Beauty and the Beast

Slovenia is a small country: two million inhabitants small to be exact. You can go from corner to corner in 10 hours…on a bike. In a car, it takes just two and a half hours. It’s actually smaller than many capital cities. But its diversity makes up for lack of scale, and being positioned between the Alps and the Adriatic Sea offers a wide spectrum of natural beauty. Connection with the mountains is embedded in our DNA—2.5% of the population are members of a mountaineering club, and there’s a saying you aren’t a true Slovenian if you haven’t stood on top of Triglav, our highest mountain that dominates the Julian Alps Mountain range.

Alpinists are rarer among all these mountaineers. They aren’t satisfied with the easiest way up the mountain. They search for a more vertical challenge and choose climbing up walls rather than walking on trails to reach the top of the mountain. My mom was one of these and joined the Alpine Climbing Club at 45. A mid-life crisis I guess, but I still remember her glow after coming home from climbing trips. After saying I would never follow in her footsteps, of course I did exactly that. In high school climbing was a fun activity that connected me to the outdoors and passionate people. It was a community where I felt accepted and welcomed no matter how I was dressed or what I could afford.

Every alpine club in Slovenia has a school dedicated to teaching alpinism. The schooling takes three years, with an exam at your home club at the end of each year followed by a national exam at the end of the third year. In order to progress in the program, you are required to climb a certain number of winter and summer routes each year, none of them equipped with bolts to keep the adventure alive. The knowledge is passed on by experienced alpinists who volunteer their time to teach. It’s tradition for older generations to share their knowledge and a point of pride for younger climbers to receive an education from them. Another tradition is that the majority of the 51 clubs in the country hold a meeting every Thursday at 8pm to discuss plans, organize trips and form climbing partnerships for the weekend ahead, usually over a cold beer or two.

I was just about to turn 18 in September 2004 when I went to my first alpine climbing school meeting in my hometown Celje. Listening to the heroic stories of elder alpinists humbled and inspired me. I was one of the youngest members, along with another guy a year and a half younger than me, with sky blue eyes and a drawing of a husky on his shirt. Surprisingly, his name was also Luka. Soon we were both properly hooked on climbing and the spirit that accompanied it. We started spending most weekends in a club-owned mountain hut together, listening wide-eyed to other climbers’ stories and learning from the beginner mistakes that everyone has to make. We were the most committed to the craft in our generation, bonded by our hunger for vertical experience. We were climbing 300 days out of the year, and soon we could tackle walls that neither of us could have even imagined back when we were learning how to place our first piton.

Over time our motivations shifted as Luka focused on Himalayan expeditions and I was more driven by challenging rock-climbing projects around the world. But our paths always crossed in our home mountains, at local crags or at Thursday evening club meetings. Even if we don’t rope up for months, everything flows effortlessly when we climb together. Countless days spent approaching, climbing or descending has eliminated the need for words and created a climbing partnership based on instinct, feeling and skill.

Finding challenges that could meet our increasingly demanding taste became harder, especially in a country with multiple generations of devoted alpinists ahead of you. But sometimes the best challenges are right in front of our doorstep; you just need to shift your perspective to see them.

Rjavina is close to the popular Triglav, and its north aspect is a steep, 700-meter alpine wall with a glacier-carved valley leading to it. Perhaps this wall didn’t get much attention because of its proximity to its famous neighbor, or maybe it’s because it’s one of the steepest walls in the Julian Alps and its wild overhangs were off putting to all potential visitors. The idea of trying a new route in the middle of the overhangs piqued our interest and started to transform into a goal. After a period dedicated to training, we finally got our first taste of it. During the first few visits to the wall, we sensed a weakness through a steep yellow band of overhangs and our excitement grew.

It’s rare to experience such exposure in alpine terrain. The yellow limestone wasn’t always as solid as we would have wanted, but managing fragile rock is a necessary skill for climbing in Slovenian mountains. Sometimes we questioned our sanity and commitment to a minimal bolting ethic. With our feet dangling in the air, hanging from pitons we wished could be placed deeper, we often had to remind ourselves, “You were looking for steep and hard, now you found it, so stop complaining and push on.”

We spend countless hours belaying and my mind would often wonder off, thinking about how climbing as a sport, and especially as a lifestyle, has influenced my life. From teaching me patience and humility, to showing me the immense potential of one’s dedication and commitment that can lead to achieving the seemingly impossible goals. That knowledge makes tackling everyday problems easier and gives me belief that, with the right approach, our potential is way higher than we might think. As life keeps changing also does my attitude and motivation towards climbing. Once it was almost an addiction without which life seemed unimaginable, but over 24 years of practice it’s transformed into a stable teacher that offers lessons when asked but doesn’t enslave my mind anymore. That fills me with a feeling of peace and contentment, and I enjoy this part of my career just as much as I did the first thrilling years.

Eighteen visits spread over three seasons offered a variety of days, weather, emotional states and conversations while visiting our overhanging classroom. It might seem a lot, but the whole point of climbing is the journey—the goal is there just to give you a direction. The real gift in doing first ascents is in the process of discovering new terrain along with the feeling of uncertainty that is a crucial component of any adventure. The finished route is just a vague reflection of all the exciting moments the experience had to offer.

In the end, one of our mentors, Marko Prezelj, joined us to take some photos and share good vibes and stories of the previous generation. It seems the only differences between generations are the years and climbing visions. New ways of looking at challenges combined with a higher free climbing level creates ideas and projects that are interesting for the current generation, but in the end all of us live for the experience of adventure that make our fingertips itch and eyes glow.

We decided to name our route Lepotica in zver (Beauty and the Beast) which came from the feelings that arose in us while looking at the project from different sides. A beautiful experience that went beyond climbing, and a true beast from the amount of effort that was put into it. But as always, a name is just a façade, and the core of it is hidden in all the beautiful, hard, exciting, fearful and relieving moments spent before, during and after the whole experience.

It’s been a long and winding road going from two teenagers meeting in an alpine school meeting almost 20 years ago with no idea what we were signing up for to first ascending one of the most difficult alpine routes in Slovenia together. It was special getting to share this experience with a friend whom I have trusted with my life more often than anyone else. But seeing our friendship evolve is the real success, and way more valuable than climbing a steep and scary alpine route. There are endless challenges that life has to offer, but only a handful of deep connections will last the test of time. I’m extremely thankful for ours and am already looking forward to the next phone call with Luka that starts with the familiar, “Hey man, what are you doing next weekend? I was thinking about this line…” followed by an answer without much thought: “I’m in!”