It was the beginning of May. I just skied down Cerbului Valley and it was a pretty cool experience. So I mustered some courage and signed up for an event organized by the Carpati Mountain Association. We would be skiing down two alpine valleys, under the watchful eye of our guide Ciprian Lolu, mountain rescuer and ski touring athlete.

On the first day of the event, everybody gathered at the Busteni Cable Car. The weather was nice and sunny down here, but the mountains were hidden in clouds.

We got up to Babele. The weather was indeed pretty crappy. Foggy and windy. Ciprian decided to take us on Alba Valley today instead of Morarului, since the hike was much shorter. The only negative aspect to this change, relative to me, was that apparently Alba Valley is harder. That’s why it was originally planned for the second day.

We got to where the valley started and, one by one, everybody jumped in. I think I got in last. The valley was not only steep, but it was very narrow, at least for the first section. Seeing how narrow it was, I was pretty terrified and couldn’t get any turns it. I was too scared to commit to the turn, so I mostly slid sideways on my skis. I was too focused on going down the mountain safely that I didn’t consider taking any photos – if you accidentally dislodge a rock and see it going down the valley towards other people, you shout “ROCK”; if you drop your DSLR because your hands are shaking with adrenalin, do you shout “NIKON”?

As the valley started getting wider, I managed to relax a little and get some turns in. It didn’t last long, because as we descended beneath the clouds, we saw the valley ending. That was pretty short, so me and a few others went up again to get a little more skiing.

This was already my second run with my new ski touring setup. Changed the boots with a pair of Dynafit TLT6, a lot lighter and also a lot stiffer that my old Scarpa Avant. The new skis are a pair of Movement Response, 177 cm long and 89 mm wide, longer, wider and with more rocker than the old Black Diamond Stigma. I got a pretty good price for the skis on snowleader.co.uk and they even added in some stinky French cheese – very stinky indeed but surprisingly tasty.. in a weird way. As for the binding, kept with the Dynafit TLT Speed Turn, nothing to complaint there.