Cedars and its lurking dangers

We arrived to Cedars at around 10 in the morning. Our driver had picked us from the hotel early and after a two hour drive we were finally there. The last maybe a kilometer was a little tough for our minibus with summer tires on. But our driver made it, all though he was a little afraid that the car will slide down the hill.

The first impression when we arrived to the resort was something else than what I had in mind back at our hotel in Beirut. Everyone had said that Cedars is the place in Lebanon for skiing, but when I saw it the first time my mind got blown away. There were half finished buildings everywhere. It almost reminded me of Dubai as another mad man’s dream, of course in smaller scale thought. It looked like someone have had an amazing idea to build a huge resort, but ended up having a lot of difficulties with the money. It truly has a lot of potential with the mountain range spreading approximately as much as 25 kilometers wide to from the resorts down station. It just needs the money.

Our hotel in the other hand was amazing. It actually reminded me more of a refuge than a hotel. It had wood paneling all over the place and the owner, he truly was a quite a character. He kind of reminds more of a fugitive on a longer holiday from jail rather than the owner and manager of a hotel. But the atmosphere in the hotel was amazing. A lot of free riders and randonnée-people seemed to be gathering here for a stay and some runs. At the door step we met some French and Belgian riders on their way for a randonnée to the other side of the mountain.  

As it was sunny, we hurried with our stuff and actually left them lying on the floor in to a corner, so that we could get faster to the lifts. We went to talk with the manager about the tickets as usual and then the huge wall rise in front of us. They had decided to keep the top lifts closed due to that it was Friday and they were expecting a lot of people coming on the Saturday. Yeah, they wanted to save the lift for tomorrow. Well, luckily there was an army operated lift to which the nice manager guided us to. The lift truly was operated by the army of Lebanon and with a 90 000 pounds slid to the guys hand at the gate we got the permission to use it, sweet. The lift went all the way from the upper village to the top and it was a one man chair lift. It was the really scary kind too without any safety bars or anything to keep you from dropping a hundred meters to the ground. Anyway the lift worked just fine and even with the super scary looking guy at the mid station it did its job.

The slopes in Cedars are under the natures own care and I am not sure if they even have snow cat to groom them. But if you think this through a mind of a free rider it is a good thing. There is steep enough slopes for nice riding and if you do a small traverse to the skiers left you will soon have nice 30 degree steep run in front of you. The snow at that time appeared to be really sketchy. There was a 20cm thick pack of snow that was totally loose from the side of the mountain. I really went the run through in my mind for a few times before skiing down the 30 degree face. I spotted a safe spot to get away if the avalanche would trigger and down I went. Luckily the snowpack stayed still and I got down safely. Next the boys skied down next to my tracks and I filmed them. Once everyone was safely down and at the same spot, we calculated the risks and decided to stay off from the steep sections of the resort. It is actually crazy that almost every slope in this resort is potential for avalanches, but a guess they don’t come down that often.  We skied a few runs using the army-lift and got some nice footage even though the snow wasn’t that great.

After a super cool 700 meters of vertical last run from the top to bottom, we were stoked. The snow wasn’t the greatest, but still it was a lot of fun. When we got to the hotel things changed. At the time you’re reading this, you probably have heard about the avalanche occurred in Lebanon. It happened in Cedars. Actually the French and Belgian guys I mentioned earlier where the same that got into this mayhem of nature. The atmosphere was sad and there were police and military personnel running everywhere. Later the evening the news finally came and they were bad. There had been ten people in the group and from them 4 got hit by the avalanche killing one and badly injuring two of them. We drank a bottle of wine and talked about everything related to avalanches and shared our own experiences from them. Finally it was time to go to bed and charge batteries for the second day in Cedars.

The morning came and I woke up at seven to have a nice long time to eat my breakfast and do some writing before the guys will get up. Well, I have to say that it was my first time in a hotel that I am the first one to be awake. Even if you count all the hotel management in, I was the first. The whole place was sleeping and I was sitting alone in a cold dark tea room. I got my writing done in peace, so a guess it was worth it to wake up early.

At around nine the light began to come and the weather was a lot worse than we thought it to be. The forecast had promised partly cloudy, but it was raining cats and dogs out there. So as the hotel people were finally up, we got our breakfast and ended up having it the long way. It was at around 1 o’clock when our driver came to pick us up. We called him, because there really wasn’t any reason to stay in Cedars because of the bad weather.

