peak Gerlachovsky Peak reaching 2665 m. Do not mistake Slovakia with Slovenia which is another half smaller country to the south. ;-) Slovakia and its 5 million citizens was admitted to European Union in May 2004. In January 2008 Slovakia was admitted into “Schengen” (free border crossing from neighboring EU countries). The transition from Slovak Crown to Euro currency took place on 1st January 2009. With all those things present, western European visitor might feel “almost like at home” when visiting Slovakia. Though, the word “almost” will have to be there for some time yet since our country is still going through a huge transition from socialism to capitalism with all the symptoms you can imagine. The foreign visitors usually express their positive impressions of local people being very hospitable, local girls being very attractive, some local prices being really cheap (though getting closer to the western EU each year), local mountains being interesting, parts of the country being nicely developing. On the other hand, many places are left with their post communist uglyness, you can become shocked by some funny behaviour of some elderly or young-but-arrogant people; older people speak no foreign language, drivers can be quite agressive, corruption is present, you can encounter some thievery, etc. The contrast is there, but things are progressing very fast.
Getting There and Around After the bakruptcy of Sky Europe, theRyan Air offers low-costs flights to Bratislava and Poprad airports in Slovakia or Krakow in Poland. Slovak Railways offer a nice InterCity train connection of bigger cities. Slovak Lines (Euro Lines group) offer bus drives to every corner of the country. A new highway connection from east of Vienna to Bratislava was open in October 2007. Then there is a nice highway from the southwest border by the capital city Bratislava leading 200 kms straight to Zilina city in the north. ...To visit Small Fatra mtns, follow direction Terchova village from Zilina. ...To visit Lower, Western or High Tatras, there is a piece of highway still missing after Zilina city, so keep direction Martin, Ruzomberok, Liptovsky Mikulas and Poprad city. To visit Lower or Western Tatras, find some accomodation in Liptovsky Mikulas city or take a hotel in Jasna resort. To check High Tatras, find some accomodation in Tatranska Lomnica or other small towns around, e.g. Stary Smokovec; Poprad city may be an option too. Taxis called on the phone are quite cheap in the big cities as Bratislava and are available 24/7; ask telephone numbers by the locals. Though in the mountain regions and smaller cities taxies are usually quite expensive and might not be available after midnight.
The Snow The main snowfalls come from the North Atlantic with the northwest fronts, so the northwestern mountains (Western Tatras, Small Fatra, West of Lower Tatras) can accumulate up to 200+ cms layer of snow on good winters at higher altitudes in February and March (the best months) and much more snow can be drifted into the chutes. The first snow comes usually in the end of November, and last snow stays till May. The largest resorts use snow canons and use the first freeze to prepare the pistes to open their season. Higher altitudes resorts as Jasna or Lomnicke Sedlo function till 8th May on some years. The usual pattern was 2 or 3 good winters and then 1 pretty bad one, however thigs are undeniably changing with the climate change. Winters 2004/05 and 2005/06 were probably the best in the lives of the current snowboarders generation with record amounts of snow. Then the winter 2006/07 was a snowless and extremely warm catastrophy. The 2007/08 was too bad for the lower altitude resorts again and far below average for all higher resorts.The winter 2008/09 started weakly, though february and march were good. To add to this general info – “Snowmobiles are not allowed.” The Best Ski Resorts The far best and largest resort in Slovakia is Jasna located on the north side of the Chopok mtn in Lower Tatras. Chopok-South (Chopok-Juh) was connected to Jasna recently, making this resort comparable to the resorts in the Austrian Alps. Jasna is actually very modern and not so much crowded due to the fine capacity of its many chairlifts.
