All posts tagged Mountains

Waterfall

(Credit: Laurel Balyeat on Unsplash)

I stop to admire

Your eternal suicide

Crashing against rocks.

Sun on the Mountaintops

(Credit: landscapelook.com)

Three days in a row, I climbed the nearest hill of the hut twice a day to admire the view: the sunrise splashing gold over snowcapped mountains and the sunset bathing them in blood.

On the third day, watching the light receding, I felt an ache in my breast.

If I could, I would stay right here forever.

I must have spoken the words aloud, for a woman said, ‘I could help you with that.’

She must have come up behind me while my attention was on the sunset, for I had not seen her on my way up, and I had not heard her. She wore a dress, which reminded me of a photograph I once saw, from 1910 of a woman and her husband on a mountainside. In her yellow curls were several large clumps of lichen, and I wondered whether she had taken a tumble father down because of her long skirt.

‘Really?’ I said, smiling at her strange attire.

‘If you want my help, that is,’ she smiled back and her flashing violet eyes made my heart flutter.

‘I would much appreciate your help.’ I thought she meant that she could give me a tour guide job, and I must admit I hoped she lived nearby as well.

‘Just stand still for a moment,’ she said and stroked my forehead with a finger. I hardly had time to be taken aback by her cold touch, before I felt my feet stiffen. I looked down and saw the transformation crawling past my midriff. Half a second later, I was completely paralysed.

She kneeled down in front of me and tutted, shaking her head.

‘What did you look down for?’ she asked, ‘now you won’t be able to watch the sunsets.’ She turned towards the mountaintops and sighed.

‘They really are beautiful from up here.’

Steep Mountainsides and Lush Valleys

Triglav National Park is a beautiful place full of life. Not only is the air always buzzing with insects there are hawks in the skies, dormice in the trees, chamois on the mountainsides and bears in the forests. During my holiday I saw or heard all of these animals, except the bears.

I spent five nights in a hut in Vrata valley and this was where I heard the dormice. Although they naturally live in trees, a family of dormice had moved into the walls of the hut. It sounded like they had a party each night with plenty of scrambling and squeaking. Luckily, I learnt to sleep through it.

View from the hut.

One day we went from Aljazev dom up to a small hut at almost 2000 metres. It was a rather steep hike compared to what I’ve tried before, but at least we were only carrying day packs. Also, the experience and the view made it well worth it.

View over the Vrata valley.

On that very same trip we saw a chamois walking down a snow patch towards us. It ran away of course when we came too close, but on our way down we saw it again just below the very same snow patch. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a photo, but here is what a chamois looks like running across the snow.

Picture taken from http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/29847133 where they have several pictures of Chamois.

One of the other days we took a trip to Bled. On our way up to the castle we saw two hawks with their young on a rock face we passed. We had binoculars so we could see them clearly, but the pictures we took show just a rock face with small blotches. After seeing the castle we walked around the lake which had incredibly clear water.

The church in lake Bled. The castle is hidden behind the lower right leaves.

After the five nights in the hut we drove to Berchtesgarden to spend four nights at a cosy three star hotel. Luxury! 😉

View from the hotel.

One of the days in Berchtesgarden we took the cable car called Jennerbahn up the mountain and went hiking from there. We met a good deal more people on this trip than we did hiking in Slovenia, but that did not mean that we did not see any wild animals. During our trip down the mountain in the cable car, we sailed right over the head of a marmot and a bit later we saw a black snake crossing a gravel path.

Marmot (Photo credit: Wikipedia).

As you can hear, I’ve had a lovely trip. As a bonus I even remembered to scribble down a few ideas some of the evenings, so updates will be back to normal from now on. At least for a while.

Did you go anywhere this summer?