So we arrived at our hotel in Beirut at around 3 o’clock and the evening kind of slipped by walking in the city, taking some photos in the rain and trying to find a place to eat. The next day we had some filming to do and we visited a new mall uptown trying to find a new pair of jeans for Blumi. Later the evening we had something more fun to do.

There was a gig of “Who killed Bruce Lee”, the very same band I told you about in my earlier post from Beirut and they were playing next to our hotel. The bar practically was just under our hotel. We had an interview with Wassim, who is the vocalist in the band, about the music scene in Lebanon and specially Beirut. Afterwards he invited us to come see their gig, so why should we have said no. Once again they were killing it. Wassim is an amazing guitar player and when accompanied with his bassist, keyboard player and unbelievable drummer they form an amazing set-up. Hopefully one day we will see this band in Helsinki and after that playing for the big crowds all over the world. They play an excellent music with an excellent touch and feel in it. It was totally a shame that we had to leave in the middle of the gig to catch our transport to the airport. 

Ou yeah, we were changing the country again, and now it was time to have a kebap or two. See you in Turkey.

Caves, party and some nice wine.

Our driver came to pick us up from Mzaar after we called Ron for a new plan. The bad weather rolled in sooner than we thought, so there was no idea in staying in Mzaar. We drove down the serpentine and the further we got, the better the weather started to be. When we reached the Jeita Grotto, which is one of the biggest caves in the world, the sun was already shining. The Jeita Grotto is located on the half way when driving from Mzaar to Beirut.

We went to the ticket counter and not for the first time there came a fuzz about our cameras. The lady at the counter told us that we need a permission to film in the caves and guided us to the manager of the cave complex. The manager wanted us to sign a form that we are doing a story about the caves and that not one picture will be sold or used by anyone else than us. After this little formality we were on our way into the caves. 

The caves are in two levels and first we went to the lower one, which is accessed by small boats. When we were entering the caves from a shallow entry hole, Blumi thought that it almost felt like we were cruising down the river Styx and entering the Hades world. After the shallow opening, the cave opened into an amazing hallway. The size of the cave blew our minds away as it is big enough to fit a jumbo jet. The boat ride goes maybe for a few hundred meters before the turning point and heading back. We got some unbelievable footage as the boat slowly moved through the cave. 

We went to the upper part of the cave next, to which you can walk in through a manmade tunnel on the side of the mountain. The upper cave is even bigger and the highest point from the water to the ceiling is 108 meters high. There is a path and a huge stair case called Snake Passage. It was designed by a student of a well known Brazilian architect called Oscar Niemeyer. We walked through the passage and every time some tourists walked by us our guide was yelling, TV! TV!, so that people will know that we're a TV crew with permission to film. It is strictly forbidden to film in the caves. I think it might be that they want to sell more pictures from their own archives. I can understand it because even for a beginner it would be really easy to take really good pictures of the formations there. There are stalagmites and stalactites all over the place forming pillars with extraordinary forms. You can find a huge mushroom, an aliens head, Blumi even found the Virgin Mary, with Jesus on her lap. The passage itself is 750 meters long and it ends into a small amphitheater with better acoustics than a concert hall. They actually have had many famous symphony orchestras playing there because of the acoustics. They told us that the sound lasts there for seven seconds. From this point on the caves still continue for over 7 kilometers, which is the length of the discovered part so far, but the archaeologist believes that it goes even further. The caves were amazing, but we still had a lot to do for the day, so it was time to continue our journey towards the city of Beirut. 

We got to our hotel in Beirut at around five in the evening and as a positive surprise our hotel looked really decent. It was an old Parisian style hotel, with nice lobby and a working Wi-Fi. It really is hard to find any decent connection in these countries because the government is always trying to mess with the line. We got our luggage to our room and then it was time to hit the streets to find something to eat and to check out some nightlife as well.

Our hotel was located next to the port and it was called Port View Hotel. The port area is filled with small local bars and pubs and the feeling is really similar to Paris' side alleys. A couple of things that differs it from Paris is the trash and the civil war ruined buildings all around. 

Like in Casablanca it is sad to see how badly the economy and the war has erupted the city. We saw a lot of almost collapsed buildings on our walk around the city. Anyway, we were able to find a nice place to eat with local cuisine and a nice staff. The food was really good, and as always, we ordered a bunch of different courses to taste and a bottle of local wine from Ksara vineyards. 

We met some students on a holiday from Istanbul with one of them actually Finnish, and after the dinner we head for a few beers in some local bars. To mention one, there was a really good live music bar called Bar Louie with an excellent cover band called "Who killed Bruce Lee" from Beirut. One funny thing about this bar was that they added a music fee to our check which was around 8 Euros, but the funny part was that they didn't mention anything about any fee when we entered the bar, must be a local custom. Well, the band was so good that it was totally worth it.

