I went with my good friend Nastja Davidova and we chose to try the Chris Bonnigton route on the Central tower. We took a flight to El Calafate and then with the bus to Puerto Natales where we bought all the food.  The next day we traveled by bus to the entrance of the national park and then to the administration where we had to take care of all of the formalities and permits. They told us that they had had incredibly good weather for more than ten days, with no wind at all. Almost everybody had made it to some summit, Steve Schneider all three. But it was changing…

In the afternoon we left to the first camp in Chilenos. One horse carried our stuff to Chilenos and after that we had to carry everything on our backs. So we started the long walk to our base camp: Campo Japones with very heavy (and too small) backpacks. In my last three expeditions we always carried equipment with horses, so i forgot to take my biggest backpack.
Eventually we arrived in Campo Japones very tired and set up base camp. It was very cold and next day we woke up to rain.

The next two weeks it didn’t rain or snow, but it was terribly windy all the time, far too windy to climb. We took all of our equipment to the advanced camp where we waited for another good weather window.

Finally it was supposed to be good just two days before our departure. We went up the night before, it was a perfect night with thousands of stars. Woke up at 3 A.M. to start the approach. The approach used to be a snow couloir. Now there is no snow anymore. It ended up taking us 7 hours instead of the normal 3. When we started to climb the wind was around 30km/h, but it was increasing with every pitch. We continued up for 8 pitches but it seemed impossible. Sometimes we couldn’t move for the wind and we were really slow. At 4 PM we sadly decided to go down, because we were really afraid of being stranded if the weather got worse. I think that the wind was more than 60km/h. We made just half rappels and never dropped down our ropes so that they wouldn’t get snagged.
We arrived back at advanced camp at midnight when it started to rain. We continued to base camp and got lost in the forest, finally arriving at base camp at sunrise…

So Torres del Paine still remains without an all women ascent!

We chose Omis, a 6 hour drive from our home and a real limestone paradise. Here you can find a lot of sport climbing areas and also multipitch up to 350m.

We really enjoyed out time here, especially the kids who can now climb up to 6b!

The photo below is a bit of a nostalgic one from one of my last mountain climbs before the first snow – in Skuta

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For outdoor clothing from Berghaus including men’s waterproof jackets, women’s rucksacks and more then please visit our online store.
You can find a wide range of gear for climbing, hill walking, mountain biking and other activities.

Finally this year Marko, now six years old, has started to walk well in the mountains and has the motivation to do it.

We “took” one school day and arrived at Pecol late in the afternoon. We walked to refugio Coldai where we slept for the night.

The next day it was a beautiful cold morning. Most of the people had already left one or two hours earlier which was good for us as we wanted to do as much as possible alone.

After an hour we started the via ferrata Alleghesi. The kids were exited. The older ones Alenka and Grega had to wait sometimes, but in less than six hours we climbed to the top! For Alenka and Marko their first 3000m peak.

I’m really proud because they love the mountains just like me and they enjoy being in nature as much as possible.

We descended to the  small and kind rifugio Torrani, one of the highest in the Dolomites and slept there.

Next day we descended the via ferrata Tissi and a long walk to our start point.

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You can find a wide range of gear for climbing, hill walking, mountain biking and other activities.

Our main aim was to find out if the women climbers in Slovenia are really “endangered species”. We have a lot of female climbers, but most of them are sport climbers – some climb in the mountains (but usually not leading). We were on the look out for young climbers, who may have been wanting to go on expeditions.

We spent three nice days in the Carnic alps, climbing a lot in the beautiful limestone faces which were really sunny. We then spent long evenings in the friendly hut Calvi.

Here’s my daughter Alenka aged 13 and Mira aged 55 years old – she’s still leading and climbing a lot!

Berghaus Store

For outdoor clothing from Berghaus including men’s waterproof jackets, women’s rucksacks and more then please visit our online store.
You can find a wide range of gear for climbing, hill walking, mountain biking and other activities.

I heard about the region because a lot of well known climbers like Lynn Hill, Greg Child, Steph Davis and Stephan Siegrist have climbed there but we still don’t know almost anything about the region.

We were surprised because is a very nice country and really unspoilt.

Our main goal was to climb as much granite as possible in light alpine style.

