Škrnatarica saddle

• This is the first post of my mountain category in which I will describe my mountain adventures. If you feel adventurous enough to come along, keep reading...
• To describe today's "expedition" I am going to use the following statement: "It was wild, untouched, wet and exciting mountain skiing trip". ( no ski lifts!)

• I was abruptly awoken at a ridiculous hour: 4:45. After getting the grasp with reality of what I was actually doing I got dressed and tanked some fuel ( whenever I do sports I define food as fuel). Marko soon called that he is going to be a bit late, so I got back in bed and just when I was about to fall asleep again, he called that he is ready to pick me up. Half sleeping I walked to the randevouz point pack my stuff into the Car (rusty 12 year old renault 5 with broken bearings) and the adventure began. After seeing Marko drive this Car you would understand why it is such an important part of the ordeal.
• After some chilly riding there (not surprisingly, car heating didn't work...) we ignored the road closed sign in Mojstrana, drove past Peričnik inn and parked the car under a big, empty rock avalanche path. After a fotosession (whenever I am bored or without breath on my trips, I take a "fotosession" time and make some photos and get some air into my lungs...) we started walking a few minutes to seven. I don't really care how many, because mountains aren't about racing, anyway. At first there was no sight of snow so Marko teased me about it for a while. We made good progress and it took me almost half an hour to get lost for the first time. Shit happens, sometimes shortcuts tend to end this way:

• after some "warming up" walking through bushes and some mild rock climbing, we were on the right track again... until, after taking some pictures of Triglav:

• ...I again decided it was time for another shortcut, so we were grinding our knees up an impossibly steep slope for about fifteen minutes, through the forest.

• And our efforts were not in vein, because we found the correct path again. The only problem was that it was covered in at least half a meter of soft snow and there were no footsteps made. I took my time and did my fair share of swearing, because I knew how damn hard it is to get anywhere in such snow conditions. But we continued anyway, and after a short crossing, we found some "old" footsteps. Sadly, after following them for ten steps, it became harder as twister, because this guy was obviously at least nuts. We agreed that we should cut his nuts off if we meet him ( its a mountain thing...), and soon started digging our own steeps into the slope. Which doesn't sound hard if you read it like this, but trust me when the sun shines full throttle in your back and when every time you put your boot in the snow it sinks at least to the knee.. it gets really hard. And the fact that the snow was rather wet didn't help either, because I was soon soaked up to my knees.

• The snow soon got even deeper, so I "invented" a word describing getting sunk in snow to the depth of your testicles. And since it is purely phonetic, it can also be universally used: AJEIS (when you fall you jell aj and when the critical part of the body touches the snow you say eis).

• Anyway without any further description of the pain, suffering, swearing, excessive sweating and climbing in skiing boots (these are the things you want to as soon as possible), lets skip to the part when at something over eleven we arrived to the saddle between Škrnatarica (this picture)
  

• ... and Kukova Špica:

• After a short fuel break, we started skiing. The upper half of the slope was almost perfect. I can easily claim that no skiing resort can compare to it. But the real deal, began on the second half of the descent. Firstly, I decided that taking a shortcut couldn't possibly be as bad as doing that during walking. Well, that's far from the truth because we soon found ourselves climbing down a ten meter, nearly vertical cliff grabbing only pines.

• After getting out of this one it only took us some grass walking with the ski still on and some serious slipping through a partially snow covered steep forest to get to the empty riverbed, that lead us back to the car.

• I still regret the fact that we didn't have time for the traditional beer, which follows every successful mountain adventure, but the fact that we can always overcompensate that the next time comforts me greatly.
• I can't explain if all the pain, risks and walking up just to get down, makes any sense, but hell, I want more.

• I will add some photos and movies when I get them from Marko.