Skiing the Planet

Tuesday, February 21, 2023

I love the smell of ...

... ski boots in the morning.

And Kerosine :-)

Sunday, February 5, 2023

Grani, WTF?

Apparently, there's "no winter maintenance" at the Grani ski hill in Kauniainen. Weird. But ok...

Anyway, besides occasionally complaining about things, I love my local hill. I can walk to it, it is always there, often snow until May / June. Can't beat that. A bit small, but, hey, one can ski it many times to make up for the size.

I did not know this, but it turns out the Kauniainen installed cooling towers to assist in snow-making. See the picture below. For more information why this works, read this.

More pictures:

The long walk

I went to the office today by walking. It is about 19 kilometers, and this took nearly four hours in crisp winter weather. But overall, a very nice experience. Was able to listen to some courses, take a conference call, and enjoy some entertainment on my headsets.

Not to mention enjoying the beautiful weather, from darkness of the morning to bright sunshine on the seafront, to more cloudy grey weather when I got to the office.

27k steps. Otherwise the beginning of February has been lazy walking, 5-8k steps daily. But this one day - with some other walks - with its 33k brings the average to a decent state for now.

I returned by train. Maybe some day come back walking as well? We will see.

Odd, freshly cut Xmas trees packaged by the roadside in Jorvas. In February! Why?

And love this "Kummeli beach" street sign. Kummeli is a popular Finnish comedy show. Odd that they named a place in Espoo according to this show...

Sunsets in HEL

Not a bad sunset. For HEL(l).

And from the air:

For more flying stories, check out the planetflier.com website! And of course the Planetcaver, and Planetskier blogs for other stories in Blogspot and TGR! The photos and text (c) 2022 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.

You've been assimilated

Close to the place where I live there's a street, Borgintie (Borg street). Maybe I should move there and volunteer to host a mailing address for the Star Trek club...

Saturday, February 4, 2023

Jasná Nízke Tatry – Chopok

Our second day of skiing in Slovakia was on Jasná Nízke Tatry, also called Chopok. Chopok is the name of the 2024 meter peak by the highest lift station, few meters lower at 2004 meters. I did climb to the peak as well, going up was easy but coming down was treacherous as it was quite icy. And speaking of ice ... I think either my skis were a bit off sharpness, or the slopes were extremely ice. Actually maybe both. It was difficult to control speed on the steep black runs from the top.

But overall, a very nice visit. Out of the three places I've been to in Slovakia, this is clearly the major ski station. Tatranska Lomnica is higher (2196 meters) but basically has just one route down. A very nice run and sufficiently steep, but Chopok does have more variation.

I guess it was a popular day to visit, 4th of January, with many people still on vacation. But finding parking was not easy. Or it would have been easy if we knew what was available and where, but this was our first time in this place, and we didn't really know where we could catch the lifts, and the road stretched along big portions of the ski resort. In the end we parked the car in a for-fee parking area by a smaller lift. But that worked well.

The official web page for the resort is here. The wikipedia entry is here. More about Chopok, the mountain, can be found here. My earlier visits to Slovakian skiing resorts were at Strbske Pleso and Tatranska Lomnica.

Video:

Skiing:

Climbing Chopok:

The Goulash index in the ski area restaurants was relatively high:

Back in Zakopane, we were again in holy land, welcomed by angles:

This time at Zakopane we ate at the Villa Toscana (link, google maps link). Toscana is a popular upscale restaurant, and fish in particular seemed like a good choice.

Tatranska Lomnica

Foggy day. At the top, at least. No matter. Let's ski.

We are at Tatranska Lomnica, a short drive from the Polish-Slovakian border. This is the highest Slovakian ski resort, at 2196 meters. And today that has caused the fog to set on highest parts of the mountain, so we actually have to skip the topmost lift. But the rest of the mountain is open.

This is the highest ski resort, but not the biggest. I've previously been to Strbske Pleso which was also high but smallish. And after Tatranska Lomnica we went to Chopok, which was much bigger even if 200 meters lower. Had it not been so icy, Chopok would have been a great actually.

But here in Tatranska Lomnica there was no problem with ice. The visibility on the highest part was indeed low, see the video below:

The slopes after this part get a bit wider and there are a couple of alternate runs, but basically it all flows from the top to the bottom in pretty much a straight line, and it doesn't feel there's a lot of variation or other parts in the mountain. A medium-sized mountain resort. Nice, but maybe not for skiing for a week.

The Tatranska Lomnica web site is here and more information can be found from Wikipedia (in German) or a tiny bit also in English.

Food and apres ski? Quite nice. The Goulash index was pretty high, in the top restaurant you have to pay 11,50 for a bowl of soup. Apres ski seemed nice in a round bar at the bottom, but we had to head back to the two-hour drive to Zakopane.

We were staying in Zakopane as it had easy access to slopes both in Poland and Slovakia. Zakopane is a popular ski destination for many. There is a variety of ski slopes for skiers of different skill levels, as well as breathtaking views of the surrounding mountains. Although we were a bit disappointed to not be able to ski in the highest ski resort right in Zakopane, Kasprowy Wierch, as lack of snow-making caused them to not be open yet on the first week of the year. In addition to skiing, Zakopane also has opportunities for snowboarding, cross-country skiing, and other winter sports. Off the slopes, Zakopane offers a vibrant après-ski scene, with plenty of restaurants, bars, and shops to explore.

And in our case, back in Zakopane we enjoyed the nice atmosphere and big meals at the Karczma Pod Gontem (link, google maps) restaurant. Relaxed atmosphere, big portions. I can recommend the dumplings.

This article has also appeared at TGR. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot, TGR. Photos, videos, and text (c) 2023 by Jari Arkko. Part of the text was generated with ChatGPT assist.

Friday, January 27, 2023

Finnair lounge Xmas

Colors have been selected correctly!

Found this in the Finnair Schengen-side lounge at HEL. Not bad.

I asked ChatGPT about this:

"It's possible that the blue balls hanging from the white Christmas tree in the Finnair lounge at the Helsinki-Vantaa airport are a nod to Finnair's color scheme, as blue is one of the airline's main colors. Additionally, blue and white are also the colors of the Finnish flag, so it could also be a reference to the country's national colors."

Boring answer, in my opinion :-)

Sunday, January 22, 2023

Rain, darkness, and wind: GREAT Zakopane ski experience!

Their official name is Koziniec-Ski Sp. z o.o. Czarna Góra - Stacja Narciarska, but I have no idea what any of that means. But they appeared with their lights and ski lifts on from the wet darkness of miserable drive through rain and sleet as we were nearing Zakopane on our return trip from Slovakia. And I needed to ski properly in Poland. In 2011 I was on a through trip and managed to hike up a closed ski hill. Nice, but now I when had an opportunity to ski on an actual open and lit ski slope, I needed to take it!

No matter that it was raining cats and dogs. I also didn't see anyone else, and why would there be anyone else, given the weather? But I took my waterproof jacket and run to knock on the windows of the office building. No, they were not closed yet but had been thinking of closing. But as I explained my mission of skiing in different places, and needing to collect an open ski resort in Poland, they laughed very hard and sold me a ticket -- for the price the card, not even paying anything for the skiing. So I took the lift and skied a wonderful run (see below) in the rain. And felt much better, having gotten another day of skiing in :-)

Koziniec Ski is at N 49.367235 E 20.132299. Much recommended!

Flying on Air Serbia

I had a rare opportunity to fly Air Serbia. Not quite Aeroflot level ... but I wouldn't trust them :-) Just kidding it was ok.