Dried apricots.

Hello Reader,

I hope you had a great Sunday,

This one for me was not bad... There was no anxiety...

I guess I am returning to my normal self except for my body..

Or vessel...

Yes, age is something you start to feel after certain years..

I am trying to keep my vessel as good as it could be...

Though, you cannot protect it from everything....

Especially, if you are not living off-grid and instead living in the city of our day..

Today, I worked on the garden again....cooked...watched the news..

and slacked.. and slacked.. :)

I woke up really early though... It was a long, sunny and a beautiful day....

Today, I felt like a white flower with a large blossom... on a beautiful background.

A flower that is alone but not lonely...

A flower alone but as if it was a flower field...

Pure in the soul, confident and content in its bloom

A Fertile and Loving not only to itself but all the other flowers and animals...

A generous and wise, yet humble...

Lately, in the end of my meditations, a great light emerges

as I reach a serene point through the end just between the small infinite moment,

sometime it is more intense comes with a buzzing 

once, I've been in a solo climb in the mountain range and due to terrible weather and high risk of avalanche I was the only human soul there at that particular point of time...

It was a magical moment....

It was post winter with deep snow above 3000 m, I was without tent with a single bivouac bag very few food supplies and lots of technical gear...

I spend the night underneath a big boulder close to ridge line,

where I came by crossing huge slopes that had multiple parts where small avalanches already swept the slope...

Slopes were full, the snow was deep, the weather was perfect during the day...Sunny...

but not a good condition for the minefield I was in...

When you are in a dangerous situation and you are aware

something turns off in your brain, everything becomes more serene

you just live the joy of that moment....

The fear is now not ruling you it got lost behind in the background noise...

Its like you are here at this moment everything is perfect and it could be your last seconds

though still you would not choose to be any other place instead of that place...

Every three step a big breath, move again

until the next landmark you choose yourself...

After that rock, I will rest couple of minutes...

I had to pass this avalanche field quickly....before the sun became more intense...

Singing terribly shouting, I can hear the echoes from the wall of a great mountain behind me towering 700-800 m behind me..

Swearing sometimes as I fall in to belly deep snow and laughing at the same time

"this will be the place I will be buried" 

"They will find my remains in the summer...  probably I will be a good feast for the wolves...ha ha..."

"Then another thought comes to mind, all the gears would be ruined"

Yes the gear was valuable when you don't have money back then...ha ha..

by somewhere around 4-5 I came to this boulder...

the place I planned to stay the night...Its a big boulder which is just below the ridge line the start of the route which I plan to scale early 2-3 am'ish next morning...

I took my stove to make a hot soup to get some nourishments...

Melted the snow and made a cup of instant soup (1 of 2)

drank it and ate some of the nuts and raisins I had in my pocket...

Get in the sleeping bag placed in the bivouac bag...

I prepared more water for tomorrow and filled my termos...

The temperature dropped below -10C as the sun is setting...

since the sun had its toll on the slopes I started to hear avalanches falling down..

its like freight train "the sound" loud, especially if it is close to you....

In my place I was safe...watching the giant wall across the valley...

As the sun was setting its huge shadow was moving across the valley and towards me...

It was a clear night...No clouds...you can see the Moon and all the stars...

Sounds of the wolves can be heard from the valley below...

Their foot prints and remnants of the ibex they ate earlier were all over the in the valley at the tree line..

You can glimpse their eyes as well from where I was

Thanks god I am not alone in here....I thought...

When you are alone in the mountain there is a serene feeling to it...

its raw and real...

Scary but majestic...

its Frigid and cool..

cruel but honest...

I was thinking how cool the moment was and trying to get a sleep

each time I close my eyes five-ten minutes later I get alerted 

either by an avalanche, a rock fall or the voices of wolves in the valley...

this get to a degree that you sleep wake up to the noise get alerted sleep again and wake up again..

your body is aching for the sleep but cold and noises keep you up alert...

the time flows differently when you are climbing

a moment can be an infinite..

especially if you are doing something scary..

I woke up multiple times thinking that its the time to climb when I checked the time each of the time I woke up I was very surprised to find out that there is still a lot of time and so little time passed..

With the cycles of the sound of wind, wolves howling, avalanches, rock falls I fell a sleep....The temperatures dropped further..

