Hiking through deep snow on Povlen

If you are mountain lover come with me on this trip.
Every beginner have to know before going to the mountains that he must be prepared to walk all day and have strength and face it out with himself cause this is not “can or can not” physically, this is more mental readiness.
Before you go, you need to spend some money ofcourse, cause this beauty costs. Whenever you go, you need to have trekking poles because going downhill doesn’t have to be an uphill battle. If you don’t want to waste money or you don’t have any right now, find some stick, it will prevent you from slipping in changing conditions and keep your knees happy along the way.

Second thing and probably the most important are shoes. You need to find the most comfortable one and also best for ankle support. They need to be waterproof, but breathable. I also recommend you that you look for one that have vibram soles, which prevent sliding. First time when I went to the mountains, I was wearing my boots and that was huge mistake, believe me. So, save your money for shoes.

Third thing that you need but depends on weather forecast are gaiters. They will save you from mud and prevent falling snow in your shoes.
Next thing that you need are jacket and pants, but I believe that jacket is much more important. It needs to be waterproof and windproof.

If it snows you know that you need cap and gloves, you don’t need me to tell you that :) Very important thing, don’t wear woolen gloves, like I did on my second climbing, cause it didn’t save my fingers properly. Be smarter :)

Now, we can go to Povlen, mountain in western Serbia, located thirty kilometers west of Valjevo. The three most important peaks are Small Povlen (1,347 m (4,419 ft)), Middle Povlen (1,301 m (4,268 ft)) and Big Povlen (1,271 m (4,170 ft)), which is, ironically, the lowest. :) Serbian humor…

Our start is always Belgrade. We traveled about 3-3.5h to Povlen because the road was a bit slippery. More people were supposed to go, but it was snowing all day before and all night and a lot of people have canceled at five to twelve. I believe that they were scared of catching cold, but it was my first snow experience and my will was immense. Only thing that crossed my mind was wolf, but hiking guide convinced me that there is no need to worry. So, instead of big group, it was us 13, 8 older and younger men, one 6 year old boy, 2 elderly ladies, one young woman and me. Then I realized that smaller groups are better. You can meet people better and talk while walking and if you are in bigger group, you are surely with some friend or brother/sister and you don’t need to speak to anyone else. I didn’t have signal all day, and also didn’t have need to look at my phone even for once….that’s how much I enjoyed.

We start at 10 o clock if I remember well. First we walk for hour maybe hour and half. Then we stop at the mountain hut for a cup of tea and to use bathroom if someone had need to. People from there didn’ have
electricity, cause storm did her thing night before. Inspite of that they were preparing bean soup and cherry pie for us.

These landscapes take my breath away again while I’m posting this and I just want one through back. :)

We were on our way again. It was very windy, but after one or maybe two hours we made it to our first peak, called Small Povlen but it is the highest one. This belfry was on our way to the top and church was on the left and people were resting there so I didn’t picture that

We meet two colleagues from another mountaineering club and they join us. Progress was slow. We needed to unblock our path. It’s very hard to climb up through the snow. It was up to my knees, so….:)
I need to say that 6years old kid was hero of the day. There was no moment when he said “dad, I’ m tired”. No, he decided to climb up and he promised his dad at the beginning that he will hold out and he did.

I have pictures of us at the top but I’m not sure that I am allowed to put them here, hope you understand. I forgot to tell you that we met with another hikers at the first peak. They are also from Belgrade. We had small chitchat and we were getting cold because we climbed up first, so we needed to move on.

Moving to the Middle Povlen was a little bit easier. I was almost at the end of the column, so my way was cleaner. View from the top (second one) was misty, but breathtaking anyway.

After second peak we had to decide do we have time to reach third one. It became darker. We decided to climb. In my mind was only food and that bean soup. :)
We also needed to decide which path we are gonna go to the third peak and we pick harder because we wanted to save time and to climb down before dark. It was the hardest one. There were many stones, so it was tricky. We of course made it.

I remember that we were down at 16 o’clock. We meet again our colleagues from the other club. They just finished their dinner and were on their way to the bus.
When I felt warmth and mulled wine, my heart was full and then I felt how strong I was and how happy I will be when I reach something higher

I recommend everybody this experience, whether snow or not, you should try at least. I hope you will enjoy looking these photos as much as I did photographing that day.

link to map http://duskoopacic.blogspot.rs/2013/10/srbija-povlen-veliki-srednji-mali.html

If you like my post feel free to comment and suggest which mountain should i visit next time. :)