After some nice music and a few beers we continued our way to this one kiosk or small grocery store that one of the students knew to be a nice place. There was a storm roaming over the sea, so with the view over the city to the sea, this kiosk was an amazing place to watch the lightnings and drink some really cheap beer. They even gave us a table and some chairs on to the street for a better view. After the amazing display from Mother Nature it was time to head back to our hotel to get some sleep before the next day's trip to Baalbek ruins and the Ksara vineyards.

Our driver came to pick us up from the hotel early in the morning, and once again we over slept. He called us from the reception desk and after a few apologies and super fast packing we were on our way. One thing about Baalbek is that it is located in Bekaa Valley, which is a hizbollah controlled area, so it is more than wise to go there by a tourist bus or taxi. With a rental car you can really get into trouble with the police and all. 

Because of the tension here in Lebanon, there were military personnel with tanks everywhere and roadblocks after every 5 to 10 kilometers when we drove to the ruins. The ruins of Baalbek are from the Roman time and they are worth seeing. We didn't get inside the ruins because of the cameras once again, but we got some pretty nice footage filming outside the ruins. 

After an hour of filming we headed to the vineyards further down south in the the Bekaa Valley.  Ksara is the biggest wine producer in Lebanon and they have one of the best caves in the world for aging the wine. We got a nice tour from their PR-executive, Rania Chammas. 

She showed us the caves and told us all about wine production and a nice story about how a hunter accidentally discovered the caves by following a fox when he was hunting. After the tour it was time to taste some wines. 

We tasted two whites and one rose and they were all excellent. All the wines had a really fresh taste. After the first tasting we had a light lunch at the vineyard's restaurant and tasted some reds. The lunch was amazing with some really good cheeses as a starter, some fresh salad as a main course and one of the best cheesecakes I have ever tasted as a desert. At this point I thought that I really love my job. 

We talked about the situation here in Lebanon and how it is evolving over a few glasses of wine and time just flew by. The really nice PR-lady even gave us all a free bottle of the wine that we liked the most as a souvenir and it was time for us to climb back to our minivan and head back to Beirut. I really would love to stay there longer.

Once we got back to Beirut it was already evening, so we just made a quick pit stop at the hotel and went out to see a different part of Beirut with good snack food. At first the plan was to find something to eat and then go see some night clubs. After wondering around the area for an hour and because we were really tired after a long day we changed our plans and headed back to our hotel. The next morning it was time to go back to the mountains and we thought that we needed the good night's rest.  Hopefully some powder snow was my last thought before I fell asleep.

See you in Cedars.  

Mountains, beaches, good food and friendly people – that is Lebanon.

We arrived to Lebanon at 3 AM. Our normal flight landed at 21.35, but we weren't onboard in that one. No, no, we missed our connecting flight in Doha, Qatar, due to a way too short time to change from one plane to another. There was only 40 minutes between the landing of the first and the departure of the next flight. We had the slowest possible airport bus driver in the world, and the transfer desk lines were tens of meters long. Even with our good cutting-into-the-line skills we didn't manage to get to our transfer gate in time. So, waiting it was. The nice lady on the transfer desk luckily gave us some vouchers for free food and beverages, because we ended up having a nice 5 hours to spend at the airport before the next flight.

So, we finally got ourselves to Beirut airport and our driver was waiting for us at the arrivals lobby with my name on a big sign, pretty V.I.P. Well it felt V.I.P. until I saw our transportation. It was an old Toyota Hiace, the minivan edition. And the driver (don't know his real name) got quickly named Vatanen after an old rally driver from Finland, because of his driving habits. The guy charged every corner probably two times too fast and it really felt that some times we were on two wheels. Well, if you think that there is 60-70 kilometers from the airport to Mzaar, the ski resort that we were heading to, and the guy drove it in an hour with 1500 meters vertical. I believe you get the point how fast he was driving. 

He even drove us to a wrong hotel at first, but that might have been my fault, because I told him to do so, hehe. I thought that we are going to a hotel that our guide Ron mentioned to me in our mail exchange, but apparently not. The only thing that we found from the first place was some drunken guy sleeping in the hotel lobby and otherwise the hotel was totally empty. Ron had actually reserved a nice chalet for us next to the lifts, so it was better that way in the end. It felt so good once again to lie down after almost 24 hours of travelling. 

