All paths long and winding lead somewhere pacifying

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Our arrival to Slovakia and the pursuing midnight prowl through a towering, decaying sídliště to find the only cheap accommodation which existed in Košice, and the lack of sleep I got, is one of those things which is just best left at a quick description. Should any philosophy MA students wish to write a thesis titled "The emotional equivalent of carving through your midriff with a circular saw", then contact me and I will provide a detailed play by play description. Let me just say that I was extremely glad to have Jitka with me.

I set off alone after having vaguely recovered from it all. Walking through Košice to the station in the morning, I felt myself able to find appreciation in the little things like the churches and fountains, that there was a band playing smooth bossa nova outside one and that a car zoomed past on the dual carriageway busting out Daniel Haaksman at full volume. On the train which I sped onto last minute to Liptovský Mikuláš, I was made to stand outside the toilets for most of the journey as it was so full, but for the last section got chatting with some rather hardcore Leeds United fans who had come for a week in Slovakia to see their team play against Ruzomberok and Košice.

Liptovský Mikuláš greeted me as if I had gone back in time. Even seeing the bus station, the train station, and the scenery on the ride to Demänovská Dolina, immediately reminded me not only of my adventures with Charlie last year, in particular our walk to Demänovská and last minute wussing out at climbing Chopok, of which this was going to be a solo second attempt at getting it right. However, a lot of the memories just included general noise from last summer - flashbacks of pool sessions with my flatmates in Břevnov, the non-stop potraviny there whose late shift runner used to make 5 jokes per second about me, even the smell of my room - all of this came rushing back to me amongst other mundane, forgotten soul peelings like some kind of time capsule. I had really, truly left a part of me here.

Stepping out at Demänovská, even the mountain air was enough to energise me. I chose to tell no one except Jitka until I arrived here that I was about to attempt the 800m ascent to Chopok solo, and even once I did text the social networking world that I was off to "punch God in the face", I defaulted to mention that I was attempting it on roughly 2 hours of torturously heavy on-and-off shut-eye. After the aforementioned unfortunate event in Tokaj, the only feeling I mustered from my higher self was that I needed to test myself before this holiday was over; that I needed to prove to myself that I could achieve something like this. At least, that's how I understand my feeling now. In that horrible moment, the feeling was just "Košice tonight. Chopok tomorrow", and then 5 minutes later "You will either get to the top of the Low Tatras, die trying or regret not trying forever. If you really want to ask whether you should live another day, do it properly."

And so I left my backpack in reception, carrying in my mini-backpack only protection against weather conditions, water and a packet of dried cranberries. The signpost at the bottom of the trail told me that the journey would take 2 hours and 50 minutes. I couldn't risk doing this journey there and back if this were true, as I needed to collect my bag from the tourist information before it closed, so I vowed to go as high as I could. But perhaps luckily, I accidentally abandoned the trail, believing it to lead up a dry piste rather than on its winding, slowly ascending path through the forest.

Walking up this dry piste was the challenge. Ascending a 45 degree hill, with the sun blaring and finally, the fact that some of my emotional strain was turning physical was beginning to release it. Here's the difference and why I looked back on my desperate cry for help in Tokaj as pretty spot on: it's so much easier (at least for me) to see the goal of walking up a physical mountain than walking up an emotional mountain, which is usually a complex equation involving releasing creativity, letting go and generally seeing the positive side to an inherently negative situation. Staying present during an emotional challenge is, I believe, difficult for most of our species, but staying present during a physical challenge? Piece of cake. I just kept looking behind me, at the stunning views of Demänovská, Liptovský Mikuláš and its reservoir, and the fading backdrop of the ridge of the High Tatras, or up at the apparent summit and its defunct skilift shed - the point from whence I could lose myself and scream whatsoever I felt at the world below me. Finally reaching the top which I could see, I felt very light and extremely light headed. But there was a problem - climbing mountains is neverending. This was far from the top. But luckily, I had time.

The top is infact invisible from Demänovská, hidden behind another vast rocky summit whose arterial trail scaled a colossal gorge. I knew now that despite my apparent lack of vertigo, I could not put too much energy into this and had to be careful. At the northern rim of this gorge there was a working chairlift leading back down towards Demänovská, which was enough to tell me that time was not an issue, and that I would be reaching the top of this mountain, or dying in the process, though the latter was now looking extremely unlikely as the summit area had an extremely secure, curvy and well marked rock path leading through it, and was full of other fellow hikers including some as young as 5 or 6.

Just before I reached the top, I swore I saw a cloud of fog obscuring the last traces of a colossal newly uncovered ridge very far south, which seeing as Hungary has just two hills, could only have been the Alps or a hallucination. The summit was packed with tourists taking photos, and checking whether they could see their house using the highly comprehensive brass compass which showed the distances between Chopok and cities in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and major cities around the world. I took my pictures and decided I had had enough, and trundled down to take the chairlifts. Above all though, my time. Contradictory to the signpost, I achieved the climb in 1 hour and 50 minutes. Also, the conditions were not at all as harsh as I believed they would be and, if I had the whole day to myself on this, I would have scaled the ridge to the next peak along. But there was something else I wanted to do tonight.

There was something liberating about the chairlift ride back - perhaps just that you really see how far it was you went. I'm not sure whether doing this has made me feel better or worse, I just know that I feel different now.

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Photos

Demänovská Dolina
The perfect place to go to question your existence.

Chopok
Here we go...

Nearly there?
Don't get too cocky now. The top just seems to keep getting higher.

Civilisation!
Or, civilisation which has gone for a walk.

Destroyed
But satisfied. In a weird way.

Cieľ
Nebo, vezmi mňa domov.