Actually, we didn’t have the conventional childhood like our peers. After being introduced to climbing at the age of 5, our passion for sports and adrenaline started to grow and we found out this wasn’t just a quick craze. It was a lifetime choice towards a juicy and adventurous lifestyle, which we want to squeeze in as much as possible. Having a lot support from our parents, we already started going to climbing areas and protecting ourselves. Reaching 10 years old, we wanted to prove ourselves and independently went to 350 m wall Anića Kuk.
We experienced it as an expedition, to which we took a lot of food and water. Even our backpacks were heavier than us, but we enjoyed every second of the 12 hours of climbing on the wall, even though the average time of climbing was no more than 4 hours. But who could blame such young and brave guys, right? Since we can remember, we have loved challenges and seeing the progress in every detail, and climbing was a big part of it. We always understood it as the best teacher, from which we learned what persistence means. Soon in our childhood, we also attended competitions and that could have been a turning point in our brother-to-brother relationship. We were pretty competitive, but that didn’t force us out of the “brother and friend zone.” As we say, this was even due to our positive approach to becoming better climbers and colleagues every time and our progress was quicker because of it. That can be seen even in the agency Altitude Activities, because we always strive towards progress and improvement in our system.
“Not growing up in a well-off family, we soon realized we have to take care of ourselves and make some money in between. Not wanting to do the usual after-school activities and student jobs, we chose to take beers to our highest mountain in Slovenia, Mt. Triglav.” Being successful at it, we bought B.A.S.E parachutes in order to begin with our next passion: B.A.S.E jumping. “As kids we were more and more attracted to nature rather than cities. The main »culprits« were our parents, who thankfully took us to Soča river for 1 month, rather than choosing the seaside. Soča was our playground to train other outdoor sports too – such as kayaking, rafting, canyoning, caving and biking. In camp »Trnovo ob Soči« we met a lot of interesting people and did amazing stuff: setting-up Indian tents, making arches, harvesting forest fruits and medicinal plants and discovering diverse caves in Slovenia. The local people, who showed us the slopes where World War I battles took place, always amazed us both.
Our childhood dreams soon came true, when we had more and more time for competitive Ice Climbing. From age of 12 we attend national competitions in Ice Climbing and were getting higher and higher to World championships in Ice Climbing at age 17. Just a year after that, our dreams came true when we achieved the title of World champions in speed Ice Climbing. Our path was easier and the achievement a greater success, because we had a climbing wall with holds at home. Trainings at home were useful for the technique of »dry tooling« and over the winter we loved to train in ice falls. Even though climbing was a strong connection, we had different views on sports and various styles of climbing. Mato/Matevž chose alpinism, and his passion became even stronger when he tried it for the first time at the northern wall of Triglav with a legend of Slovenian alpinism – Marjan Manfred, who introduced this world to him in such a positive way. Jerry/Jernej specifically and with a lot of thought chose sports climbing, and beside that, he wanted to reach the Guinness Wolds Record in movements in an hour. He did 1039 (way to go, right?), but he never decided to apply officially.
At age of 17, we enrolled in Sports club Skydive in Lesce (ALC), where we had an amazing opportunity to learn from the best skydivers in the world. As our excitement for sports grew, we soon met the legend of Slovenian B.A.S.E sport, Stane Kranjec, who became our mentor. It was not a coincidence – we really understood the responsibility and never wanted to give any less than 100 % in any sport, climbing, B.A.S.E. jumps, not Sky diving (in our career we’ve done apx. 1200 jumps (in B.A.S.E. jumps and Sky diving). We always loved to hear from interesting people, full of enthusiasm and with various stories about jumps and even how they barely survived sometimes.
Moving on with our enthusiasm, till the age of 19, we collected a lot of experience and climbs in sport, ice and alpinist climbing. After that, Mato applied in »school for mountain guides IFMGA«, and Jernej school for Canyoning CIC guides.
Soon, we started to work as freelancers for various agencies, where we had opportunity to meet a lot of guests from abroad, wanting amazing adrenaline activities in Slovenia. After hearing a lot of positive feedback of guests we soon realized what we want. And »baam«, not long after that, we decided to establish the agency in 2015. With wind-speed, the agency soon became a competitor to a lot of local agencies. Our vision is built not on fake, but on a true relationship with their workers and guests.
Our team is really enthusiastic about their job. After meeting them, you can really fell how they love to make people go to the edge of their adrenaline possibilities, and how to make memories, they will never forget. Our employees have very similar goals in their life and making guests happy and enthusiastic about Slovenia really is their goal. Seeing those people smiling all the time, hearing such various stories, is really a treasure for Slovenia. The young team from Gorenjska, Bled is really connected and their passion stands out on the street when passing by. You can see it from Mt. Triglav, this is really their lifestyle and that is something truly worth experiencing in Slovenia. They are true supporters and adviser to all the guests, whether on e-mails, website content, on social media or in person, because the team wants to work on conquering fears, in which they define their personalities and see what they are able to reach. This is extremely important in their usual life too, and they are not afraid to confess it. As it is known, fear is just in our heads. In the last years, their team goal is spending more and more time in business field in combination with the agency, too. Our team believes in treating other people like we want to be treated: with kindness, smile and to make a step forward in their travelling achoices.
Altitude Activities is a proud recipient of a TripAdvisor 2024 Certificate of Excellence. Thank you all for the great reviews!
The best thing ever. I took my old boss to experience Slovenia in one day. And boy I am happy I chose Altitude Activities to do so. Our tour guide Jerry was awesome, funny and you could just see he knows what he is doing. We went to the canyon of Jermanka and even though there is a drop almost 45m high we felt extremely safe. Overall highly suggest going canyoning with Altitude Activities