We woke up at around seven o'clock the next morning, all super ready to go skiing. The feeling is just amazing, when you're standing next to a lift, putting your skis on and you know that it is going to be a great day. As the weather forecast had promised two days of good weather, we decided to go check out some lines on the first day and then go film them the next day. We cruised around the resort, which is actually really big, and looked for some nice spots to film. We focused on finding more the lookers than the nut crackers and accidentally ended up finding both in the same spot. We found the lines standing next to a window in this one café on the top and Ape suddenly said to me “Wow, this slope down from here looks kind of steep”. So we skied it down from the side and went to have a look from under it. It looked perfect. The lines were maybe 45 degrees steep from the top, then a drop or two into a huge face. We took some guiding photos and headed back home. On the way back we found one fun run with spring snow that we filmed with the head cams and took some snapshots from small cliffs close to it. 

The evening went chatting on Facebook and drinking coffee. The one and only bad thing in our chalet was that the grocery store was way down in the lower village. So, we had to walk for maybe a kilometer to get there and another one back uphill for some food and water, nice. Well, we are three sporty guys so it wasn't that bad, hehe. 

The next morning I woke up well before my alarm clock. It was filming day. I had gone through the line so many times when I went to bed that I can't even count the times. I was so stoked on the chair lift on our way up and even more stoked when we realized that the best light comes to my line and we are going to film it first. So, I went up on the lift once again and took one more photo to guide me to the right spot. From the top station I had to ski and walk for a few hundred meters to get to the starting spot. Ape guided me from the bottom with hand signals and with a little help from the photo I found the right place. I put my skis and helmet on, set my gear and I was ready to hit it. I signaled the guys that I am ready, and once I got the ok signal back, I was on my way. Everything went just the way I had pictured it in my mind. First three turns, then a sliding stopper and then charge it over the cliff. It felt so good when I was riding down the face and I knew that I got it. I have to say that that is one of the best feelings in the world. 

Next it was Blumi's turn. He chose a run with two cliffs on the other side of the mountain. One long turn, a drop, then a long stopper and another drop down to the face and skiing away. It was a nice solid run with two nice cliffs in it. 

Then it was Ape's turn. Ape's run was maybe the most difficult of the three with two drops and less snow than the first two. Ape's head is perfect for skiing the big lines and once again he went big and in total control at all the time and killed his line. The line skiing is all about knowing your own skills and keeping your head cool. You should start from the smaller and easy lines and move your way slowly up to the bigger ones over time. 

Later on in the afternoon we just skied some fun stuff for the head cams, and watched and filmed some locals doing crazy stuff on the slopes. It really is fun to watch the families having fun on the slopes and not just staying at home watching TV. 

One funny thing too is that you can buy so called super food from the parking lot after a hard day on the slopes. There are all kinds of nuts and dried fruits for sale in an old car's trunk and trust me they are tasty. If you think that Parrot's nuts are good, then these will blow your mind away.  

Later on in the evening when it was dinner time, we decided to eat out, because none of us was up for the grocery store walk again, hehe. Really, it's at least 150 meters of vertical and two kilometers there and back, no way after a filming day. There was a nice small café/restaurant on the ground floor of our building that also manages the chalets that we were living in. They served really nice sajj, which is a tortilla styled pancake with cheese and ham in it, and it is really good. The owners make and bake them on a half ball shaped pan outside the place, and everything they put on them is really fresh. They also serve alcohol and play music really loud, which seems to be normal in every sort of bar and café in Lebanon. People live for music in Lebanon.

The next morning was planned to be our last filming day, but when we opened the curtains in the morning the plans suddenly changed. It was pouring rain hard and the whole mountain was in the clouds, so it was a no go for us. We called our friend Ron from the SkiLeb and asked him to re-organize our trip a little bit. He contacted us after an hour and we were on our way to check out Beirut. 

See you there.

Dubai, the land of the mad scientist.

Jet lags are something that often come when you’re doing what we do - traveling a lot. And yet it still never had crossed my mind that it can occur even when you’re flying from Morocco to Dubai. The time-difference is only 4 hours, so it really blew my mind. We arrived in Dubai early in the morning, and boy were we tired.  We didn’t sleep at all during the 10 hour flight, and we even had to change once in Doha, Qatar. But at around 8 o’clock in the morning, we had finally arrived. The good thing was that our friend Ari, who lives in Dubai with his family, had reserved hotel rooms for us so that we didn’t have to do it ourselves. The hotel was located next to the Mall of Emirates, which was actually a really good thing, because Ski Dubai is located in this certain mall. Ski Dubai was something that had been in both mine and Blumi’s mind for a while, and we really wanted to see it. For the rest of the day, Ari drove us around the city and showed us the new side of Dubai, with all of its unfinished huge buildings and he told us all about the unbelievable plan of a mad man to build the three palms and the globe on the sea. I think that they are actually planning on building even more weird stuff to Dubai.

