Česka koča

It's been forever since our last real trip to anywhere and the first weekend to come since October that we were both free and the weather came through. And to top it off – it's the one time of year that we have the meteorological phenomenon called inversion, meaning the weather is cold and the air is bad in the valleys, while there is sun, clear air and higher temperatures up in the mountains. So this trip was suggesting itself.

BUT

Our Ever-high-expectation miss Everything-must-be-perfect Alja was saying no to every single idea I had. And since she wasn't proposing any of her own, I decided not to tell her where we're going and just go with the last good idea that came to mind: Jezersko with a semi-difficult and a pretty short hike up to Češka koča under the Grintovec massif. I know the place well and it was an inspiring, beautiful and simply stunning place to visit every time I/we went there. And since it`s on the northern side of the mountains, we could sleep longer and still catch the sunrise. Everything was supposed to be perfect and… then the day started:P

We didn't sleep too long and the sun just came up when we were ready to go. Alja was keep bugging me with questions about our destination and she finally guessed it just before I took the turn for the road to Jezersko. She was really happy about it, so that was great …

Up we came and it was still pretty dark and cold when we started walking. That wasn't bad. It's better to hike up steep hills in cold weather (I really hate sweating) and I was looking forward to seeing sunrise when we get to the hut. It should be magical.

Well... It felt nice to hike after a long time and we were doing much better than expected. And when we were getting closer and closer to the hut and just started to picture our lunch with a view to die for… we hit an obstacle.

Two nice ladies were desperately looking at a frozen waterfall that blocked the way to the hut. “Sorry, we won't be able to get to the hut today…” said one. And I was like: “Wuuuut?!” “It's too dangerous. Better save than sorry..” they continued, walking back to the valley, observing my futile tries of getting over it. I felt like I could jump over, but then I could never convince Alja to do the same. She was panickly trying to get me away from the gap. So I tried to climb around it, but it was too hard and dangerous. And thoughts just flashed before my eyes: “I'm not gonna turn around so close to the hut. We didn't come all this way for nothing! I may be stupid, but what the hell...” I had to try something. So I climbed through the gap, under the frozen water and to the other side. And it wasn't even hard. And I did it twice, so Alja could see it's not such a big deal. And she was ready to give it a try! I was pointing to the rocks to step on and the branches to hold on to and step by step we did it! I was sooo happy and proud of her. We kissed and almost ran the rest of the way. It probably even wasn't that dangerous, but we felt like we escaped death itself:P

The hut was closed, so a cup of warm tea was not an option. But we did just fine with some home-made biscuits and water. Sorroundings were beautiful. We could almost touch the mountain-tops. And we could see the sun shining on them, but still, no rays came over to warm us.

We decided to prolong our hike to a peak nearby and have lunch when we get back to the hut as we were sure we'll get some sun then. So we went. And got to this very unknown peak called Vratca, at some 1800m but stil no sun.

It was about 12 o'clock by then and I started to realize, we probably won't see the sun. Not even for a minute. On the most warm and sunny day of last month or so, I managed to find one place, where sun doesn't ever shine in the winter. We were stuck in the shade all day long, it was cold and windy and especially hurtful to see the highest peaks bathing in the sun, not letting it through to the other side. I. Fucked. Up.

We had lunch on Vratca, which was great, and went back, crossing a huge scree slope, which is always an adventure with Alja! Above the scree I noticed about a dozen frozen waterfalls all over the rocks and I wanted to get as close as possible to get a good photo. And a new adventure emerged.

 

There was a good reason the path was set up much lower. The rocks kept falling from the foot of the mountain. And at one point it made a loud sound, almost like a bomb exploding and piles of rocks went flying down the hill. I'm pretty sure our hearts skipped a beat right there. But I kept climbing, not looking back. And then Alja surprised me a second time. She is very scared of walking over scree slopes even if the path is set there. But now she decided to climb up a pretty dangerous one, just behind me. I was stunned to see her following me and she was furious! I think she was scared to stay alone with the rocks falling down and she definitely couldn't let me take a better photo of the waterfalls than her, but stil, she insisted that I made her do it and that I'm an awful boyfriend to have:P

Well there we were, taking some more photos in bad light (damned sun!) and having to get back down to the hut through another dangerous terrain. It was scary and funny and we made it! And took some more photos and laughed at random things and ideas and realized that we made a pretty good day out of it. We were hiking strong and escaped death at least twice! And thanks to the frozen path to the hut and probably the most unpleasant weather in the whole of Slovenia, we had the whole place to ourselves! That never happened before and it felt great to find a place of total silence and solitude in our busy world. We were able to be ourselves and let out whatever came on our minds. We filled that silence with songs and screams and laughter and it was one of the best days of our lives. Again.

Written by Miha