Despite all the traveling – I’m still a city girl, I’ve never spend even one night alone in the nature. I’ve done hundreds of kilometers of hitchhiking, but real hiking?
It’s something I wanted to do for a long time: going on a hike on my own. A challenge. Testing my physical limits and spending a night completely on my own in the forest.
Slovakia gives me the best oppertunity to do so. Wherever I go I’m surrounded by mountains. Some are still snow covered (a fact I should have thought about twice) but most are green with blossoming spring forest.
I got a tent and a map from my amazing hosts in Žilina and supplies for a few days in a supermarket. Off I was to the Mala Fatra Nature Park.
I started hiking in a little village. It was a cloudy day but no rain so far. The path led me steep uphill. The higher I got the less I could see. Soon after everything was covered by rather cold, wet fog.
No, that doesn’t look like a Grimm-Fairytale Forest. Nor like the Forbidden Forest in Hogwarts. I’m very sure no Dementors will appear behind the next tree.
My plan was to follow a marked hiking-trail until a moutain top where I would find, so the map told me, a little hut. I planned to stay there for the first night and sleep in the tent for the second night.
After a while it became harder to follow the path since I couldn’t see enough to discover the marked trees. Everything was just grey.
Good luck finding a small yellow-white mark on a tree here
frolleineuropa 