Winter Sports Center
There is a winter sports center on the northern slopes towards Sljeme. The center has hosted several FIS World Cup slalom skiing races, known as the Snow Queen Trophy.
The winter sports center consists of one chairlift for three persons and two T-bar lifts. Equipment for producing artificial snow has been added, and because of that the skiing season has been prolonged to more than four months. There are three ways to reach the mountain: by road (with a car or a bus) or on foot (there are numerous mountain paths). In the past there was a gondola lift present, which started from the Gračani neighborhood just below Medvednica. The cable car has run from 1963 to 2007, when a major fault in the engine room made repairs economically impossible. The gondola had a capacity for four people, with a 23 minute journey time, covering a distance of 4023m. Although there are plans for a new gondola, they are delayed every year; the unprofitable economic situation prevents such a major investment.
On Medvednica there are dozen of mountain huts for traditional one-day trips in the mountain. Because of its proximity to Zagreb, Medvednica has many visitors, especially during weekends. Among the most popular sites is the Veternica cave with a 2,622 meters long main channel.
Read more about this topic: Medvednica
Famous quotes containing the words winter, sports and/or center:
“It was a green world,
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Points, cypress and conifers,
All that through the winter bears
Coarsened fertility against the frost.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“Guys do not have a genetic blueprint that allows them to understand or love sports.”
—Lesley Visser, U.S. sports reporter and announcer. As quoted in Sports Illustrated, p. 82 (June 17, 1991)
“Whenever there’s a big war coming on, you should rope off a big field. And on the big day, you should take all the kings and their cabinets and their generals, put ‘em in the center dressed in their underpants and let them fight it out with clubs. The best country wins.”
—Maxwell Anderson (1888–1959)