I remember waking up a sound of animal walking very close to me, like it was walking right above me...voices of small rocks moving around the boulder...

I just woke up and rise... out of fear...the ice axe on my right hand.. when you woke up like that 

you are in survival mode...

I thought the wolves were around me...

Probably, my mind made up a story about the wolves in the valley...The ones whom recently devoured a large ibex...

At that time in the season its not unheard of wolves attacking the nearby villages because of the scarcity of the food for wild animals in the region...

I was a fresh meat walking to their home... Like wolves ordered food tonight with fancy wraps..

fancy wraps being my valuable gear... 

Its all going to be ruined I thought for a glimpse of second.

I am going to be eaten alive here and all the gear is going to be ruined..

Probably, they will find my bones all around the mountain range year after year..

I thought to myself in that second....

I shouted and made loud noises...started to sing with my terrible voice

than opened my head lamp

to see a group of mice devouring my nut bag...

which fell to the ground from my parka right next to my head near the bivouac....

They ran under the boulder as they see the light of my headlamp...

it made me laugh loudly...

my laugh echoed in the valley...

Shout you idiot show where you are at to the hungry wolves...

I checked the watch again and saw that I still can rest 2 more hours...

I went behind the boulder peed.

than came back and entered in the sleeping bag and bivouac

it was very cold....My balls froze and converted to cold mode like dried apricots when I was peeing...

Now the moon and stars were not visible, there were clouds...

weather was picking up...

I slept in peace together with the mice jumping around my head....

Not a comfortable sleep but I felt rested after huge fright of wolves eating me alive....

This time I woke up to the alarm I have set on my watch...

Normally, I set alarm but I wake up earlier than the alarm....

Its kind of a normal thing...I am not sure how my body does know the correct time to wake up I don't know but it happens to me a lot. I wake up 5-10 minutes earlier...

This time I woke up to the alarm...

It felt to me like I was late...

I cranked up the stove melted snow 

made the last instant soup...

Gulped it down... Hot tomato soup passed thorough heating me up...

I collected my sleeping bag and bivouac and get my bag ready..

Also I was checking the weather and trying to figure out weather a storm is brewing or not?

The visibility was ok with the headlight...But it was couple of meters without it..

I said farewell to the mice family and my fears of being eaten alive by the wolves..

To save the batteries, I started to climb without the headlamp...

I thought that I might need it more on the ridge...

I scrambled in the last portion of the slope....to get to the ridge..

Initial part of the ridge was not very narrow so I kept going without the light

Its been more than 2 hours and my eyes were already adjusted to the dark.

There was still 2 more hours for the sunrise.. from time to time the clouds give way to moonlight...

The weather was very cold...the clouds were passing and they were close...

My chances are not so high in terms of weather though, I was hoping that I might be above the weather as I progress on the ridge...

After a while the ridge narrowed down to the size of couple of steps giving large boulders to be free climbed with exposure on both sides...

after scaling couple of them I decided to rest on a ledge and eat some nuts and raisins...

ate a handful of nuts and raisins which I could save from the mice..

drank some water and checked the time ... it was about time to sunrise..

it was lightening up though

there was some mist

I climbed from the ledge to the ridge again..

further ahead clouds gave way and the red edge of sun appeared...

the weather was though not really good..

further ahead the ridge is getting narrow and more technical...

though it was completely in the clouds and the visibility was very low from the mist.....

it appeared that soon I need to make the decision!

not a decision! it was "the decision"

as I was thinking if I should go on or return...

it started to snow and wind picking up...

The decision was clear...

no time to waste...Started to climb down the ridge immediately..

I climbed down the boulders carefully, get back on the larger part of the ridge...

than I started to slide on the slope back to the boulder where I passed the night...

when you are climbing down from a mountain its faster...

however, most of the accidents happen on the way back...

During the new day I saw the slope I climbed the day before...

there were at least 10 avalanches small to medium sizes fall on my foot prints

telling me that the danger was so real and it still exist with this extra snow...

slide down as fast as I could as the weather picked up to a blizzard.

the snow was hitting my face and eyes burning with cold...

half sliding, half running I made to the valley floor..

in the valley weather turned to a heavy snowfall ...

Now its a 15 km walk to village...

back to safety 

if you count on that the wolves had a good hunting season..  

 

(Photograph: Antoni Shkraba)