An unlikely 2023 quest for snow off the beaten track
More food, rain, near-redemption and a sudden end in Georgia
Photos by Francis Dennig, Sebastian Stumpf and Martin Georgia is a country neighbouring the sky. At least, this is what several billboards at the Sarpi border checkpoint tell travellers who enter by road from Artvin province in Türkiye, another neighbour of Georgia’s. While this surely sounds like a bold claim, it is not certain that…
A detour through Kurdistan and a brief return to skiing in the Kaçkars
Photos by Johannes Braun, Sebastian Stumpf and Martin Once Markus gets going behind the wheel, he can be hard to stop. There is of course no denying that, yet again, the weather was also a factor. With snow lines climbing to beyond 2,000m in altitude, stops in Erzincan or Erzurum were not particularly appealing. And…
Anatolia: arguably too much Köfte, not enough skiing
Photos by Sebastian Stumpf and Martin Luckily, someone in the car noticed that we were overshooting the right turn towards Istanbul and that Burgas was, in fact, on the Black Sea coast. This small detour notwithstanding, Turkish passport checks at the Hamzabeyli checkpoint were cleared quickly. Customs were a different story. Instructions by officials were…
From the Carpathian to the Rila Mountains, Shopski-Style
Photos by Sebastian Stumpf and Martin It was not a particularly difficult decision to leave the Alps in this ‘winter’ of 2023, which was the second warmest on record and lacking precipitation. Although snow only seemed abundant in the far west of North America, or so Instagram and local sources were suggesting, another trip that…
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