Veľký Choč, January 14th 2006
It only took two tries this time to agree on this, by the way good to the fault, hike-action. First, I was craving "...let`s go..." and only
after a week, the true mountain-spirit showed to be, of course, in me as Krtko the 360° pleaded with me in a way "...we`ll go...", `cause my
reply`d been clear beforehand - to keep everything for the future, we gonna hike.
The date was somewhere around Jan 14th 2006, a darn good term for winter-hiking, and we crammed 80% of the car, namely me,
Miro The Writing, Dudo The Dislocated and Joseph The All-round. A "twist" action had begun. The temperature deeply below zero so we were cutting
the journey time, 90 km roughly, with a "heater" passing round, except the driver, of course. No single cloud in the sky, a last village, Lúčky,
around, you women know what I am talking about, we parked our car and put indispensable habit on. As usual, ha-ha-ha, we hit a wrong path, but since we´d had
some experience with such run-up cracks, we struck the right one in less than half an hour. After all, hadn´t been there this traditional element, we´d probably
never experience the "dive-show" down that slope (see the photo).
Little cracks and giggles, some sips, but in a while we warmed up especially our toes. Why? Well, have a go climbing up a 45 to 50° half-frozen slope.
In about two and a bit of hour we made the saddleback (still an hour to the top), we´re at the guidepost jutting out of snow up to our knees.
Simply, a "frugal" snow-cover.
The trek seemed, and really was, chill-out from here. As we were approaching the summit itself, of a unique hill I know now, neither the tiny group
which had been first there couldn´t spoil our mood. So what, they had ascended from Valaská Dubová after all.
It made us slobbering and we were "tinkling" beyond control as we were spinning around. Once again the nature showed us what a complex "top" alpine
hiking means. Had we watched a breathtaking "scenic" theatre-performance from the top of Ďumbier a year ago, I can´t find an apt expression
for this Choč´s one. It just might go, but I´d have to devote an extra page to it. At an absolute cloudlessness, we were
feasting our eyes on a 360° view of Veľká and Malá Fatra, its Rosutec we´d done in 2004/05 winter,
the frontier dominants of Polsko and Babia hora, the western flank of Tatras with Mount Kriváň poking out provocatively from
behind, the perfectly out-and-out crest of our lower Tatras with Mount Chopok which my brother was on at that time amidst.
We were recalling the Kráľova hoľa scrambling, too, thanks its boast at the far-off end of the ridge (some 60 km like eagle flies), however,
not so far-off from this view at all. Tiny hollows lay below our feet, named Podtatranská, Oravská and others,
and like a spittle on a palm Liptovská Mara and the artificial lake of Orava in them. As if this hadn´t done we were
overlooking four urban formations at the same time - Ružomberok, Dolný Kubín, Liptovský Mikuláš, Martin and others obvious in the distance.
Having been satiated thoroughly we made do even with the descend - the less tempting part of a mountain-hike. Shortly, we were put right once again.
No mother would have such a joy at her baby´s first burp. We slid down an estimated 500 metres on our butts = The Choč´s really worth your
time in winter!!! I can hardly conceive of this in summer. In a single word "COOL". Finally, a classic itinerary item - something which makes guys like
Krtko The 360° chase down the hill most - THE DINNER. For the second time, and last as well, we picked a pull-in in the village of
Potok as an eating destination. Why last time? Well, ONE LEARNS TO ONE´S COST, so you check it out! Each´nd every´s welcome next time, just ...