Another resort to consider is Vratna resort in Small Fatra mtns by the Terchova village, mainly its Vratna-Chleb part. Zverovka-Spalena in the northwest of Western Tatras offers a new chairlift and nice terrains too. If you do not mind ski families and crowds you might like the Donovaly resort at the mountain pass between Big Fatra and Lower Tatras south of Ruzomberok city, and also Kubinska Hola north of Ruzomberok with its long and shallow meadow style runs, or Velka Raca north of Zilina. Huge investments were announced for Martinske Hole resort (Big Fatra mtns) by Martin city with the new chairlift already built for the 2008/09 season. Oravska Lesna in the very northwest of the country is one of the mid-sized resorts worth to mention too. There are two bigger resorts in High Tatras. Strbske Pleso and Lomnicke Sedlo (Tatranska Lomnica). They are not much modernized yet, though the investment plans for the years to come are astonishing. They are classic tourist destinations with not sufficient lifts capacity and may become crowded. There is a large number of small one or two T-bar or Poma style resorts at lower altitudes all around the mountains. These resorts suffer from the climate change recently. The Snowparks The first snowparks started to appear in 2002 and were built by local riders in co-operation with the resorts. The quality of the parks has unfortunately been rising very slowly since then. The snowparks are not the priority of the resorts whose main interest is to prepare pistes for the holiday seasons. The parks are jib oriented, quality jumps are unfortunately very rare. The best snowparks in the recent years were built in Jasna resort (lead by Marek Hlinican of Burton), Kubinska Hola resort, Martinske Hole resort, Donovaly resort, Oravska Lesna resort and also Turik village resort by Ruzomberok city (lead by Martin Rohaj Nemcek and his Ypsilon Rails Constructions). Lower Tatras freeriding
Jasna ski resort (www.jasna.sk) located around the Chopok mountain (2024 m) in Lower Tatras is the largest freeriding resort in Slovakia. The closest city is Liptovsky Mikulas in the north, with its pubs being the melting pot of Slovak snowboard scene. On the very modernized and well accessible north side of Jasna resort there are several chairlifts (3 modern, 2 older) and several bar lifts. On the less modernized south side there is 1 chairlift and several bar lifts covering the whole area. You can access the south side from the north side by a lift.
The north side offers very interesting freeriding opportunities if you know where to go. First, there are some nice “into the trees” runs from the two chairlifts ending at Lukova top stations (1670 m) from where you can take long traverses to both sides, ride to the trees and always return to the lifts’ bottom stations. But that’s just for a warm-up. The real stuff is the “Alaskan” chutes that you can see below the Derese peaks on the west side. Many similar chutes are also starting at the top of Chopok mountain itself, mainly to the eastern Lukova valley. In the lower part of that Lukova area, above and east of Vyhliadka bar lift, you can find 3 remote, narrow, steep, long and epic “secret superchutes” and 3 smaller chuties with some cliffs and a forest route down under to lead you out. But watch out for triggering an avalanche!! ...You can also take a longer trip to Sedlo Polany to the west or stay in the nice snowpark at Jeleni Grun. Natural terrain waves for building backcountry kickers are not that easy to find here, though there are some. ...Exposed parts of the north side can become icy after strong winds, then look for drifted powder on the eastern side and the south side of the mountain. |
The south side of Chopok consists of powder fields, not that steep, but if you take all lifts to the very top, then traverse to the west under Derese south side or to the east under Dumbier mountain and ride down the fields and the forest to the very bottom lift (west) or to the road (east), you might experience some of the life’s best freerides, since the south can have plenty of snow drifted from the north by the north winds. Small Fatra freeriding Another post-glacial terrain suitable for freeriding and building backcountry kickers can be found in Vratna resort (www.vratna.sk) in Small Fatra mountains, north of Zilina city. Those are like “big hills” called Velky Krivan (1709 m) and Chleb (1647 m) creating a snow hole operated by a new gondola on the very end of the road to the resort (don’t even stop at the parking places by the chairlifts, drive on to the end). You can ride some powder fields there and then hit a very nice and steep forest with tree trunks far-between and loads of snow in it. You can also ride several in-forestal halfpipe-style chutes in there, but watch out, one of them ends with a high cliff to a flat. One of Slovak locals nearly killed himself hitting it accidentaly. On good winters you can take an adventurous freeride from the top of Velky Krivan down through wilderness to the main road. Watch out, southern faces of Small Fatra are prone to avalanches!
Western Tatras freeriding Northernmost mountain range of Slovakia consists of Western Tatras in the west and High Tatras in the east. Western Tatras are massive, less rocky, with grassy surface, but formed by glaciers in the distant past, which makes them a nice yard for some pretty serious backcountry riding and jumping. But you cannot find any resort in there and you have to hike (well, except Zverovka-Spalena from the northwest side). The most accessible part of WTs is through the south via Ziarska Valley by a road leading to a modern mountain hutt, where you can sleep, eat and from where you can hike another 2 hours up to Ziarske Sedlo, Smutne Sedlo or peaks like Baranec or Placlive. Depending on the actual amount of snow this is the place where a very serious stuff can be done.
High Tatras freeriding Gerlach is the highest peak of High Tatras and Slovakia reaching 2665 m. The High Tatras mountains are consisting of very rocky peaks with long and deep glacier formed valleys with steep chutes on the sides, but there are no galciers left. Since this is the most protected national park, there are just two resorts reaching above the forest level called Strbske Pleso and Lomnicke Sedlo (Tatranska Lomnica), others are lover altitude small resorts. HTs are widely used by skialpinists and mountaneers. HT terrain is quite dangerous with many avalanches resulting in several tragic accidents each year. HTs are more east which means they can get less snow, but even on winters like 2006/07, they may accumulate a surprising layer of snow in the highest backcountry, staying there till summer.
