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Last week I went catskiing in Macedonia, not the greek part but the independent country just north of Greece. Somehow there is a lot of discussion about the name and the use of Alexander the Great betwen Greece and Macedonia, but TsondaBoy might be better informed about this.

 

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Anyhow in the northwest corner or the country very close to Albania and Kosovo there is the little sleepy village of Popova Shapka. It has a number of lifts but those weren't running, but there was the newly started cat skiing operation. Somehow they named it Eskimo Freeride, but then without any eskimos within a circle of 3000km of the place. That doesn't mean that there isn't snow on this crazy mountain.

 

It started snowing the moment we arrived and we all got really excited. The following morning I was out at 6.30 and it promised to become a great day with some fresh snow but also bright blue skies. But we had to wait for some other and by the tiem they came it was already 9.30. so we hopped into the snowcat and went up to 'Antenna'. There was a lot of wind blowing away the freshly fallen snow from the night before.

 

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So we jumped in towards the lower parts of the mountain where the snow was better. I went in second behind the guide . Following him a part down the mountain. Somehow he fell and me not realising what happened hit the same zastrusi when my ski released and I crashed into the compact snow. We I stopped I immediately felt that something was wrong. And yes on my first run I broke my thumb. So instead of the good snowtrip I can tell you a lot about the hospital in nearby Tetovo, but not so much about skiing here. Although the mountain looks promising, maybe not really steep but with plenty of shutes, some cliffs and trees to have some fun days.

 

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I will go back next year to really enjoy of what I have missed here.

 

 

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One of the special things they offer is full moon skiing. As they have a cat they can go on the mountain whenever they want. If the weather permits they go full moon skiing, but also on other nights they might just head up the mountain the enjoy the spectacular night view. We tried it but we ended up in a snowstorm and it took us 30 minutes to just find the tracks back down the mountain.

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full moon skiing? My notion of that is everybody being really F'ed up...and then trying skiing? That musta looked like me at Niseko on NYs with the torch...geeze we could barely walk lol.gif

 

Hope you have a better trip next time sanno, thanks for the tr cool.gif BTW, you only had a broken thumb? C'mon man, all that way and you let that stop you? ;\)

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Bummer for the thumb Sanno. Hope it heals quickly.

Wonder what those guys on the pic are laughing about.

I hope they are not talking about the guy who busted his hand on the first few turns of the day wink.gif

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I had to go home asap to undergo surgery otherwise I would have stayed and skied some more.

 

This trip really made think about arai. What happened to the grooming machines up there. wouldn't it be possible to lease one of those and use it to get up the mountain with a group.

 

snowcat skiing in Japan!

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