Category: hiking and mountaineering

Friends, friends, friends in the snow (February 2024)

In the next couple of weeks a lot of old and new friends came visiting us and together we had a lot of fun spending time together, partying, eating and everything.

Whoopy moved temporarily to Gudauri to work there as well. Together we did the installation of a new battery in her camper on the parking lot.

Adela and Alvaro came up the mountain and Adela made her first move on a snowboard. And she did very well.

We got to know Sarah and Wourter, friends of Whoopy and they made their first moves on the snowboard as well. It was super awesome to see them learning so fast and having so much fun.

My snowboarding improved further but one day I blocked my back. It was a big pain and for one week I could not snowboard.

Snowboarding all day!  (January 2024)

Racki was working a lot in the hotel and so I had a lot of time.

My main activities: snowboarding, making music and hanging around with Racki in the hotel.

After a couple of days my snowboarding improved rapidly and soon I was discovering the whole mountain and all the tracks and off track areas.

Especially riding in the fresh deep snow in the morning was awesome! It was so awesome to go up with the lift and see all the untouched snow and minutes later to ride on and through it.

After some more practice, I started to do little jumps and riding fakie which was a whole new world to me.

When Racki had nothing to do in the hotel, we rode together and it was absolutely awesome!

And the scenery! Just awesome!

Learning to snowboard and New Year’s Eve in Gudauri, Georgia (January 2024)

After Christmas, Whoopy had to leave with the Marshrutka and leave her camper van next to our cars because it was stuck in knee-deep snow.

She had left her snowboard and equipment and so I was able to make my first snowboard experiences.

I talked a little about how to start snowboarding with Racki and Whoopy and had watched some YouTube videos. I felt good about it, walked up a little slope to check if I felt that I would survive going down the whole mountain, bought a season ticket (for about 260€), and took the gondola up.

The beginning was tough and it took me about 45 minutes to “ride” down for the first time. So the first day, I did three descents and felt done.

It was super interesting to learn this new sport from zero. And it was awesome when I managed to turn and ride slalom down the mountain. It felt like freedom and a totally new world to me.

I did not push myself hard in the learning process and mostly just let it flow. It felt more and more natural to me and I had so much fun conquering more and more of the mountain.

Whoopy came back on the mountain for New Year’s Eve and to get her car and so we could do some snowboarding together.

Racki had to work during the day but of course we all went together to a New Year’s Eve party. It was hilarious! We danced for hours to electronic music and then rock music and had a lot of glint wine.