Ch3: Long way to Italy.

Our group pitched its tents in a meadow overlooking the mountains and started to prepare for climbing tours. On a clipboard each party marked the name of the tour and approximate date of return. A few parties marked the trip to Jalovec.  We didn’t want to be mixed up with them and decided to go on a tour of Špik Mountain to get acclimatized. It was an easy climb and on the way back we started to make plans about the trip to Jalovec that would take us to the Italian border.

A“Špik Mountain” in the centre.
 The name means” Sharp Peak” and it deserves its name.

In fact it was only Franta and me making plans. Eda was very quiet. His behaviour had changed since we boarded the train for Yugoslavia. Usually easy going, talkative and joking all the time, he became quiet and withdrawn. At the outset it did not seem to be very unusual. I also felt tension building inside and was not sure how to cope with it. Franta and I were getting anxious and debating various options we had. Eda did not join us and his usual response was “It’s up to you” or “I don’t care”.

Was he getting scared? Finally I asked him. “What is the matter Eda? Are you getting chicken legs?” He hesitated and then replied “I changed my mind. I am not going with you. I am going back.”

“WHAT? YOU ARE NOT GOING? What happened to you? Are you crazy?You wanted to escape, we are here because of you, you idiot…” I was yelling at him. Then I realized it didn’t make sense to yell. Maybe he would change his mind later. We returned to the camp in subdued mood. I tried to talk to him later but his answers did not make much sense. ” No, he was not afraid. But his mother was sick; his parents would be left alone, without help. He had a girlfriend…”

What are we going to do now? I talked about it with Franta. “To hell with Eda, if you go, I will go with you,” he told me. I spent restless night thinking about what I should do. If I returned, I could picture the next thirty years of my life.  A few more years of climbing and fun in the club and then I would probably get married. My life would revolve around family, getting an apartment, saving money for a holiday at the Black Sea and dreaming of getting a car. I would probably be stuck in a dead end job. And each time something went wrong, I would blame myself for screwing up my life, because when the chips were down, I chickened out, I didn't have the guts.

“I am going” I told Franta the next morning.  So, we started to make preparations. I was not angry with Eda any more, I felt sorry for him. Eda was now more relaxed; a great burden had fallen from his shoulders. We decided to split. His excuse would be that he sprained his ankle and couldn't climb. To avoid a search party looking for us because we did not return back from climbing, we gave Eda a note saying “Do not to look for us, we went to Italy”. Eda would “discover” this note in a knapsack we left behind in the tent.
There were still other parties going to Jalovec so we went on another tour. Our window of opportunity came just three days before our group would be leaving to spend a week at the Adriatic sea.

Hotel Tamara with Jalovec and the gully we had to climb. The building at the rear is all that remains of the Border Guards barracks.

Getting to Jalovec was not that easy. First was a long hike from our camp to Gozd Martuljek, then by train to Rateče. From there a 10 km hike on dirt road to Jalovec.   

Franta was sweating under his big backpack. The road ended at a set of barracks manned by the Border Guards.  Nearby was a tourist hotel, Tamara. Behind it we could see a tent and VW car. The car had Austrian licence plates and inside was climbing gear. They were also climbers, so we pitched our tent beside them. Jalovec, our destination, was clearly visible with a long, steep, gully.
“You can’t climb that gully with your bag” I told Franta “You would have to make three or four trips. Why don’t you leave some of your stuff here? Go light like me.” “Either everything goes with me or I don’t go.”   Franta snapped at me. The strain was starting to show.

The Austrian climbers returned so I went over to say hi. They spoke English so I tried to carry on conversation with them. It went surprisingly well and eventually I told them that we wanted to escape. That really perked up their ears; they had never seen a refugee before. Looking at Franta sorting his enormous load I asked them if they would help us and take some of our belongings with them. No problem. One gave us the address of his mother in Feldkirch and we put Franta’s stuff in their Volkswagen. They wished us good luck and left. 

