Maja Jezerce: Our Toughest and Most Dangerous Climb Ever ... and Fresh Strawberries!!

Day 9: Highest peak of The Cursed Mountains

Today we started the day with muesli enhanced with freshly picked strawberries.

Our goal for today was to ascend about 1500m to the highest peak of Prokletje Mountains - Maja Jezerce. But we had to find water first because we didn’t have any left. We found some near a deserted hut on our way up. The hut was very strange, completely empty, with wind blowing through the roof and broken windows creating weird sounds. This was kind of a mysterious experience and Ala felt quite tight. It was also cloudy and a quite windy which wasn’t really helping with the mood.

To climb, or not to climb...

The weather was quite ok for the walk - cold, windy, but no rain. Still we weren’t sure if we wanted actually to go to the top, because as we ascended the weather was getting worse and worse and all the peaks were hidden in the clouds.

We met a group of another Czechs who tried to climb to the peak the day before, but didn’t make it because of the weather. Then we met some Bulgarians going down who didn’t make it to the top either. They said that they didn’t see the path and that there was a lot of snow on the way, but they said there were really nice views on the way up, so we might enjoy it even though we probably wouldn’t make it all the way up. So we left backpacks on a crossing and decided to give it a try and pick them up on the way back.

The way to the first viewpoint was hard. Steep ascent, crossing snow planes, etc. The weather slightly improved. At least the clouds were higher, but it was still very windy, but we continued to the top.

The way got even harder. Most of the time we had to climb on all four limbs. The wind was making it hard to maintain balance.

Sometimes the fog/clouds made us lose the trail, but we were making steady progress until we could see the cross at the top. Last hundred meters were quite easy as if a reward for our effort.

Review of our lives on the top

We were enjoying the few seconds of view as the wind blew of the clouds and I was thinking how strong and brave @mor is that she made it to the top.

The nice weather lasted only a small moment. But we still stayed there a little longer, enjoying the misty cold and ourselves and we talked about our life, if we were satisfied and how we imagined our future. After a few minutes we were getting really cold and it was also getting late (we rather didn’t check how late it was) so we made for our way down.

Twelve hours on foot

Knowing that we made it to the top, the descent seemed easier than the ascend, but it still cost us a lot of strength. When we finally reached our backpacks, it was already 5:30 PM and we still had a long way to go to the place where we wanted to camp.

First we had to find the trail. Once again it was not easy. Luckily we found it after about 15 minutes of searching and the notion of having the trail made us feel so much safer! Also we were getting last bits of sunshine before it sunk behind the ridge.

The final descent to the campsite took much longer and was much more demanding than we would have wished it to be. We arrived there at about 8:30 PM after having walked for nearly 12 hours. What an achievement! We were so proud of ourselves, but we were also dead tired. We cooked our dinner (again delicious) and fell asleep right afterwards.

Your @hr1 and @mor

If you liked this post, you might also wanna see the Introduction post about our travel. Or see the previous day of the journey.