From its shadow to its peak

When I first saw Mont Blanc from Courmayeur, miraculously, I felt very calm. It was a cloudy day in early August 2018. The Mont Blanc massif is a sum of many attractive, sharp, and steep mountains. They rise above the ancient glaciers like the spines of a sleeping dragon, shimmering in the sunlight, guarding secrets held in silence for millennia. It gives people a stiff neck when looking up at these magnificent peaks. As people looked up to the mountains, I knelt down to tie my shoes, went off the road, joined one narrow trail, crossed the ramp, drank water from the tap and entered the Monte Bianco National Park. While hiking to the mountain hut of Gonella, I saw many people enjoying the beautiful green fields and small lakes like the eyes of the earth, eating food and simply sitting there in the outdoors. I stop for a moment. “See how these people enjoy the mountains without the need to go up to the summits,” I said to Petar, who was with me on the road to the hut.

Billions of stones in front of my eyes. Billions. This was a glacier long ago, but now it still has the form, just without ice. The glacier is withdrawn from where we are, and now, it's at the place where we need to go. We can see it, and if we go only forward without turning right or left, we will definitely fall into a crevasse. Luckily, before the glacier, the route goes right. Passing billions of stones, we were slowly getting closer to the glacier where we needed to take our curve in life, and that day, too. Pulling the fixed ropes on the rock, placing my feet and getting my body up, I felt the sun was not with us anymore, as my hands were cold. Two bodies moving on a huge rock face, following the marked path, have finally reached the mountain hut of Gonella. Mont Blanc is 4810 meters high, and we are now at 3071 meters. Tomorrow will be a good day for trying to climb the summit, completely alone, as Petar told me that he will not proceed climbing.

One by one, people started to break the silence in the room. I realized it was time to prepare myself for a long climb in the night since it was 01:30 AM. It took no more than 5 minutes to get myself ready, I learned that in the army. Opening the exit door of the hut, I entered another world. A world where the air felt thinner, charged with the energy of the unknown, and the sky above stretched endless, a black canvas painted with a million stars that seemed to whisper the stories of those who had here before me.Moving on the glacier, staying a bit far, I followed one Polish party with the idea that these guys could navigate me to, at least the sun came out. The dark sky started to become dark blue as I climbed a little rocky section, and my trekking pole fell down from my backpack. “Nice"! I told the pole, which will be down there, in the glacier, probably forever. I was feeling very strong and capable of moving even faster, but I told my self to keep my energy for the last summit ridge. One of the Polish guys started to vomit. He got altitude sickness, and his friends decided not to go to the summit. I wish them safety back down, and with the sun, I start to rise my pace towards the summit. Only 300 hundred of elevation gain left to the summit. I was passing parties, and I was learning to drive a car between stands on the polygon. A few steps before the summit, there was very hard ice, and above me, a guide and a client were going down. The guide thought that I needed to move in order to make space for them, but he realised that I was alone and if I went right or left, I would be on very slippery and steep ice. They didn't move! For the sake of humanity, I went right. Making a very exposed icy traverse, I bypassed them and went on the track again. No one was on the summit. Me and the wind.

I took some pictures of the surroundings and thought it was the same as in the Sar Mountains, windy and cold. I stand on the summit for a few more minutes, waiting for my happiness to calm down and for other climbers to come up. Not one, but four of them appear on the horizon of my eyes. I congrats them, as I am an old caveman who has been sitting there forever, and I ask if someone can take a picture of me. They agreed but in exchange for the same help. After I shoot them with their mobile phone camera, I start my journey to Skopje by making the first step down from Mont Blanc. After 11 hours, I returned to Gonella, seeing Petar and two Coca-Cola drinks beside him. If I rationalise the really good enough, the second Coca-Cola is for me. I was right. I rested my legs some time, got my backpack, and, together with Petar, started our long descent to the ramp, where I entered the Monte Bianco National Park. In the plot of these big mountains, we live fully, and our lives become powerful proof of existence.