We chose the Aksu valley in the Karavshin region on the southwest part of the country. There were five members of our team, Andrej, Tina, David and me all from Slovenia and James from Canada.

The base camp was idyllic, around 2900m above sea level, on grass near the river and big granite walls like there is in Yosemite one or two hours away.

The weather wasn’t very good but we managed to get a lot of climbing in. We also spent some very beautiful moments with the friendly local shepherds even if we didn’t speak their language. They speak Kyrgyz and some Russian (some words are similar to Slovene language).

Our longest route was 38. pitches long on Peak 1000 York, 4.520 m a.s.l. 5.c to 6.c. The last 12 pitches we climbed in a snow storm. We made a bivouac climbing up and one rappelling down (the rope get stuck at least ten times…)

Tina, Andrej and I also went to climb the famous Perestroika crack on Peak Slesova, but I had to stay on a shelf 12 pitches from the top because  I felt really unwell. Andrej and Tina climbed to the top, Andrej made it free, 7b+.

We also climbed some smaller peaks. At the end of our expedition I managed to climb 65 pitches and Tina did a record number of 78, so we were very happy with the result.

On our way back we had to walk 45 km in one day! But I decided to ride the last 25. A very nice experience.

Berghaus Store

For outdoor clothing from Berghaus including men’s waterproof jackets, women’s rucksacks and more then please visit our online store.
You can find a wide range of gear for climbing, hill walking, mountain biking and other activities.

This time I wanted to visit a new area and I chose the Catinattio group in the very far west of the Dolomites. A fantastic area with walls up to 600m, arround 2.900m high. You can sleep in a hut and have no more than an hour approach to the walls.

I enjoyed climbing four routes with my climbing partner Maja.

Berghaus Store

For outdoor clothing from Berghaus including men’s waterproof jackets, women’s rucksacks and more then please visit our online store.
You can find a wide range of gear for climbing, hill walking, mountain biking and other activities.

The amazing thing is that it was cold enough to climb on a sunny face.

We climbed Turski slap,III+/ 4+ M, 90°-45°-75° M. The weather was perfect, the conditions almost the same.

On the 21st of January I went with my son Grega to climb a snow and ice 350m high route. Teranova smer, III/3.

I’m also very happy because I’ve got a new violet helmet which is the same colour of my Berghaus jacket and pack…

It was beautiful rock and completely dry. Usually at this time of the year everything is under snow so it’s really amazing!

My older sun Grega came with us and we met him at the top.

Miyar valley lies on the north part of the Himachal Pradesh of the indian Himalayas. All around there is high granite walls, many of them still unclimbed. Our goal was to climb as many climbs as possible and also complete a number of first ascents.

There were a lot of inconveniences at the beginning of trip but despite this it turned out to be one of my most beautiful expeditions.

The base camp was idyllic. For one week we shared it with some Austrians climbers, after that we were completely alone. After some acclimatization at 4950m we began with our climbs beginning with climbing some easy routes on Toro Peak.

After some bad snowy weather we established our ABC at 4700m.

The next day in a cold sunshine we climbed a new route quite easy (around VI-) on Masala Peak 5650m a.s.l. and 900m high. Some easier parts we soloed so we could be faster.

The day after we thought that we were climbing a new route, but on the second tower we discovered a sling. It was a really enjoyable route on nice granite 5.300 m a.s.l. and 550m high on Premsingh Peak (VII+/ VII).

The next day we expected this to be a rest day but the sun was still shining and we had a hard moraine and glacier 5 hours walk to the base of the Neverseen Tower, one of the most beautiful towers in the area (it’s only been climbed to the top twice). We decided to attempt it after one days rest. But the day we wanted to climb there was a snow storm in the morning. The weather after that was still sunny but very cold, too cold to climb the Neverseen. Andrej then had to go down to base camp because we were out of food.

The next day we climbed a very nice and sharp ridge. This time we were sure that it was a first ascent to the top. We called it Turaya peak, 5200m a.s.l. and the route Milky Way

(VIII-/ VI).

After one week on ABC I was feeling weak and decided to go back down. Andrej stayed on ABC and soloed a new route on Gutzele peak (this was only climbed for the first time 2 weeks before) with a lot of sections of loose rock. He descended to base camp in a snow storm.

After one day our horseman came and we returned to civilization again…

My tip for future visitors: try to hide your satellite phone!