Yesterday, 17.04.2019. I went for a bit of a test run. I carried the skis up the snow tongues to around 1400 m (where the densest scrub ends). I continued with crampons, which were mostly unnecessary and even superfluous due to rare shady spots, but where it was steep and frozen, it would have been nasty without them. In the last 200 or 300 elevation meters below the Za Cmirom valley, a completely new avalanche covered the ski tracks that the predecessors had carved the day before.
Breaking through in zigzags over the avalanche debris and on slippery flat sections between deposited snow was exhausting; the hot sun contributed its share. From Cmir, a smaller avalanche slid once or twice, which is completely different from the previous day, when a group of ski tourers reported constant avalanches flying over that wall. Only once later, already during the descent, I heard strong rumbling from the Vrata valley somewhere, which lasted at least a minute.
In the Za Cmirom valley, at around 2100 m, I ended the ascent. In this lonely end of the world that day, I sat for about 10 minutes. In the purest silence, even without wind, such as one rarely experiences. Only here and there could one hear the distant chirp of some bird.
The skiing was not exactly ideal. Of course, it was not possible over the avalanche debris under Cmir; under the walls of Vrbanove špice, crust and hard snow alternated in places. It was best on the central sunlit spots with light crust and mostly settled and reworked snow, which at moments offered opportunities for nice turns. Down the snow tongues, with occasional stone bombs, I skied to approximately 1300 m, then another half hour on foot to the car.
There is still a huge amount of snow above 2000 m in the Julijci, real winter. For carefree skiing, it feels a bit under-processed; this will surely change in the next few days. After that, it will of course start disappearing even at these elevations.
It was a nice day!