More and more often I read, both from the humorous and from the slightly more serious side, how the times upon us with this COVID-19 crisis are most suited to people prone to spending their time on the couch, at the computer, to the weirdos, introverts, sloths, lone wolves or whatever you want to call them.
It is obvious then, that the majority of the population will suffer greatly in times of quarantine, staying-at-home and isolation from other people, family and friends. It seems that I was not aware that we were also in this group – this is because our usual leisure activities are almost not at all related to socializing with other people, but spending time outside, in the wild and as less as possible in the house or indoors in general. Although I do not favor the long-term isolation as life itself is not lived only on weekends and the long-term avoidance of leaving home can only have negative consequences in every way, I did not feel particularly affected by the announced measures – if I can escape from time to time in the nature surrounding us!
We do not consider ourselves to be alpinists but the fact is that we are a little bit silly when it comes to mountains😊. This thing with mountains seems to be stronger than religion and all of us who are over our heads in it, mostly with that strange, but good feeling in our guts, look at times like this like a serious threat to our freedom and well-being – being closed off in our four walls, instead of examining the limits of our own endurance and enjoying all the wild and the free, surrounded by grass clearings and pointed peaks of various mountains… ok, I started day-dreaming, let’s go back to reality…
Not knowing that stricter restrictions on all the movement are following, and with the aim of avoiding social contact and spending the day in the mountains, we chose a truly lonely tour of northern Velebit – and we were glad we did because, as it turned out, it was our last hiking trip for a while.
We were on this trail twice, more than 7-8 years ago, and even then like today, it was not a popular trail to hit the Velebit’s karst. The reason is probably because it starts really low, few hundred meters above sea level and the path that leads to Rossi’s hut (shelter) and Premužić’s path is relatively long and has continuous sections of ascending and descending, as it usually is on Velebit’s trails. This time we started from the small village of Velike Brisnice (518 m), which can be reached along the Adriatic highway, turning left at the crossroads for Starigrad near Senj. The Rossi’s hut is about 8 km walk and at some normal pace you will see the roof of the hut in about 3 hours, as well as Pasarić’s hip (1654 m) rising above.
As we always like to plan circular tours today we had drawn up a plan that, apart from the hut, will lead to the summit of Crikvena (1641 m), the Alan mountain hut (1340 m) and back to Velike Brisnice through a path completely unknown to us – from Alan to the Plančica crossing (Babić siča – Rossi’s hut – Velike Brisnice).
At the very beginning it was clear how many people usually choose this place as a starting point – despite the fact that the markings of the path were solid, the low vegetation slowly began to take back what was taken from it. Although we were not keen to hike in the karst and Velebit is not a frequent destination for us, it seemed like it will be a nice day and another fulfilling day in the wild.
Along the way we encountered two chamois who were very interested in us, obviously as much as we were in them, but they did not allow me to shoot them up close with my camera – I could hardly catch their skillful jumps as they moved away from us. They probably wanted to stick to the rules of social distancing because of the coronavirus😁.
The occasional sudden flight of a rocky partridge or the sound of green woodpecker interfered with our thoughts, but also enhanced the impression of a complete natural harmony. With some missed markings and the first snow, we reached the Rossi’s hut.
We took a brief look at the map and the weather and decided to climb the sightseeing peak of Crikvena. The possibility of climbing one of the, so called “hips” nearby (it is an old expression for mountain top or peak in this area), would take us too many hours so we decided not to climb any peak further off our trail today. We would cover over 20 km today and couldn’t waste time even though we started early. The constant up and down hike will be very deceptive and, if you don’t know the route exactly add at least 30 percent more to the approximate calculation – both in terms of time and kilometers. The line on a map may be flat but Velebit certainly isn’t!
We continued on by walking famous Premužić’s path to Alan hut all the time thinking about when will we be back to normal (or rather in the Alps), what our lives will look like if this crisis lasts, and similar life issues. The path to Alan was relatively straight and obviously we had no difficulties when we managed to think about such things during the hikeJ. Soon we arrived at the Alan mountain hut and took our first meal and rest. The first, light fatigue is being felt after walking 16 km. We did not stay long, 10 minutes perhaps, and then moved on – wondering how does this part of the path we have never taken look like. Of course, as it usually happens in life, the return was made up of an incredible number of ascents and descents (about 200-300 m of descents and as many ascents, 2 or 3 times), which was not unusual given that we crossed a whole series of low hills traversing. The view would otherwise be beautiful, but it was a murky day and the islands of Rab and Pag were sadly not shown in their best light.
That light feeling of a descent when you slowly walk downhill was just a faint memory – the numerous ascents on our return did not allow us to breathe and it seemed that this will, after all, be a great workout (besides that it was a wonderful day in wild). At the very end of the trip our Polar watches showed us that we have made almost 2000 meters of ascent and as much of descent, which we could easily confirm by the condition of our knees and feet😊. In addition to this 27 km long trail and a return to Velebit after a long time, we were rewarded with a fantastic sunset on our way to the car…
I can go back to reading books now – I have a debt to some Himalayan adventures which have been gathering dust on the shelf for some time, waiting for me to read them and there is no better time than isolation. Until the next story…