Peaks of Balkans. Day 5: Gjeravica Peak

When we wake up after a cold night in the hut, it is still foggy. There are gaps between the logs of the construction and the cold mountain air had been coming in but it feels more or less dry. I don’t really want to stand up (but do anyway of course).

The fire is already burning, the shoes are half dry from yesterday’s fire action and most of our stuff can stay here today as we are coming back in the evening. Today we are supposed to climb Gjeravica peak, the highest mountain in Kosovo.

My mum’s ankle is still swollen and hurts but she refuses to get a complete rest day and wants to find out if she’s able to walk or not.
As the weather is bad and there is no visibility at all, we are all convinced that we are just going to do an easy hike to the lake under the peak and come back, which would be around 16 km and 6 hours.

So we make our way through the fog in blindness up hill, climbing more and more, loosing the track and finding it again. Around one hour into the hike, my mum turns around. It’s enough for today, walking works, but it’s not great so the rest of the day is going to be a rest day for her. I go on with Ana and Pascual, ascending higher, then descending more than expected and climbing again and descending again.

• 

• 

Around three hours in, I recognize a turning point of the path that I had seen on the map and feel like we should have arrived at the lake. And really: right next to us, laying in the fog, there is the lake. We can only see half of it. It’s not very big nor very cold and we settle down for some lunch.

• 

• 

• 

• 

The group, who had left the guesthouse before us and who we had passed on the way arrives as well. Some of them start climbing the last bit towards the peak. Convinced we are going to chill at the lake and walk home, we take our time. Just to make sure, we ask one of the guides who stays down if he thinks it’s going to clear up, and he reassures us that we won’t have any view and if we climb it it’s just so we can say we’ve been there.
Funnily, exactly this motivates Pascual and me. This was going to be the highest peak of the trail and it’s the highest mountain of Kosovo. We convince Ana and set off towards the summit. The higher we ascent, the more we can see the clouds around us vanish and fly over the pass as ghosty fog monsters but with more and more views and blue spots in the sky. By the time we reach the pass, we already have a clear view of the summit and of two lakes underneath us, (one of which heart-shaped).
Motivated and energized, we climb higher and higher until the summit. We are first.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Gjeravica peak is 2670 m high and offers an incredible view over the mountain landscape, the lakes and the wide flat landscape of Kosovo behind the mountains. It had been all worth it! A nice side effect is the first mobile phone connection since two days. Just in time to keep worried people at home from calling embassies or send a search troup.

The sky clears up more and more and reveals almost the full panorama before we go back. As is usually the case with peaks, the last bit had been steeper and technically more demanding, which I particularly like and the descent is quick and fun for me. I don’t know if it’s because of that weird block of “high caloric emergency food” I ate for breakfast, but I am highly energized until the lake. Somehow, at that point all my missions for the day are accomplished and a huge exhaustion comes over me. The calories are burnt, the goals reached and, anyhow, the way here seemed so quick and short this morning. A quick fill up at a mountain spring and we start making our way back home (trying to be there before the group and get hot water for the shower).

Apparently, everything is easier and seems shorter in the fog because you only see the next few meters ahead of you. In fact, the way back turns out to be eternal and I get more and more tired, sore and hurting.
The valley had completely cleared up during the day and there is even some soft evening sunshine. For the first time, we see where we’ve been living since yesterday. It is beautiful. We see mountain herbs and flowers, cows and sheep grassing with and without their shepherds and a few mountain huts.
As the day before, there are blueberries everywhere and we come across people from the villages collecting them in big buckets in the hills.
After every elevation and crossing to the next valley we think we must see our guesthouse but it is really late when we finally get a glimpse at the first smoking chimneys of the valley and the guesthouse is at the furthest point of it.

• 

• 

• 

Exhausted and with completely destroyed feet, we arrive at half past 6.
The first information I get, is that my mum won’t be able to go on. She had tried it out but the ankle is still swollen and it is not good enough to keep on walking as planned. Now it’s time for me to decide what to do. After a (pretty cold) shower and some ice cold washing I am frozen and shivering and try to warm up next to the fire, thinking about the next days. For dinner there is bean soup and plain rice with cucumbers and tomatoes and I am still indecisive.

It’s getting dark and I have to decide before bedtime because one of the guides of the other group is going up to the telephone rock (one particular rock one hour away where there is phone coverage) tomorrow morning at 6 to call the agency. After some more fire I have a crisis-talk with my mum, a headlamp and some paper and pen in the hut. I am torn between going on for another 6, 5 or 4 days and sad for our common project and for her disappointment. In the end, my mum and I settle that I am going on with Ana and Pascual for another 4 days (originally it would have been another 7). This way she doesn’t have to wait too long for me and we can still see each other. I tell the guide and prepare for a cold night.