The Forbidden Drive

Views from the trail

Unfortunately, this is not a story about skiing. I made a mistake, did not do my research. I am on a business trip through Stockholm, London, and Philadelphia. And I failed to look up possible skiing destinations along the way, missing the fact that there are indoor ski areas in the UK. If I had more time between my flights in and out of Heathrow, I could have visited one of them and collected yet another country that I have not skied in. Doh! Oh well, maybe next time.

Boat race next to a balloon from the zoo

As a result, this blog is about biking. As you may know, I don't collect only ski destinations. I also collect cities that I have biked in. Today's tour was in Philadelphia. The city itself is not that friendly for bikers (but certainly easier than New York or Paris). But there are plenty of park areas that are great for biking. I made a 50 kilometer tour through the Schuykill and Fairmont parks, ending up in the Forbidden Drive, a winding dirt road along the Wissahickon Creek. This was a nice bike tour, with plenty of nature, forest, rivers, but also people and interesting buildings and cafes. The name "Forbidden Drive" comes from the many attempts to open this trail for vehicles. I am very glad that they have not done it and it remains a quiet, beautiful park area today.

Biking towards the Forbidden Drive

I rented by bike for 50$ per day at the Breakaway Bikes, on the corner of 19th Street and Chestnut. Their service was friendly and hassle-free, and the bikes were in excellent condition.

Schuykill river views

I ate lunch at the Valley Green Inn, which was a friendly place, albeit with a somewhat US-centric and limited menu mostly consisting of sandwiches. For comparison, their soup of the day costs 5$.

Chamonix? Not quite...

Photo credits (c) 2011 by Jari Arkko

Peer Review

This is the second day of my ski season and I am at Peer, Belgium. My plan is to ski at the Snow Valley, a small indoor ski hall. Yesterday I was skiing in Beijing, and today I will try to do so in Belgium. The next days would be spent in meetings in the European commission, but I was not about let that prevent me from having some fun exercise this evening. My travel through the airport and on the road went smoothly, and was quickly at Peer.

Snowboard park from the outside

But Snow Valley's ticket office wanted to prevent me from skiing there. They had forbidden bringing backpacks to the ski area, and they seemed adamant to hold on to their policy. After some negotiations with the manager in charge I was allowed to pass the gates. They did ask me to put the pack in the ground and not ski with it, a request that I had to disobey if I wanted to take pictures. Luckily, at this late hour the area was practically empty from both other customers and management, so I got to carry my pack undisturbed.

The Grote Skipiste

I understand that it can be dangerous to use a backpack in the ski slopes, except when the pack has padding that prevents the contents from hurting your back if you fall on it. If you ski with something else than clothing in your pack, please make sure that you have a suitable pack! In particular, carrying heavy SLRs on your unprotected pack is dangerous - not recommended.

Snowboard park from the top

Snowboard park from the outside

When I arrived at the slope, two dozen kids were busy using a race track built by the local ski club. These indoor ski halls are excellent for training racing. They are easily accessible, open long into the night, and at least here in Peer steep enough to build a race track. Short, and not overly challenging, but still good practice. The ice surface on on the slope is adding to the difficulty of the race track. My skis are still in bad shape from our off-piste tours in Africa, and I have trouble edging my skis.

Racer's platform

The layout of the Snow Valley slopes is that the main ski slope is to the left, a beginner's slope is next to it, and on the far right there is a separately housed snowboard park. The snowboard park looked fun, having several jumps and rails.

Snowboard park from the bottom

Important Parameters

Snow Valley is a few kilometers from the center of Peer, a small village 100 kilometers from Brussels.  A one hour lift ticket costs 15€, for 19€ rental skis are also included. I did not have time to test their restaurant, so I can not say what the Goulash index is here. But Belgium is a very expensive country in general.

Grote Skipiste from the outside

Their "Grote Skipiste" (large ski run) is 235 meters long and 42 meters high. You know that this is a small hill when they have to count the height at 1 meter accuracy. Skiing down the large ski run took about 20 seconds for me.

I'm on a magic carpet!

The ski lifts were a positive surprise here. All the lifts are of the magic carpet type, but there is enough of them, on both sides of the large ski run. And they are fast for this type of a lift.

Signs leading to the area

Snow Valley is not the only indoor ski arena in Belgium, there are two others. I have been to another one as well, Ice Mountain in Comines. This is a 210 meters long ski area that likes to keep their snow cannons on during the day, making the experience feel more natural. Comines is 114 kilometers from Brussels.