So after breakfast the next day, we packed our camera stuff and headed to the Ski Dubai without the skis. It was time for some snowboard mania. We figured that maybe we should try snowboarding because the Ski Dubai with its 65 meters of vertical doesn’t really give that much thrills for us with skis. Well, I have been snowboarding for years between the ages 9 and 16, and for me it was just something fun to do. For Blumi, it was more thrilling, I guess. It was his fifth time on a snowboard, but he did well. With the balance of a lemur, he easily managed to ride down the hill without falling for even once. The riding in Ski Dubai is actually pretty okay, and I even tried some rails with the board, good times. They have two lifts, one chair and one poma and they say that they have 5 slopes, but in reality there really are only two. After snowboarding, we went to have some after ski-coffee at Starbucks, Ape’s favorite.

A funny thing that happened was that we met Johannes and his father by accident at the cafe. They were having a father-and-son vacation and so of course we wanted to spend some time with them. It really felt great to speak some Finnish to someone else than just the two guys travelling with me, hehe. We went out to check this one area in Dubai where the locals go out to eat and party every Thursday. You can find the different side of Dubai from these small alleys. The food is excellent, and despite the fact that everyone is trying to get you to buy a watch, it is a place that you really should go to when you visit Dubai.

We went to eat in this one Indian/Pakistanian restaurant, and you can really feel the difference between all the real places and the artificial new Dubai. Dubai really is artificial and everything is manmade. The water consumption of Dubai must be enormous with the plants and all set on the dry desert. And even the people seem to be something else. Not snobby, but yet still somehow different, with no smile on their faces. This is probably something that you can find in every big city in the world, so go check out the local stuff where ever you’re traveling.  

We had something else in mind the next day, or actually it was Ari’s idea first to go ride some ATVs in the desert. And in our heads the idea developed into an idea of spending a night at the desert. Ari came to pick us up from the hotel, and we arrived to KTM’s ranch at around noon and met the other guys planning to join us for the ride. There were two older skiers, one snowboarder, one dude I didn’t know, and us. All set to go out in to the desert. The ATVs were 450cc KTM’s and I think they were powerful enough. I actually had a 525cc if it makes any difference, hehe. At first, all the acceleration and everything felt fun and driving was exciting, then the reality hit came. We had to drive tens of miles to our destination. And although the sliding on the dunes is fun, I started to regret that I had signed in to this trip. Well, after a nice and bumpy three hours of driving, we were finally there, in the place that Ari had picked for us to spend the night at. Dude, it was next to a high way. On the way to this ”place” we drove through a nice gully on a pretty big hill, which would have made a perfect place to camp with its view over the desert. Anyway, as the boys weren’t planning on spending the night next to this outstanding road, they started their way back home before the dark and left us standing there with our ATV’s and no shelter. Oh yeah, didn’t I mention that it was raining heavily? The plan was that we’d drive to this destination and the guy from the KTM ranch would bring us the tents and some food. Well, when we called the guy he was somewhere helping some dude with his broken bike. So, luckily Ari’s friend told us the directions to the nearest gas-station and he even gave us a GPS-tracker to guide us there. Driving 15 kilometers 100km/h in pouring rain, and we were soaked. At least we had some warm place to sit in. After some careful planning, we decided to head back to the ranch and to our hotel. There was no point spending the night in a tent next to a highway in heavy rain. The funny part was that it only rains three days a year in Dubai. Once again, what are the odds? After another 15 kilometers in rain, we were back at the ranch and our friend Tupe was waiting for us and he gave us a ride back to our hotel. After this it was pretty much some food and lights out.

On the next day, boys wanted to go ride the ATVs again and if you read the story above, you will propably understand why I didn’t want to join them. Don’t get me wrong, it is fun to drive the dunes in soft sand, but the 80 percent of the driving is shitty in between the rocks and bushes. So, I decided to stay at the hotel and do some writing. The boys came back in the afternoon, and as I suspected, the sand had been great and the girls were topless and whatever. They really seemed to like the ATV-stuff more that I did.  The evening went wondering around Dubai and doing some last shots from the city and its skyline.

The next morning it was once again time to pack our stuff and change the country. And this time we headed to some real snow, to Lebanon.