Lomnicky peak is the second highest peak with the resort Lomnicke Sedlo right under. It’s the largest resort of HTs, though it’s still very old-school. It will be modernized by a big investment company in the next years which might make it pretty good. Right now it is operated by an old gondola and an old slow chairlift. On good days you can ride this large powderfield they have there or access some other terrain around. There are some mountain hutts up in the HT’s valleys which are of good use when you take a hiking trip to the HTs backcountry valleys. The most renowned is Tery’s hutt (Teryho chata). You can get there taking a lift from Stary Smokovec town to Hrebienok and then hiking for 3 hrs. Then hike, ride, sleep, eat, not take any shower and mostly drink local distillates with the current “Mr. Tery” and his crew. Steep alpine chutes, cliffs and some terrain waves wait there to be hit. One more interesting thing on HTs is that large parts (80 kms wide area) of the foothill forests were completely taken down by an extremely strong wind several years ago, so now you can experience the power of nature just by looking around or have a nice, undisturbed view down to Poprad city. Check this article of one of our freeriding contributors for more pics of Slovak mtns. The Street Rails The nicely developing and snowy towns of Tatranska Lomnica and Smokovec under HTs offer many cool street rails. The city of Banska Bystrica located in the center of Slovakia is lucky to become snow-covered quite often. Liptovsky Mikulas and Ruzomberok may get snow, but offer less rails. The Riders Scene in Slovakia Slovak snowboard scene is slowly building up for the last 15 years at least, with something happening in the 90s but mostly after 2000. Since the general lack of quality park jumps, people became pretty good at jibbing. Freeriding is quite popular, but not many riders hike further from the resorts. People who can jump 720s can be counted on both hands, people who did 900s are like two. One of them is our only pro ever, the scene veteran Matus Hubka (Quiksilver, Lib Tech, DC). The other one is his younger team-mate Matej Matys. Also on the team there’s a Euro Roxy girl Basa Stevulova ripping jibs and jumps all over Europe now. Let's name other rippers like Tomas Hrnciar a.k.a Pstruna (Burton, Anon), Lubo Zelenay a.k.a Zelo (Quiksilver, Lib Tech, DC boots), Martin Blasko (Horsefeathers, Rossignol), Martin Ryba Rybansky (Salebra, LTB), Tomas Spagy Korcok (Horsefeathers, Capita, Coal, HZ, Itoca), Jakub Brziak (Capita, Meat Fly, Coal, HZ, Itoca), Jan Tatarka (Ride, 32, Demon), Peter Kuko Pap (Ride, 32, Demon). The best shreads come from the northwest cities of Liptovsky Mikulas, Zilina, Cadca, Martin, Banska Bystrica. However, the capital city of Bratislava on the southwest border with Austria is constantly giving birth to some fine shreds due to its closeness to both the Austrian Alps and Slovak mtns and snowboard clubs Snuff (lead by Lado Bachnar) and Frontline (lead by Michal Nehez) taking kids to the mountains. Many smaller or bigger freestyle contests appeared in the recent years, their quality varies from low budget jib contest to high expense promo events as e.g. Skoč Sy (Donovaly resort). Snowboard Association of Slovakia (WSF) with its national freestyle contests series, individual organizers engaged with TTR and partially Slovak Ski Union (FIS) try to move things forward on the contest field of freestyle snowboarding. A very supportive element for the scene has been the www.Boardlife.sk e-magazine founded in 2000, followed by a good-looking printed Boardlife magazine in 2004. These two have become a new reason for distribution companies to sponsor the riders and an information platform for wide public snowboarders. During the years before the economy crisis it were the expanding Czech Republic’s distribution companies who'd been the most valuable sponsors for Slovak shreds. German filmer René Eckert from Blickinsfreie.de will be premiering his documentary "SLOVAKI A True movie about snowboarding" on 2nd December 2008. The movie will be for download at his webpage blickinsfreie.de since January. The recent climate change and financial crisis is bringing some serious trouble to the weak snowboard structures in Slovakia. We might be surprised by high precipitations and “almost like Whistler” backcountry riding or by snowless winters accompanied by too many box-sliding events and snowboard shops bankrupcies... ;-) ;-( Check the lists in our InfoBase and other links:
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