The plan was to do a 3 day / 2 night winter hike with Tomas and my dog, in the mountains of Czech Republic.
According to the weather forecast there was supposedly no more then 5 cm snow, and during the hike it would be around -3 celsius and no new snow would be falling.
With this in mind, we did not bring any gators, snow shoe’s, or those spikey things for under your show to have grip while walking on ice.
We started on Friday evening after parking the car in the village, going up a steep mountain side, for about 2 hours, in about 30 cm snow.. Most of it was frozen, so it was not that terrible. All of it was in the dark, but the moon and stars provided enough light to walk around without any lights.
We did about 4.5 km till we setup camp for the night.
Buddy with my jacket as cover.
Dinner was pasta, sausages, hot gluhwein.
Next morning early, Tomas already packed his stuff, you can still see my setup.
I got a few questions what I bring for the dog to sleep on, so here it is. The plastic tarp is under my hammock, for my backpack, and also for the dog. I always bring a half sleeping pad, for sitting on, and during the night he can sleep on it.
Also his blanket to give him something familiar from home, so he knows it is his spot.
And on our way to the top.
Fresh water stream, not frozen yet.
The walking here was still ok, we did not sink much in the snow, and when we did, it was about 30 cm max.
Sun was rising and the fog clouds started climbing over the mountains.
Here we are on the fist top. This was all frozen hard, and those spikey things for under your shoe would have been great. We fell many times 🙂
On the other side of the valley, you can see a small building, which in fact is quite big. The goal was to go around the valley to the left and go to that building. It’s the border between Czech Republic and Poland.
Small break at a ww2 bunker to take off some layers.
And on our way again.
This is the highest waterfall in Czech Republic.
Walking along the cliff side, this is where it got harder and harder without snowshoe’s. We sank almost every fourth step about 50 cm in the snow.
It was great fun though 🙂
Here it got better again, all frozen and easy to walk.
The border building was getting closer and closer, you can see it on the right side of the pic.
Frozen grass
And rocks
During the walk on the frozen flatlands, it was quite windy, and when we climbed up this small rocky hill, it was not possible to stand straight anymore.
The cold wind blowing hard in our faces, almost destroyed my cigar.
Here we are at the building, and some nice viewpoints. No picture from the actual building itself.
Time to continue. We came form the cliff side on the other side of the valley, and now our path was going down into the valley and follow the river downstream.
While going down this way, we sank even more, sometimes even up to my waist.
From this point you can see that highest waterfall going down.
The original plan was to setup camp somewhere here, to have a view on the waterfall in the morning with the sun shining on it. However, due to all the sinking in the snow etc, we had both soaking wet shoe’s, one shoe of Tomas actually broke, and my pants where all wet. It was 15.00 hours, one good hour day light left.
We could either stay as planned and be for the next 5 hours in in wet socks and shoe’s till we would get into the hammocks, or continue the path, which was only 1 more hour walk to the car.
After lots of doubting, we decided to go home.
On one side, I feel a bit bad about not staying the second night as well, but reality is that it would not be a comfortable evening at all, and next morning our shoe’s would be frozen, and then walk that 1 hour back.
We could have dried our shoe’s next to a fire, but this is one of the most protected area’s, where fire is forbidden.
On the other side, we completed the whole trip, even faster then expected.
On Friday eve a steep 4.5 km, and on Saturday 16.5 km in deep snow, a total of 21 km.
The climbing gear was unused, since it was not really possible with all that snow there.
