Marathon
Saturday, November 2. Paul again takes us to the hills. The climb is suppose to be short but intense. Up to the height of 800 meters.
These hills look like real mountains covered with pine forest. It is easy to get lost. I do not want to join Charlie's group. Charlie is a charming American, but his group does not conquer pinnacles. They slowly make it half of the way, enjoy long tea breaks and come back to their cars the earliest.
I decide to go with the first group. With Paul, that sets a pace so there is neither time to take photos, nor to look around.
Maybe that's why eyes tightly grasp every detail, the magnificence of each shot and then put it in a memory treasure box in that perfect form as it comes into sight.
A blurred grey sky gently lowers onto the dull chrome pines topped with silver frost. A nearby hill thickens with its dark, winter green touched by cold. An intense green fence sticks out of the clay soil and frames the scenery. On the right a wide path paved with heavy golden grass that shows through patches of snow goes up. Snow spotted ground even here, at the foot of the hill. A few hundred meters up it powdered trunks and branches of pine trees. Powdered woods seem unreal, illusory, infinite. Rusty gold vanishes under the layers of snow; boots beat the loose soil out. The ascent is not so steep to be dangerous, but a thin snow cover makes it slippery. And the pace that Paul set turns it into a test of endurance. A test that will last all four hours. Later, risking on a steep downhill, being fast, afraid to lose sight of those who walked ahead, I suddenly realize that the ascent was easier than it seemed. That to rush down is much more dangerous than with a hard beating heart to climb up; and my eyes take in just a square meter of ground.
At one moment I lift up my head. Thin shimmering pines, fading birches. My hand grasps a twig and fractures it with crisp cracking sound. The snow cover is thicker but does not hide protruding rocks and rich verdant moss. The slope becomes rockier. Suddenly, on my left, a formation of grey snow-covered boulders show up. The unexpected similarity to the Carpathian Mountains strikes me. This impression follows me till the end of the journey.
The ascent becomes steeper, the stones larger. We clamber up on the wet, snowy, slippery boulders. Aluminum no longer penetrates the soft ground, but clangs gliding down a rock. It becomes more difficult to find support. But speed does not cease.
An unexpected stop. Minutes of respite and gulps of cold water. A brief look grasps an ideal arch of a bent birch, a Spaniard’s tousled hair, pale grey sky. Trees drift and swirl. A sudden distance change does not let a pupil adjust focus. However, it is no longer needed. It is time to move.
Someone shouts. I feel rather than see a wave of a hand. I quickly turn my head in the indicated direction. A brief look. Memorize a picture. A bluish clearance between trees, a patch of the sky, and the distant horizon. Stripes of autumn red on the land. The flashing surface of a lake. The deep perspective gives an instant feeling of height and brings back to infinity. Memory fixes a shot.
A little later another vast expanse -between the tops of the trees there suddenly appears steppe, near the horizon - a thick cover of ultramarine. Another not captured shot.
While Paul defines the direction, I quickly absorb ultramarine distance and take it away with me.
We are on the peak.
Beneath, far away is a large still lake. The lusterless turquoise frozen surface is dim under the shadow. Then, there is another smoothness. Swathed in the dense shade of clouds it seems from a distance a slice of frozen unwashed glass. The rusty rubiginous steppe behind the lake, completely covered with ultramarine, calls with its unusual gentleness. The horizon is blurred with ultramarine haze.
Straight in front of us is another hill. The stones are piled on one another with ease of interchanged chess. The bright spots of ocher and umber mix with the frosty grey roughness. A plain geometric pattern of shadows in crevices creates rhythm. Pine trees frame the rock and rise upward as if willing to pierce the sky. Everything is covered with frost and dusk white. Stones appear illusory and mysterious. Tales of Lapland come to mind.
Wind. A strong wind at the top of the hill. To stand on slippery boulders becomes dangerous. The hands are cold. I have no wish to hurry for a camera. I step a little lower and clasp a rough body of a pine. The needles are pale, frightened by the frost. In between are clumps of frozen snow.
Paul's hat is getting lost between the trunks. We run non-stop down to the lake. There will be a short break for lunch.
I jump from one rock onto another, for a split second managing to amaze myself that i still have not tripped and not twisted my foot. I maneuver between the pines, almost sliding down on a steep slope. One Paul’s stride is three of mine. I have to run. Sometimes I manage to cut corners and reduce the distance for a couple of meters. But in a few minutes I lose sight of Paul again. I feel like a marathon runner, hurrying with an important dispatch to local goblins.
Halt. I lower my backpack on the rough stone a bit away from the other partakers. Do not feel like talking. Tired and aloof I stare over the lake adjusting eyes to the distance.
In a half an hour there will be a quick march. But this is the easiest part of the way. And there, on a completely flat area of the forest, between thin pines a huge, rough, moss-covered boulder suddenly will roll out. Exactly as in the Carpathian - a thought will blink again...
And then, on a motorway - our last five hundred meters to the parking lot - I would run in the middle of the road, speeding up, a sail filled with the wind and a glider soaring in the air.