Ice Mountain, Comines, Belgium 

Snowstorm, inside

Next Steps

I also had the intent to pick an indoor ski area in one of the neighboring countries (probably France) and spend a third consecutive day skiing. That plan failed when it turned out that I needed to find a dentist to fix a filling that had come out, and searching for the dentist took all my free time the next day. Maybe on the next visit...

Returning home from Brussels

Grote Skipiste from the outside

Photo credits (c) 2010-2011 by Jari Arkko

Indoors in Beijing

Ski area sign emerges from the darkness

The winter season 2011-2012 has been opened! About time, too, given that it has already been a month since my last skiing in the summer. This time I did not get to go to some beautiful mountain, however. Only a small indoor ski hall, a two hour taxi ride outside Beijing. Oh well, at least now I have Asia and China in the bag for this new season.

The ski hall is Qiaobo Ice and Snow World, situated in Shunyi, a small town somewhere behind Beijing's international airport. Qiaobo has two ski slopes, a wide and short beginners slope and a little bit longer main slope. In the main slope there are some jumps and rails for additional fun.

Indoor snowcat

I was visiting here in my usual manner: a long day of meetings was over and I headed to the slopes in the evening. Like so often, I was pressed for time. My meeting ended at 6pm, and after a quick change of clothes I managed to find a taxi soon after. But the hotel bell boy thought that it would take three hours to reach the site, and by then the ski hall would already be closed.

Luckily the trip only took two hours. I was also about to lose my faith on the drivers ability to find the place when Qiaobo's sign emerged from the darkness.

Front door

Skiing

This was my second visit to Qiaobo, so I knew not to expect too much. The slopes are small, the biggest one is 300 meters long at 17 degrees. But the skiing still turns out to be nice, the slope is steep enough and snow forms are varied enough to make it fun. It takes about 20 seconds to ski the slope, but who is counting.

Beginner's slope

A snow cat worked on the upper slope during my visit, so the full length was not in use. But the snow was just right, not hard ice and not too soft snow either. The only downside is that ski lift was very slow, it took about four minutes to go up the small distance. Even if you tried very hard, you could only ski  4-5 kilometers in an hour. This is actually a common problem for many indoor ski areas. In some there is a fast lift reserved for experienced skiers and ski teams that train there, but the main lift is slow. Presumably this is to make it easier for inexperienced lift users and to keep the actual slope less crowded. But it is annoying.



There is obviously other kinds of skiing in China as well. I have only visited another indoor place in Shanghai, the Yinqixing. This is a 380 meter long ski slope, but I found it less interesting than Qiaobo. The slope is divided in two parts, and the lower part is targeted for beginners and is almost level. When I visited this Yinqixing, I had to ask them to start the ski lift on the upper section. The upper section is a little bit steeper, but you will still not be able to make too many turns before you hit the lower section.

Moguls run

There are also some small ski areas within a reasonable driving distance from Beijing, and bigger mountain areas further away. Those await testing...

Important Parameters

Qiaobo evening lift ticket costs 168 ¥ (about 19 €), but for some reason that was not clear to me, every skier has to pay a 500 ¥ deposit. You will get the difference back when you exit, however.

A typical way to spend my evenings on a business trip

Taxis are very, very cheap in China. My taxi driver drove for three and half hours, and waited for me for an hour outside the ski hall. The total cost for this was 330 ¥ (38 €) plus tip.

Chinese decorations

Qiaobo has services, including food and drink vending machines, a restaurant, and a sports shop. I did not try them out, however, so I cannot report on the price level. But for afterski I certainly recommend heading back to Beijing. A very nice place is The Zone, a small bar on the shores of the Houhai. They also serve food through the night. A big bowl of meat and noodles costs less than 50 ¥ (5 €).

Ticket

Photo credits (c) 2010-2011 by Jari Arkko and Tero Kivinen

Aliens vs. Lions

The buffalo is dead, but not by us

Can I have some afterski, please? We clearly needed some relaxation. The cold mountains, difficult off-piste runs, dangerous roads, and  assault rifles had their toll. Maybe a safari? We could be normal tourists for a moment, it would be warm, nice, and relaxing. So here we are, on a safari.

Except that I'm starting to feel this was not quite as relaxing as expected. We are on the hills of the Hluhluwe-Umfolozi national park in South Africa, close to the border of Swaziland. There are just the three of us, me, Tero, and Samora, our guide. Unlike other tourists we are not in a jeep on a road. We are on foot,  on a hiking trip through the savannah.

