Heavy snowfall, cloudy, Heavy snowfall, strong winds… the weather forecast for the Albanian part of Prokletje Mountains has been more then discouraging in the last days. In such conditions we didn’t want to take the risk of climbing and skiing the steep slopes of Prokletje. Therefore, we picked up Durmitor – the limestone beauty of Monte Negro – where the weather forecast promised 1,5 days of nice weather.
During the first half day of “nice weather” we climbed up the Velika Kalica valley in thick fog and strong wind (at least 100km/h) and searched for the small red box – the Debeli Nemet bivouac. Thanks to Martin´s sense of orientation was our search successful. We reached the bivouac 5 minutes before the dusk.
The next day the weather was clear and we saw what we had been afraid of. The wind, which had been circulating in the valley, transported large amounts of snow and deposited it all around, especially in couloirs. It was obvious to us that we should not undertake anything serious in such conditions. Therefore we went for a quite safe tour – the southeast face of Terzin Bogaz (2303m) from which the wind had blown most of the snow away. From the Mala Previja pass we climbed a nice ridge to the summit and skied down the face which is approximately 45 degrees steep and offered hard – concrete like -snow hidden under a thin layer of powder.
Then, before the forecasted heavy snowfall would come, we skied down to the valley. However, the steep faces and narrow couloirs of Durmitor remain in our minds. We must come back here soon!
Now we have to hit the road again because of our plans in eastern Turkey.
Greetings from the rainy coast of Greece!
„Tebe nikdy nelákalo, když jsi byl malej, prokopat se až na dno pískoviště, abys zjistil, co tam je?“