The Boss - Witty Adventures of the Dreamer Alpinist Mateja Pate

Slovenian mountaineering literature is enriched by the collection of stories by Mateja Pate with the punchy title Šefica and subtitle Adventures of the Dreamer Alpinist. The new pocket book from Planinska založba openly and self-ironically outlines the life arc of an alpinist from a teenager who wanted to (climb) the whole world to an adult woman whose youthful mountaineering dreams do not come true, but the mountains have filled her life in all life stages. The author, who has a considerably more successful career than can be discerned from the book, skillfully interweaves humor and self-reflection in the fabric of autobiographical stories.

The Slovenian scene is rich in mountaineering literature, but throughout history it has been created almost exclusively by male authors, while Mateja Pate adds her book debut to this mosaic, a mountaineering experience from a female perspective. "Mateja writes openly, self-ironically, entertainingly, and since it is a view of alpinism through women's eyes - there are fewer female alpinists than male ones after all - this writing is all the more valuable," says alpinist Viki Grošelj. They are linked by the year 1975, when Grošelj was a member of the first Slovenian alpinist expedition to the eight-thousander Makalu, and the fates placed the gift of writing in Mateja's cradle - nurtured by both her mother and grandmother, while her father passed on her love for nature and opened the doors to the mountain world for her.



"Alpinism has somewhat rounded the sharp corners, but above all it taught me humility in relation to nature. On its account, I am accustomed to modesty, discomfort, patience - I need very little to be happy. One mountain pasture, a wooden hut, fire, a spotted cup, vast views … no luxury. The most beautiful hotel is under the starry sky with a thousand stars," Mateja says about how alpinism polished her, and about friendships on the same rope she adds: "Very different friendships are forged in the mountains. I ended up on a rope with many different people. Our paths converged and diverged, and with very few we still tie our own knots at the ends of the rope. Also because with age I have become choosy; I want to spend my free time with those who connect us with something more than just a shared past in the walls. Alpinism brought me some of the most important people in my life, including my life partner."

Mateja Pate is a doctor of veterinary sciences who, after graduating in veterinary medicine, lacked the courage to heed the call of writing, preferably about climbing. At the peak of her climbing, she donned a lab coat and the slippers of a veterinary microbiologist and studied bacteria for almost a quarter of a century. Once a passionate alpinist, alpinist instructor, and sports climbing instructor, she now most enjoys stringing letters into stories. Since her high school days, she has been publishing articles on mountaineering themes in magazines for mountain lovers, drawing ideas from her alpinist experiences, knowledge, and lately imagination as well. Her writing spans from professional articles to children's stories and bedtime tales, and as an editor, she is indispensable at Planinski vestnik and Planinska založba. She honed her writing craft in a creative writing school under the mentorship of Bojan Bizjak. A Ljubljanian living in Predmeja, who is also a Feldenkrais method pedagogue and teacher of the somatosensory Sounder Sleep System approach for insomnia relief, best describes herself with a paraphrased Descartes' saying: I write, therefore I am.



"Upon retrospective musing on my clambering on walls and the stories connected to it, I gradually realized that for a literary cross-section of engaging with alpinism, it is not necessary to dazzle with epic adventures from the planet's most famous mountains. That I can be a perfectly average alpinist who has gathered a hefty bundle of stories over years of wandering the mountains; some made me laugh, others gave me pause for thought, others I will never reveal, some still give me chills today, and still others I might one day tell my grandchildren ..." Mateja explains the origin of her literary debut Šefica with the subtitle Adventures of the Dreamer Alpinist right at the welcome in the book. In the central chapters, through short stories and humorous escapades, she outlines her alpinist life arc: the apprenticeship period from basic hill lessons and the moment of truth to early climbing mishaps and accumulating alpinist mileage, the peak also with ill-considered alpinist exploits and twice leading the alpinist section of Planinsko društvo Rašica, where the nickname Šefica stuck to her, then the decline and transition to a new family life with little hills and cubs and, among other things, collecting biological samples on high-alpine pastures, but the balance is slowly tipping back toward the mountains, even some climbing. For the cherry on top, the author gathers a handful of her award-winning short stories in the final chapter Threads of Imagination, while a little dictionary of funny words will come in handy for non-climbing readers. The book is complemented in a caricaturistic style by witty illustrations by Lorella Fermo.

