Thursday, May 9, 2019

Back to the Veľký Choč

My relationship with winter in the mountains is some weird kind of love & hate. From one hand, mountains look then so differently, so unreal, that it opens completely new world for photography. From the other hand, winter exploration is always closely related to hurricane winds and horrible cold. Being there in the winter always force you to bite the bullet really hard. But still, mountains are really powerful drugs, so it is just impossible just to sit at home for the half of the year waiting for snow to melt and temperature to grow.

Weather for the most of the 2018/2019 winter was so bad, that there was no chance to go somewhere and make any good picture. Good weather collapsed just few days after my visit to Mt Giewont and stayed like this till mid of January. I was so determined that I decided to take one day off in the middle of the week to use one day window of good weather.

I was planning to go to my favorite winter location: Malá Fatra but when I checked avalanche danger, it appeared to be at the quite high, III level. It was way too high for my taste, so I went for plan B: the Veľký Choč - I was there already (you can find more about this here),but then it was middle of autumn.

Soon after I started my ascent, I discovered that the same mountain in autumn and in wither are two different stories. The higher I was, the deeper snow was.I didn't have any snowshoes with me, only crampons, so every few steps one of my legs got bogged. Already after few minutes I was sweating like hell and I couldn't breathe.

But the worst part was still ahead of me - just before the top I missed my way and went through mountain pines completely covered by snow. Then every step was a nightmare. At some moment I was not even sure if I would be on top on time (before sunrise),even if it looked as being almost at my fingertips.

Somehow, finally - partially on my feet, partially on my knees - I made it. And then the view from the top appeared to be even more stunning than during autumn. Immediately I forgot about my past hassle. The same place which I already visited during autumn, in winter looked completely different, unreal, magical.