Woke up after a good 6 hours of sleep and had a quick breakfast at the hotel, then mr Pappas met us and guided us to the ski resort. There was very little snow down in town, but as it has happened so many times on this trip as we started climbing up the steep road the landscape changed quickly and all the sudden we were engulfed in heavy snow. - and fog! At the base of the ski resort we were interviewed by the tv and reporters. Then we took the lift up and we were very lucky with the weather. A beautiful sea of clouds under us and the bright warm Greek sun over our heads.

Many people have asked me about what happened to Albania... Well, we swapped it last minute for Kosovo... After talking to all the people that are familiar with roads and mountain passes, they all suggested that we switch it with Kosovo. In both cases we had to hike a mountain anyway, so .... That's why for resort 16 we have "somewhere in Kosovo"... It was just over the border from Montenegro. Pretty sweet spot. Also,I would like to make an apology to the people of Serbia. We didn't make a conscious decision to skip them, it just didn't work out logistically.

Once out of Kosovo we finally experienced a rarity: a paved highway and a cruise speed of 110 km/ hour. Something new every day I guess. We actually arrived at Mavrovo earlier than expected and waited for our host, Tom sunning up outside, drinking a beer, in anticipation of the big snowcat ride to the summit. As we were waiting I struck a conversation with a group of Americans and ended up discovering that they were from TGR and powder mag and they were on an assignment for their next movie. I'll just say that Eric Granato was there. The rest you will have to watch it next fall.

Woke up at 4 am and left the beautiful hotel Blanca in a snow storm. I guess we visited Montenegro all in the dark. By dawn we were at the Kosovo border and the roads were not bad at all. We found a beautiful slope that I climbed and then skied down in the early sunshine. The snow was pretty awful, but the air was fresh and the sun peaking through the clouds, so all in all a great little dawn patrol. Then we crossed into Kosovo and we started seeing the destruction from the war. So many houses still abandoned, destroyed and bullet riddled.