The Tevno Lake shelter in winter looks like an alien place. Located high above sea level, one feels so close to the stars that it is almost frightening, but also somehow inspiring. Back on the road, back in the mountains, those of you who have seen my other posts probably already know how much I love mountains and hiking in them. In fact, can I call them walks? For most people, camping, hiking in the mountains is something that doesn't appeal to them. On the contrary, they consider people who like to spend time in nature as abnormal. Of course this statement does not apply to me.
If someone asks me why I love the mountains and look to spend every free minute climbing another peak, my answer would be this:
"It brings me peace, motivation and amazing moments."
When planning the hike, we decided that we wanted to make this trip as difficult as possible. And that was the reason why we chose the route that starts from Bezbog hut and goes to Tevno Lake shelter. It is considered to be the most difficult route in summer, and we decided to do it in winter.
As always, this wasn't enough and we decided to complicate our route even more by not catching the chairlift that would have taken us to Bezbog hut. Of course we decided to walk this distance, which was not small at all.
In fact, this was the least stressful part of our transition. In the next 10 hours we had many moments of despair and thinking over the options of whether or not to turn back. But as you will see, we endured the mental and physical fatigue and made it to our end point - Tevno Lake Shelter.
The usual route that we walk in about 4 and a half hours, maximum 5, turned into a 10-hour hike. The reason for this was the big snow drifts and the unpaved road. In fact, we were the first visitors to the Tevno Lake shelter.
The breaks we took during the whole hike seemed countless to me. We took ten steps and stopped to rest for 1-2 minutes. At the end the fatigue was very great. Nevertheless, we managed to withstand the adverse conditions and reached the Belemeto Cirque.
Starving as wolves
We sat down at the tables and immediately began setting the table. It was a good thing we had bought some essentials from the store because once we reached the Tevno Lake shelter, we found the hut and lake buried under snow.
There's nothing better that hot tea in the winter
The only thing that helped us determine where the lake was was the slightly darker color of the ground in that area. In the picture below you can see.
Finally seeing part of the shelter. Everything else is under the snow
Beautiful sunset, isn't it?
It wasn't long before we reached the shelter, but again there was no time to rest. The front door was covered with snow and we had to kick the snow out to get in. Within 30 minutes we managed to do this job and were already warm in the hut.
We rested a bit and decided to climb a bit higher and enjoy the amazing sunset. Luckily for us one of the girls had a name day and treated us with home-made cupcakes.
The sun hid from the horizon and temperatures dropped well below freezing. It was time for dinner. It was then that I stepped outside the lodge and imagine what I saw:
The stars so bright and big, and the sky so blue...
In the morning we got up early and headed back on the road. The weather was again favorable and within only 6 hours we managed to reach Bezbog hut.