"When I look back into the past, I can't help but feel at least a tiny bit proud that in the now almost half-century history of AO Rašica, I was the first and so far only woman at the head of the gang; and that twice over. That's why the nickname Šefica, whatever reason they gave it to me, flatters me a little," she writes about her nickname that gave the book such a striking title. Apparently, some called her Iron Lady and sometimes Šefla, but she labels herself a dreamer alpinist, "because in a certain period I had very high-flying goals, but too little drive to realize them. Often it stayed at mere ideas and wishes from which nothing concrete developed. And I wasn't a dreamer only in climbing; the more I engage with my life, the more I realize that this dreaminess clings to me in other areas too." She admits that this book likely wouldn't exist either if her friend Marjan Žiberna, a writer and journalist who is also the book's editor along with Vladimir Habjan, hadn't given her the impetus. About it, he wrote: "Humor - real humor, not its lame substitutes - is a rare commodity today. Similarly with self-reflection. The author of this book possesses both in abundance. /.../ An alpinist with a more successful career than the uninformed would glean from the book, and a scientist with a respectable professional path, embarks on a new life chapter with her book debut."



Pate emphasizes that it was her joy of writing that shaped her into the author who so skillfully interweaves humor and self-reflection in the fabric of autobiographical stories. "Humor was placed in my cradle; I caught it from my father and then developed it abundantly in climbing circles that didn't spare teasing. With years, I realized it's not good to take oneself too seriously; if we can sincerely talk about the awkward moments that happened to us and laugh at our own expense, we show breadth of spirit. From my experiences, people appreciate that because they see themselves in the stories. For self-reflection, though, I needed a life upheaval and quite a few years for that chakra to open. Quite a bit of self-work was required to start recognizing myself in the mirror others held up to me. The image has cleared somewhat, but it's still not fully sharp," she reflects honestly.

Mateja Pate, during her approximately ten-year obsession with walls and a few more years of "climbing out," completed around 400 alpinist ascents. She most enjoyed poking around the Julijske Alpe, but curiosity drove her across borders too: to the Dolomites, the French Alps, Greek conglomerate towers, the Visoke Tatre, and granite walls of Norway, North and South America. While they were still freezing, she climbed most classic iced waterfalls in our valleys; the most unforgettable were ascents in all-female teams, not only in waterfalls (e.g., Vikijeva sveča, Stiriofobija, Td-Do route), but also in snow-covered routes (e.g., Slovenska in Triglav, Teranova grapa) and dry rock (Raz Jalovca, Direktna v Štajerski Rinki, Herletova v Ojstrici, Contamine-Labrunie-Vaucher v Aig. de Peigne …). High on the list of most firmly anchored ascents in memory are Triglav classics (Čopov steber, Peternelova smer, Kunaver-Drašlar route), Vzhodni raz El Capitana, routes in towers above the Argentine city of Bariloče, and in the Lofoten mountains. She was left without the summit under Elbrus and Aconcagua, but she gazed from Pyrenean ridges, Central American volcanoes, and New Zealand mountains.

"Finally, I heard the call to action: belay! I peeled myself off the rock shelter and traversed. The view down and up gave me animal momentum; the icy candles and pillars adorning the cliffs looked murderous. I hurried so they wouldn't think to collapse just as I was nearby. Determination fueled by adrenaline paid off, and soon we were together again. Meanwhile, that other thing from the pathophysiology textbook was in full swing: tachycardia - my heart was pounding like a machine gun," we read in her vivid description of climbing the Lucifer waterfall above Gozd Martuljka. The book Šefica does not include all of Mateja's ascents, nor all her greatest alpinist achievements, but only a select few with special emotional charge that she had to record. Between the lines of her stories, "we feel her sensitivity, almost vulnerability, often masked as a joke, as we follow the transformation of a teenager who wanted to (climb) the whole world into an adult woman whose youthful alpinist dreams do not come true, but who discovers within and around herself a vast array of other things that fulfill and enrich her," as Helena Škrl wrote in the book's foreword.



Even Planinski vestnik, Slovenia's oldest magazine, continuously published for 131 years, admits that a quarter century ago she perceived it as a "magazine for grandmas," but the modern mountain lovers' magazine in its new guise so pleasantly surprised her that she has been a member of the editorial board for 23 years: "Because creating content for Vestnik is about love: for mountains, for the written word, for tradition, and ultimately - even if it sounds a bit pathetic - for people who nurture similar love. And for pride in continuing the mission of our ancestors who published the first issue of the magazine in 1895."