The world spirit of mountains.

by Elizaveta Anokhova (Russia)

Making a local connection Russia

‘But I've got a T-shirt on only,’ I said, was looking down at mountain doline. ‘So what?’ someone answered. ‘Oh, really,’ I said and jumped, going down without sled and anything else. It was a dream, that I saw five years ago before my Austrian hiking. I was in the mountains, everything was snowy and…I didn`t understand what happens. Just I was wearing summer clothes, and I thought this is strange too much. And exciting. I`ve never been to the mountains for the moment of the dream. That`s why I didn`t expect that such a magical weather phenomenon is could exist: sunny, hot and snowy at the same time, the encounter of summer and winter. Living for the semester in Germany I met young people who are crazy like me about mountains. We met with Couchsurfing in Freiburg. ‘I`m the man of mountains. This is my home,’ Syrian guy said proudly. ‘I`ve been doing mountain ski for 15 years,’ I answered. We were laughing about different situations, understanding that mountains are our oxygen, without what we couldn`t live. ‘What about hiking in Austria? I`ve never seen snow mountains,’ Israeli girl said at some point. And after successful Freiburg hiking, we`ve decided that we`re ready for Austrian Alps and hit the road. We arrived in Seefeld in the evening, and the next morning we`ve understood what is real “good morning” looking through the window of the hotel: high snow-white mountains were going up into the sky, shining under May sun, and this was too close to us. This view promised a lot. We bought some food and went up. I`ve never liked milk, but I was interested in tasting Alpine milk too much, that`s why I`ve bought it. We were crossing a lot of landscapes, going to the top: fields, pine forests, icy lakes. We really enjoyed this, looking around slowly, attentively, like people look the scrapbook of photos. Of course, mostly It was thanks to our smoking Syrian friend, whose lungs were mad at their owner and decided to say him about it while hiking. That`s why we did lots of stops. ‘You are the man of mountains…and tobacco smoke,’ – I laughed. ‘It`s too funny, Liza, great joke!’ – he answered. ‘Oh, man, don`t cry, don`t die!’ We all laughed together and continued our way. The next stop was a lake. ‘What will be if someone goes into the lake with ski?’ Israeli asked. ‘I fell in the brook with mountain ski, fortunately, it was frozen,’ I answered. We continued our way again and after 500 meters put off our sweatshops. At some point we understood that going far is impossible: we felt that the earth started to fall in a little bit. It would not be safe to go any further. We saw people close to us who went down the slide, because it was snowy there. ‘Let`s go…?’ I said hesitantly. ‘Sure, necessary!’ Syrian answered. ‘But I don`t know about our clothes, it`s light enough,’ I answered. ‘Come on, the descendant of Siberia!’ We screamed like children are while sledding on the first winter day of snowfall, but it was summer, we were wearing summer clothes, and we were extremely happy. ‘Well, we haven`t got to the top, but it was worth it,’ my Syrian friend said. ‘Oh my God. Alpin milk…was going down the Alps,’ I said, opening my backpack. I ran to café for washing the packback, while my friends were laughing. After 30 minutes of suffering, I came back and left this for drying at the sun. We went to the observation deck to admire the snow grandeur. ‘Who could imagine that dream will be a reality next five years?’ I thought, standing with guys at the observation deck. ‘Eh, mountains are not so snow in Syria,’ Syrian cloud-compeller said. ‘No more in my Israel city,’ - Israeli laughed. ‘There are the same snow mountains in Russia. Okay, maybe a little bit less. Actually, Sochi climate is unique: it`s plus 15 degrees at the seaside in February and it`s minus 5-10 degrees at Rose Plato at the same time,’ I said proudly, shaking my T-shirt because of hotness and missing the home mountains.