A lion

We have just run into two lions. Right in front of us. On a fresh buffalo kill. We stare at each other while thinking about what to do. This might end in tragedy as the lions are still hungry, interrupted just before their first bite. And we are on their territory. This not a zoo, it is unusual for anyone to walk in this 960 km2 park or the lions to see humans. You can feel the tension. But as quickly as the tension appeared, it goes away. We decide not to eat the lions, having already had breakfast. You can hear the lions make a sigh of relief as they retreat into safety. They were spared in this encounter. And we walk to the buffalo to inspect our catch.

The safer safari option

Seriously though, this was a dangerous moment and the lions might have attacked us. Our guide had a rifle, but had the lions attacked, I'm not sure he would have had time to shoot both. We were lucky that the lions wanted to retreat. Such an encounter was also unusual for our experienced guide, Samora had only seen lions this close here two or three times. And seeing a fresh kill by the lions was also unusual. So unusual, in fact, that he wanted his picture taken next to the buffalo. So we stayed around the buffalo for a few minutes, wondering if the lions are anxious about getting back to their meal.

Our guide

On the safari

Reporting the lion sighting back to base

It was also interesting that we did not see the buffalo immediately. Samora felt the smell of fresh intestines and followed it to the carcass. I smelled nothing. This is a different world, different people...

One of the buffalos staring at us

On the Move

The lions worried us even after leaving the buffalo, as we were staying the same area. But we soon got other things to think about, as a herd of buffalos was staring at us 50 meters away, trying to decide whether they should run in our direction or not. We stayed quiet and we were upwind from them, and eventually they walk away.

Rhinos

A few moments later we stare at a rhino behind some trees. He does not see us, but his ears move when we make the smallest sound. We move quietly forward and avoid yet another attack.

Rhino shit in the making

Am I seeing everything in double?

Details

Seepra

Our hut. Note the mosquito net.

Hluhluwe-Umfolozi is the oldest game park in Africa. It is located in KwaZulu-Natal area, 250 kilometers from Durban. It is the only park in KwaZulu-Natal with a possibility of seeing the "Big Five" (rhinos, elephants, lions, buffalos, and leopards). It is also the park with the largest number of white rhinos in Africa. And many black rhinos, as well. By the way, I'm proud to have learned to recognize black rhino dung from white rhino dung. The former has think, diagonally cut vegetation.

Our accommodation in rondavels

The recommended place to stay in the park is at the Hilltop camp, a set of luxury apartments and small cottages (we stayed in the latter). The camp center has a small shop and an excellent restaurant. The restaurant serves dinner in buffet style every evening. Reservations are required, which is somewhat funny because there is nowhere else to eat and even driving on the roads is prohibited except during the day. The waitresses in the restaurant put on a music show in the middle of the dinner time. Recommended!

Safari avec skis

It is possible to walk around the small camp area on your own, though there are signs that warn the fence around the camp is not lion proof. And the camp is full of apes that undoubtedly will steal everything left lying around. 

Monkeys next to our hut

The park itself can be toured by your own car, but it is mandatory to stay inside your vehicle. A couple of picnic spots in the park allow you to eat lunch and use the restrooms. Guided safari tours are organized in the evenings and mornings on jeeps, and on special request, on foot. Our on foot tour was clearly a once-in-a-lifetime experience. (And would have been even more so, had the lions eaten us.) Our evening car tour was cold and wet, with no sighting of any animals in three hours. Our morning car tour was wonderful, we saw many animals up close. 

Early morning departure for the hiking trip

Our accommodation

Gas station a la Africa

The Most Dangerous Beast ...

We also see a lot of elephant dung during our hike. In fact I still have some of it on the bottom of my hiking shoes. We would like to see an elephant, but despite two days in the park, we see none. Maybe this is for the good, as the elephants are the most dangerous animals in the park. Samora tells us that they can be very aggressive.

The devil

Relaxing moment

... Not Counting the Aliens

Did I mention that our hike was within the premises of the "Invasive Alien Species Programme Office"? Pretty clever to hide these super secret agencies here in the middle of the wilderness, much better privacy than at Roswell or Area 51...

Aliens

We did not run into any aliens, however. That we know of, at least. But now I must finish this blog, I'm not feeling well. There is this weird feeling in my stomach.

A bird. Or a disguised alien? You tell me.

An eagle

A meeting

Move away!

Our well used car after the trip. Exhaust pipe is broken.

Photo credits (c) 2011 by Jari Arkko and Tero Kivinen