Hoora-a-ay-y-y....!
These hills look like real mountains covered with pine forest. It is easy to get lost. I do not want to join Charlie's group. Charlie is a charming American, but his group does not conquer pinnacles. They slowly make it half of the way, enjoy long tea breaks and come back to their cars the earliest.
I decide to go with the first group. With Paul, that sets a pace so there is neither time to take photos, nor to look around.
Maybe that's why eyes tightly grasp every detail, the magnificence of each shot and then put it in a memory treasure box in that perfect form as it comes into sight.
A blurred grey sky gently lowers onto the dull chrome pines topped with silver frost. A nearby hill thickens with its dark, winter green touched by cold. An intense green fence sticks out of the clay soil and frames the scenery. On the right a wide path paved with heavy golden grass that shows through patches of snow goes up. Snow spotted ground even here, at the foot of the hill. A few hundred meters up it powdered trunks and branches of pine trees. Powdered woods seem unreal, illusory, infinite. Rusty gold vanishes under the layers of snow; boots beat the loose soil out. The ascent is not so steep to be dangerous, but a thin snow cover makes it slippery. And the pace that Paul set turns it into a test of endurance. A test that will last all four hours. Later, risking on a steep downhill, being fast, afraid to lose sight of those who walked ahead, I suddenly realize that the ascent was easier than it seemed. That to rush down is much more dangerous than with a hard beating heart to climb up; and my eyes take in just a square meter of ground.
At one moment I lift up my head. Thin shimmering pines, fading birches. My hand grasps a twig and fractures it with crisp cracking sound. The snow cover is thicker but does not hide protruding rocks and rich verdant moss. The slope becomes rockier. Suddenly, on my left, a formation of grey snow-covered boulders show up. The unexpected similarity to the Carpathian Mountains strikes me. This impression follows me till the end of the journey.
The ascent becomes steeper, the stones larger. We clamber up on the wet, snowy, slippery boulders. Aluminum no longer penetrates the soft ground, but clangs gliding down a rock. It becomes more difficult to find support. But speed does not cease.
An unexpected stop. Minutes of respite and gulps of cold water. A brief look grasps an ideal arch of a bent birch, a Spaniard’s tousled hair, pale grey sky. Trees drift and swirl. A sudden distance change does not let a pupil adjust focus. However, it is no longer needed. It is time to move.
Someone shouts. I feel rather than see a wave of a hand. I quickly turn my head in the indicated direction. A brief look. Memorize a picture. A bluish clearance between trees, a patch of the sky, and the distant horizon. Stripes of autumn red on the land. The flashing surface of a lake. The deep perspective gives an instant feeling of height and brings back to infinity. Memory fixes a shot.
A little later another vast expanse -between the tops of the trees there suddenly appears steppe, near the horizon - a thick cover of ultramarine. Another not captured shot.
While Paul defines the direction, I quickly absorb ultramarine distance and take it away with me.
We are on the peak.
Beneath, far away is a large still lake. The lusterless turquoise frozen surface is dim under the shadow. Then, there is another smoothness. Swathed in the dense shade of clouds it seems from a distance a slice of frozen unwashed glass. The rusty rubiginous steppe behind the lake, completely covered with ultramarine, calls with its unusual gentleness. The horizon is blurred with ultramarine haze.
Straight in front of us is another hill. The stones are piled on one another with ease of interchanged chess. The bright spots of ocher and umber mix with the frosty grey roughness. A plain geometric pattern of shadows in crevices creates rhythm. Pine trees frame the rock and rise upward as if willing to pierce the sky. Everything is covered with frost and dusk white. Stones appear illusory and mysterious. Tales of Lapland come to mind.
Wind. A strong wind at the top of the hill. To stand on slippery boulders becomes dangerous. The hands are cold. I have no wish to hurry for a camera. I step a little lower and clasp a rough body of a pine. The needles are pale, frightened by the frost. In between are clumps of frozen snow.
Paul's hat is getting lost between the trunks. We run non-stop down to the lake. There will be a short break for lunch.
I jump from one rock onto another, for a split second managing to amaze myself that i still have not tripped and not twisted my foot. I maneuver between the pines, almost sliding down on a steep slope. One Paul’s stride is three of mine. I have to run. Sometimes I manage to cut corners and reduce the distance for a couple of meters. But in a few minutes I lose sight of Paul again. I feel like a marathon runner, hurrying with an important dispatch to local goblins.
Halt. I lower my backpack on the rough stone a bit away from the other partakers. Do not feel like talking. Tired and aloof I stare over the lake adjusting eyes to the distance.
In a half an hour there will be a quick march. But this is the easiest part of the way. And there, on a completely flat area of the forest, between thin pines a huge, rough, moss-covered boulder suddenly will roll out. Exactly as in the Carpathian - a thought will blink again...
And then, on a motorway - our last five hundred meters to the parking lot - I would run in the middle of the road, speeding up, a sail filled with the wind and a glider soaring in the air.
Hoora-a-ay-y-y....!