Sledding in Bielsko

I think most people agree that sledding is a general good time. But when you add meters of snow, a chair lift, a mountain, and skiers and snowboarders on the same path you get "xtreme sledding." (Sorry, I know that 'x' was inappropriate, but it's so it's the style these days...)

Alex, our bud from CELTA, is living in Bielsko-Biala teaching at another IH. So he invited us to come to his town for the day to go "sledging." I thought he was chewing something as we spoke, but--no--people from the UK add a g. It works well enough. So we took the train down to B-B and had the most interesting sledding experience of our lives to date.

Alex and his roommate Jared took us to the outskirts of town to the beautiful mountains. B-B is in very South Poland, close to the Slovakian border, and is a mountainy resorty town. So we took the chair-lift up the mountain (it was huge!) and hiked around the top for quite a while looking for the ideal sled run. It really wouldn't have meant much for us to find the best sled run in the country b/c Bhadri had put his knee through his cheapo plastic Tesco sled as we were walking through town (he thought he could sled down the sidewalk), so his sled was outa commission. Alex and Jared had opted for more expensive sleds with brakes, but we soon found out that they were very poorly designed and wouldn't go. At all. So mine was the only sled that worked. And, boy, did it work! It flew down the mountain.

We all took turns using my sled and Bhadri's flat rubber "sled" he got at the bottom of the mountain for 10 zloty. The best part of this was that the sled run we found also doubled as a ski and snowboard run. Jared got hit twice by snowboarders, Alex got hit once by them...we were the lucky ones. So we dodged the skiers/snowboarders, and scooted down the mountain. Ah, and we saw two different skiers flying down the mountain with their dogs running behind them! It was great!

We stopped off at a mountain pub and had hot wine and beer before making the final run down the hill. We were soaked to the bone and my chin was apparently frost bitten to a mild degree (skin started flaking off the next day...what?!??). But how cool was it to sled down a whole mountain!