Adventure Race Slovenia

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A Long Weekend in Slovenia

David Hopper / 10.07.2003

A last minute team was put together to enter the first ever adventure race in Slovenia. This beautiful country is sandwiched between, Austria, Italy, Hungary and Croatia and the race HQ was at Velenjje, which is in the Southern Alps.

The race was mainly organised by students from the local University and the local older boy scouts. So when we turned up at the initial briefing with young organisers and equally young competitors all bar Howard felt a little old. They were all athletic looking too, six-packs all round and we were easily the oldest team there. The welcome was friendly and when it came to the race the organisation and planning of the route was meticulous and top notch. This was especially impressive as it was their first ever race, and they were starting out with a 3 day race! If there were any problems, we were unaware of them. Teams came from Slovenija, Croatia, Poland, Czech republic and of course the UK, and many were also in their first race, though we thought the Poles might be strong competition.

The whole race was relaxed and had a great atmosphere. It comprised, 61km of Mtb, 3km of swimming, 3km of caving, 25km of mountaineering, 10km of river kayaking, 3km of old fashioned rafting, abseiling twice, once within the cave and 105km of trekking. The trekking had to be increased days before the race as some landowners changed their minds and refused bikes on their land. (The organisers had to cope with all the land being privately owned, by hundreds of people and the need for lots of government permissions – they had reams of paperwork!)

A prescribed route had been chosen, and there was little or no route choice, which was a shame. The maps were 1:50,000 with a few additional maps at 1:25,000 for the more mountainous trekking sections. These maps were last updated in 1984 by the Yugoslav army, and topographically they were spot on. But in 19 years tracks move, a good example was the 140m difference in elevation of one track between the two maps. This did cause the odd headache for us, but it was the same for all except perhaps for the local team who came second and who were all in the local mountain rescue! (Shortly after finishing they were called out!)

Whilst these were not the highest Alpine mountains, only going up to 2200m, they were very beautiful. The views at 7:30 in the morning were breathtaking, with the white limestone mountain peaks rising out of the early morning mist in the Valleys. The valleys were full of Alpine flowers, a true abundance of colour: blues, purples and yellows with only a little room for the grass to push through to feed the cows. I might sound a bit misty eyed about it, but I was really impressed.See All Event Posts