| JusAvgustin6. 11. 2011 14:42:23 |
This is a crazy round, I said around 2am, in 4 hours I'm off climbing! And we were still playing till 3am... Oh man, in 2.5 hours I gotta get up... Ah, I'll go direct! And so it was. At 6am he picks me up at P in Radovljica, we rush to Ljubelj from there along the muddy track to the hut on Zelenica. NE ridge of Vrtača, thing that's been brewing in our heads for a long time, nice route, great exposure, dihedral à la Martuljek (but far from big M). Three pitches of delight in the sun, rays caressing the face and rock warm...
Harsh reality hits us at 9am! Scottish conditions! Fog, rain spray, wet rock, slippery, especially strong wind! Do we go? Sure, we go! I didn't hike to the notch between Z and V for nothing. In this case wet scrub would fit better than Dry, drops sticking to my sneaker and soon I'm soaked to the skin. It's cold, fog surrounding us is thick, damp and endless. Maybe better at the notch! Devil take it! Even worse! We glance at each other, of course SVA! We climb the entry slab though "only" II. slippery and the rock is wet/greasy. To the ledge linking cairn and belay somehow dry, ledge wet as a church mouse! Jam shoe into crack and it succeeds! Cairn! Belay in fog, all around us gray and gloomy mood, but old man! we climb, come on cheer up! Second pitch. Dihedral that's hard to find, carefully we search footholds, holds slip but we continue to the belay. There I jam two cams and connect them with slings. Climb ahead to the ledge, rope out... hammer nut, place cam and yell to Matej. 3rd pitch, everything changes, clouds break, rock dried and surprisingly solid, we continue onsight and top out 20m from main summit (Slovenian). Sun warms chilled hands and faces, still blowing like hell! But sun, clouds racing, whole ridge appears. Couple from J path joins us. We chat, eat snack and chug coffee. Pack gear and head to valley, of course pig pack also experienced a lot of adrenaline and cold this way. But it survived. Another PN route, another Šodrovska classic!
WARNING! Upper II grade climbing, crumbly, loaded. In our case wet, mostly friction. Route unequipped, gorgeous, really though all you see are tips of chilled fingers in fleece gloves. Nothing left in wall this route. Strongly recommend in sun
Climbed for you M&P&J, route done in good hour.
P.S. didn't know parking (P) in Dry scrub
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