It’s a weekend day, and I’m standing on a street with Martin and shooting. I’m trying to persuade him for like a 15th time to go with me to the mountains to shoot a super cool video. I’m telling him for half an hour, how the weather is supposed to be beautiful and that the next weekend will be quite warm and that there is no snow anymore, and he’s telling me that he would freeze even at 10°C and that he hates mountains. But after half an hour, he says,
“Alright, I’ll go.”
I’m looking at webcams on Monday how it is looking like in Fatra mountains in Slovakia, because I made up all the stuff about warm weather and no snow to convince him. I had no clue whether there is still snow or not. I’m looking at Chleb and Krivan, the two mountains, that came to my head first. It was foggy on Chleb and there were about two meters of snow and -8°C at Krivan. Damnnn!
What am I gonna do now?
If I tell him, he will call it off immediately, and if I don’t tell him and we come there, he will kill me first and then probably leave to Prague with the first bus. I’m choosing to wait until Thursday.
It’s Thursday night and I’m looking at webcams again. The snow kinda melted and the temperature said 5°C. I’m informing him that the conditions are ideal. I’m finding out that he didn’t change his mind about going and I’m starting to pack. Around 2AM, I’m getting into my bed and setting an alarm clock for 4:30AM.
It’s Friday, 4:45AM, and after snoozing the alarm clock like 5 times, I’m crawling from bed in my zombie mode. I have 15 minutes to get out of the apartment. I’m picking up Martin in his office, where we’re loading my car with wattboards, drones and cameras. His outfit is suggesting we’re going to Siberia. Next stop is at Krč where we’re switching cars. We had a lot of stuff, so we needed a bigger car. I booked a Skoda Octavia RS through HoppyGoapp. By the way, this is a cool Czech carsharing start-up, so when you have a small car like me (or none) and you need to go somewhere, your problem is solved in two minutes with their app.
We’re loading the new car again, handing out the keys, Martin is taking charge of the wheel and at 6:15AM we’re already rocking the highway 1 and discussing the video we’ll be making.
The plan is that we’ll get to Vratna, where there is a beautiful mountain road, situated between gorges and we’ll make the first shots on wattboards there. Then we’ll go to the car park below the cable car station and get a ride to Snilovske sedlo, from where it takes just an hour to the top of Krivan.
Before we left Prague, I assured myself three times that the cable car was really in service.
On the way back from Krivan we’ll do a short hike to Chleb, from where there is a beautiful view of Rozsutec and the entire valley. Back at Snilovské sedlo we’ll set up a tent, sleep there and in the morning we’ll take the first ride down.
Anyways, after a while we’re getting to Vratna, we’re stopping the car and pulling out the boards. We’re riding through the forest and shooting on the drone.
After an hour of fun, we’re packing and move on to the cable car station. The cable car is running, so I’m a little relieved that it really is in operation. Carefully we’re packing everything for the night and going to the platform. However, the door of the building doesn’t want to open. There’s a dude coming out of the side entrance and informing us that they have
“some technical problems and the cable car will be open to the public tomorrow.”
We have to change the plan completely. It takes about 4 hours to hike up to Krivan without using the cable car and we don’t have time for that since it’s already 4PM. I’m looking at the map, which route would take less than four hours. We’re deciding for Poludňový Grúň, where we should be in two hours, but we have to leave our backpacks with the tent in the car in order to be light & fast.
So where do we sleep?
I have one more option in mind. There is a place called Sulovské skály nearby, where somewhere a certain architect built a piece of art called “Visual Pyramid”. It’s in a field, so we could stay somewhere there. I mean, if there’s a monument, it can’t be private property. Martin enthusiastically agrees, and we’re hitting the trail to Poludňový Grúň.
As snow was melting last week, we’re constantly falling into the mud because it’s super slippery. In less than two hours we’re proudly standing on the summit.
Alone.
After fifteen minutes of enjoying the Slovak landscape, silence, fresh air and sunshine, we’re the trail again and running (more like sliding) down to the car.
We are driving to Súlov, where we’re parking the car on the edge of the village, and starting to walk towards this pyramid. I was a bit worried that there will be more people having the same idea as us, but to our surprise we are all alone at this architectural gem, so we’re
spreading the sleeping bags right inside this “building”.
The sun is already setting and it’s getting dark. I’m pulling out the headlamps, opening a bottle of champagne, and starting to cook some dinner. Of course, I took a stove and my genius outdoor bowls and spoons.
Martin is starting to understand why I took a 65L backpack and he has a 20L backpack.
It’s 10PM and there are no clouds on the sky, so we can see all the stars in the world. Even some of them are shooting stars. So we’re drinking this Slovak champagne with the label “President” and talking about life. It’s getting cold, so we’re moving into our sleeping bags. Martin is carefully putting the empty bottle in front of our sleeping bags, saying,
“If someone wants to kill us or something, he’s gonna trip over that bottle and that will wake us up.”
Next to our heads he’s preparing two pepper sprays in case the attacker misses the bottle.
We’re waking up in the morning at sunrise, but since it’s super cold, we don’t really feel like getting out of the warm sleeping bags, so we’re just chilling for a while (Martin’s chilling, I’m sleeping). Eventually, we’re getting out and I’m reheating the stove again.
I’m sipping hot chocolate and watching the show we missed yesterday due to darkness.
There is still no one around.
We’re packing and running back down to the car and we’re starting to head to Prague, but after going over all the shot, we’re finding out that one is missing. So we’re turning on Google maps and looking for a forest, where we’d shoot the last shot. We’re finding one nearby, parking the car on the side of this road and
pulling the boards out of the trunk. This time we’re lighting two smoke flares.
On Saturday, we’re arriving in Prague around 3PM, but we have to stop at a gas station to clean the car from mud, dust, crumbs and grass. At four, we’re returning the car and hurrying home to take a shower because
we both smell like we haven’t washed for a month.
Martin has a birthday party that evening. I actually forgot about his birthday a few days earlier. Best friend ever, right?! Haha.
And that’s how our adventure ends and I can’t wait to see how the video turns out. This time it’s gonna be in co-production with Mr. Klesnil! 🙂 Are you as excited as I am? :)))
E.