Doggy style: Blisters, screes, sun and nettles

This week was really Belgian. On Sunday I roamed around Vrhnika for almost 4 hours with my friends from highschool (and of course with my most loyal companion) and Sambo got to try out his new equipment – a backpack with a harness that will be useful especially for our two- or three-day hike in the mountains that we're planning for the end of the summer / beginning of fall. On Monday my poor Belgian soul had only two regular walks, which I tried to correct on Tuesday, when we went running for an hour in the usual good company.

Wednesday was meant for hiking. Despite of my scepticism due to the hot weather the last few days and the chosen destination our guide decided to conquer Bivak II once more, a mostly rocky and quite big mass above Mojstrana. Soon I realized that my mountaineering boots weren't that perfect for my foot (it may be partly because they're inherited from Gregor, but I doubt it since he wears only two sizes bigger than I do…). Anyhow, after an hour or so the boot started to rub the area above my heel which I unsuccessfully tried to ignore up until the moment when my mind got occupied by the awareness that we're rising above the trees and that we'll be trapped between the rocks and the sun for the next three hours. I admit, the third ascent to this destination can easily be matched with the first one regarding the difficulty, when they took me onto this negligible 2200 m in the phase of recovery from a severe bronchitis I had… up through the scree! One would think that after such an experience a person, a normal Homo sapiens, could only be fooled once. Since this is the third time I went to this peak I wonder where would Darwin place me in the branches of the tre of evolution. It's probably better that I don't know it.

Even though the temperature of the air fell in reverse proportion to he height we were gaining, the ascent was still very hard in such a sunny and sultry weather and I have to say that this is probably the only time in my life I really sweated like a race horse. The other members of the expedition were in similar condition too; the two human members were marinading in their own juice, like me, and the dogs were grateful for every tiny twig that cast a little piece of shadow. An hour before the top they gladly took the opportunity to cool off in the cold shadow of a rocky cave and we crawled and hopped to a bench over a big area of nettles to take a short brake before the last effort. But you have to admit that Bivak II always redeems itself for the torture of hikers with truly beautiful views and the descent offers a true adrenalin-filled experience with a nicely relaxed finish – half an hour of sliding down the scree, some walking on a rocky surface and then a stroll through the forest to the car on a gently sloping path.

Thursday wasn't that exceptional, so we only had our regular walk and agility training, and today we headed to the mountains again, but this time in a more easy version. We went to Komna, but since we had a limited amount of time we really only went there, but didn't get there. This time we tried out the boots too; they were bought to protect Sambo's feet on our summer vacation on the seaside – last year he got some very nasty cuts when running through the rocks. The weather was very pleasant, sunny and not too hot, and if you're in the woods and near water it's always quite magical anyway… To as many such outings as this one!