Thursday 6 March 2008

Cross Country Skiing in the Czech Republic


This is becoming a family tradition.
For the past years we have been going cross country skiing
in the Czech Republic. And so far we have been fortunate to have had plenty or at least sufficient amount of snow... Not this year :(.
The weather forecast had already been bad and we contemplated taking the skis.
We did take them anyways, rather safe than sorry.

So, we took off. Kate and I visited Dirk and Susi in Leipzig and spend a night there before
driving to the Czech Republic. On the way there we also stopped to pay my older sister, Ela, a visit, who was at a dancing competition with her daughters.

Then we got to Horní Blatná and it did not look at all like skiing.
Most of the snow has melted away. Fortunately our host told us that there are a few places on the north side of the mountains left that may have enough snow.
We decided to give it a try, packed our skis and hiking boots(just in case).


The snow was quite slushy but it was still OK to ski on it.
Or even build a snowman ... a tiny one, though.


Sometimes there were patches of no snow and we either had to walk or
venture off track trying to stay on the snow as long as possible
doing zic-zacs around the trees.

The weather was gorgeous. It became so warm, over 20C in the sun that
my sister and I decided to just ski in shorts and t-shirt.


The further we got to the south facing side of the mountain the less snow we had.


Up to a point where there was hardly any left.


The next day the weather got worse, it was very cloudy and it had rained a bit.
We decided to give the skis a try again, but it was pretty clear that that would be the last day
for them.
The following day we tried again, but gave up after just a few minutes and took a walk instead.
As the wether did not improve we went to see the Katerina Springs just north of Cheb on the 4th day.


On the 5th day the sun came out again and we hiked around in the area.
It was very nice though I would have enjoyed it a bit more on skis.


The following day it was cloudy again and it was raining a bit.
We did not want to waste the day and went hiking again.

The day we had to go back home it started snowing again
and it got very very windy.


It was a very enjoyable trip but either there is going to be snow there next year or we will have to choose a different destination.

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