It was getting late when we saw a police car with flashing lights. Then the siren was turned on and the car was heading directly to us. We both froze. Eda squealed! There was nothing we could do. At the last moment the brakes screeched and the car turned away. The soldier behind the steering wheel looked at us grinning , happy that he scared the shit out of us.

Next day we packed food, climbing gear and other heavy stuff and carried it to the top of the gully where we made a cache. The plan was to get up very early  and make a fast trip to the cache.  We would need a whole day to climb the ridge to Mangart and then follow the path into Italian side.

I was dozing on the sleeping bag in the tent when I heard “Hi, what are you doing here?” It was a party from our camp returning from Jalovec.
“We are going to climb Jalovec tomorrow morning.” I replied. 
“You can’t do it. Today was the last climbing day. Tomorrow we are packing and cleaning up the camp. Next day we are all heading to the Adriatic Sea. You better go with us.” The leader of the party was the minder and he was quite pushy. But he was right and we could not argue with him. We packed the tent and sleeping bags, luckily nobody noticed that we didn’t have any climbing gear with us, and went with the party back to the camp. When Eda saw us, he broke into a happy grin. But we were absolutely crushed. It would now be almost impossible to get away from the group. 

Then we heard some commotion in the camp. Three climbers just return from a trip to Lake Bled.  “It is so beautiful there. Clear blue water, an island with a monastery in the middle, many tourists, even Americans. You should go there” they urged anybody who would listen “You can catch the afternoon train to Jesenice. The bus for Bled leaves every hour. You could return tomorrow morning.”

Lake Bled is photographer's dream.

This was our chance! " I will go with Franta, we are just killing time here anyway” I said, hoping that nobody would join us. We signed the clipboard, grabbed the knapsacks, somebody gave us money to buy him postcards and we hurried to Gozd Martuljek to catch the train. Lake Bled was truly beautiful. But we had only two hours to look around, take some pictures and catch the bus to Jesenice. From there would take the night train to Gozd Martuljek and instead getting off continue to Rateče. From there it would be a familiar hike to Jalovec.

In Jesenice was a big steel mill. Some of our Slovenian climbing friends from Gozd Martuljek worked there. In their free time they would come to our camp, give us tips and advice about different climbing routes or just to gossip. How did we communicate with each other? We both spoke Slavic languages that are similar. And everybody learned Russian in school. So speaking Czech-Slovene-Russian mix we managed quite well.

 One of the climbers that became our mentor was Branko. He knew the area very well and was also a militia Border Guard. He worked the afternoon shift in the Mill and would be on the same train. That made us a little cautious and we had to make sure that he would not see us.

When the train arrived we snuck into the last coach and took empty seats. It was a smoker and the air was hazy with cigarette smoke. Franta absolutely hated smoking. After few minutes he started to stir. “I am not staying here, it’s too smoky. I am going to the non smoker.”

“Don’t be stupid, you could run into Branko” I told him. But Franta was stubborn and left the coach. When the train was near Gozd Martuljek I got up and walked through the train, looking for Franta. The next two coaches were smokers. In the following one I found Franta, sitting across from Branko, having restrained conversation with him. Branko started to get up, “Gozd Martuljek coming up” he announced.

“Now you find some excuse why we are not getting off here.” I was snarled  at Franta who was suddenly speechless. Train stopped, Franta gave Branko postcards of Bled, mumbled something we have to go back to Jalovec and almost pushed puzzled Branko out of the train. The train arrived to Rateče and we started to hike. I was mad at Franta and was wondering what Branko would think about our strange behaviour. He knew our group was leaving next day.

Suddenly there was a shout “HALT!!” and lights shone into our eyes. The Border Patrol!  That's it! Our luck had run out.  “Dokumenty!” We passed our passports and the visa slips. The three soldiers were talking among themselves. “Where are you going?” “We are mountain climbers. We are going to climb Jalovec. We want to start early in the morning” we replied.

More talking, then one gave us back our passports and said “You can go now. Good luck and happy climbing.” 

Next chapter #4: IN ITALY.

Road to Jalovec goes by a ski jump built for the 1984 Winter Olympic Games in Sarajevo.