Pelister national park

This time we chose Pelister national park in between the Prespa lake and the historical city of Bitola in the Republic of Macedonia.

There are many marked path at the entrance of the national park . You have mainly three routes to arrive to the top of mount Pelister, which is the third highest peak of the Republic of Macedonia. The beaty and huge of the coniferous forest will remind you an alpine atmosphere

At an alttitude of 1,400 is the main entrance of the national park were there are plenty of hotels and rooms to stay warm.

On 2012 easter holidays, the grandmama and Helen come to Albania to spend some time with us. On the weekends, the expedition team was more populated than usual. For that reason it was not necesary to put into practice the ski touring relay technique. Grandmama and Helen used to stay on base camp taking care of the baby while we could both enjoy together the skin up.

If there are plenty of snow it is much convience to follow the valley just behind the hotel Monika, otherwise you can skin up through the alpine ski piste and follow the ridge. The ridge is a litlle bit rocky but you can manage with the skies to slalow all the granit baloons... I recommend you to visit the city of Bitola, historically called Monastir. In Monastir there was a big community of Spanish Sephardi expelled from the Iberic peninsula. After the second war world the nazis end up with the community. Ofir a spanish folk group is trying to keep still the diaspora alive. More info in Spanish: VIDEO OF THE OFIR PROJECT

ski mountaineering relay

The activity of ski mountaineering relay started to be a part of our outdoors activities as soon as our first child was born.

Basically ski mountaineering relay consists on taking care of our child in a base camp while the other climbs up searching for a nice slope to descent with the skis.

This time the base camp was a nice hotel in Brod village outskirts. There is a big number of slopes for skiing. This time Xymena chose the most direct one. The village of Brod is located 10 kilometers high from Dragas which is the southest municipality of the district of Prizren in Kosovo. Geographically, Dragas is the southern part of Kosovo on the border with Albania and Macedonia. You can get there with a normal car as the road is asphalted. Only the last 2 kilometers from Brod village to the hotel is a forestry road.

You can download the tracks on wikiloc: Xynia's track

or

Juan's track