Just before the sunrise the next morning I woke up to strong winds hitting our tent. The new tent of mine is not self-standing, which means that it will collapse if the pegs in the ground give up, which is exactly what happened at around 5:45. We had tried to push the pegs as deep as possible but the combination of a bit soft ground and strong winds proved to be too much and the corner closest to my head collapsed on me. At the same time I got a taste of what would be the most annoying feature of the new tent: condensation on the inner tent that made everything wet it touched. There was so much condensation that at first I thought that the outer fly of the tent was leaking, which was not the case.
I got up and out as fast as I could and tried to stay warm and relatively dry in the howling wind and rain while packing everything. At the time I was really glad that I come prepared for exactly that kind of weather when I go to the mountains because even with the water and wind proof outer layers and down jacket I was starting to feel the cold and had to keep moving to be able to function.
Having packed all the gear we made the short trip with Turo to the tent of Harri and Henkka, who were still hiding in their tent and not even close to being ready to go. We decided to head for the hut we had spent some time at the previous night because the foul weather would have made us really cold had we just stood there. The previous night we had asked the guy working at the hut about a via ferrata route that leads from Zasavska koča (the hut next to which we pitched our tents) to Tržaška koča (the hut we called Tarzan). He had told us that it's a route that is not protected all too well, that only about fifty to a hundred people take it every year and that the exposure there is pretty serious. We didn't quite know what to expect but in the end Harri, Henkka and I decided to give it a try and Turo opted to hike to the Tarzan hut from the southern side of the Kanjavec range.
The 'via ferrata' route wasn't like any other via ferrata route that I've seen before. We didn't gain or lose almost any altitude on the route and it was mostly walking on 'just a path' instead of climbing. But don't take me wrong! The route was absolutely spectacular and there were many, many places where clumsiness would have resulted in certain death. We certainly would have appreciated having more protection in some of the more exposed parts! The weather served us well too because the rocks were dry and the very gentle snowfall only added to the atmosphere, not to the challenges.
Harri on the northern ledges
I didn't exactly trust the protection provided
Harri and Henkka progressing on the northern ledges
There was no one else on the route besides us and we didn't hear the marmots either. In the beginning of the route we saw some chamois climbing on the steep rock walls, like they always do. I wonder if they are ever afraid of heights.
Not all chamois are agile enough it seems.
The Northern Ledges -route took us about three hours, which left us with plenty of sunlight left when we made it to the Tarzan hut. We didn't have much water left when we made it to the hut and the people working there claimed that there's no water available and that we would have to buy it (4.40€ for 1.5l). Somehow with "no water available" they had a tap inside and I saw the staff carrying buckets full of water to the toilets as well. I wouldn't mind if they had told me that they don't want to give the water for free, but why lie about it? Thanks to the relatively heavy rain and snow fall the previous night there were some smaller streams coming down the mountain side so we got our free water anyway.
We knew that we wouldn't have time to make it to Triglav after the lunch so we needed another plan. I told the guys that I'd like to climb Kanjavec, a mountain that we had just circled around by taking the Northern Ledges -route. No one was exactly against my suggestion so that's what we ended up doing. There was a fair bit of snow on the mountain and one steeper section (protected by an old cable) and the slab following it felt quite awkward without crampons. Everyone managed to avoid falling and an hour or so after leaving the Tarzan hut we were standing on top of Kanjavec and taking in the rocky and snowy scenery.
Triglav as seen from Kanjavec
Our group heading down
None of us was very keen to take the same slippery and somewhat dangerous route back so we walked down the other (southern) side of the mountain. We made it back to Tarzan with time to spare. The only problem was that when we were about to start preparing dinner the owners of the hut told us that we couldn't pitch our tents in the "vicinity of the hut". There weren't many good places for pitching tents in the first place and their attitude made things even more difficult. In the end my colleagues slept in the hut and I pitched my tent really close to it after the nightfall.
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