MaYa's Soul Kitchen: February 2014

It sure was one of those lazy mornings, physically slow totally unhurried, but rather energetic in terms of ideas that just came thrashing in our minds. Yes, it was a somewhat cloudy, grayish yet light infused day – Friday, the 22^nd February. The few of us – by which I mean, the really few of us - a small group of people nicely tuned in and conflated in our passion, our cravings, and even in the spaces and places we geographically grew so fond of- these few of us brightly and lightly decided to head over that day to Bakrdan. Bakrdan, that fascinating peak, whose name originates from the Turkish word for a corn-flavoured, golden-like meal, is the third highest peak of the endlessly breathtaking, and to an extent, heart breaking Shar Mountain. There he is, Bakrdan with 2704 masl, constituting the Shar Mountain Crown, made up of Bakrdan itself, Mal Turcin (2707) and Titov Vrv (2747).

Approaching the peak can be made from the difficult, strenuous route via yet another mind-blowing peak-Ceripasina (2525m) and through a much more mellow approach through the valley of Vakaf, which leads you, through a long, easy traverse, straight to the valley underneath Bakardan. We picked that line, easy, long traverse, strapped our split boards and touring skis on, and the 4 of us, Aleksandar, Elena, Meto, and myself headed into the adventure we so swiftly decided to take on, at round about 11.30 am. I’ve spent most of the 2014 winter up on Shapka, the Queen of Queens, bold, omnipotent, the gravity core of the whole Shar mountain range. Crisp in her outward appearance, rough and gentle, so multidimensional and ragged, protruding over the valley of the town of Tetovo, dominating over our hearts, all those 4 hearts that went on a journey that day, she stands boldly and powerfully. Such a beauty she is.

The Shar mountain dog – the Sharplaninec, is yet another one of her most amazing, miraculous creations. And there she was with us, Burka the Sharplaninec dog, which appeared from nowhere, and fell straight in our arms and directly into our hearts. She sure led and showed us the way to much of what we were about to discover.

We had our skins on for almost 3 hours, 1.30 minutes light traversing, the rest of it, steep rocky terrain, parts of which required that we take our split boards/skis off. We approached the last few hundred meters bellow the summit at about 3 pm and looked down straight into the most amazing, wide, yet ragged and rocky couloirs, which I have previously only seen in summer. The approach there was icy, hard and slippery at times, but we made it. We looked at the Summit, and the watch, thinking if there is any sense in leaving our skis and heading to the summit for the sake of it, but we decided to stay there, eyes glued to the couloir and the imagined line to ski down to.

Meto dropped in first, on a hard, icy, bumpy, steep terrain, with Burka following him, with the utmost of passion and care I have ever seen in a dog. Elena and I followed, and then Alex. We all met at one safe point only to continue in a next icy, narrow couloir, me catching an edge with my heel several times in the ice but still overwhelmed and utterly happy. Then followed the canal, packed with snow, though hard, but cheerful to ride, like a video game of some sort and long… oh so long and joyful it was. Finally, we stopped under the rocks, which marked the end of ridable terrain looking back at our skied line, so unique, beautiful, and daring. There is really very little one can say or do in such moments of utter joy, but bow to the mountain for allowing us to see that, and hope we get more chances at riding numerous other lines. We skinned back for 45 minutes more with Burka leading the way, strapped our equipment at 5.30 pm near the ski resort to slide down the last pitch of run and skied our way down to the bosom of Shapka. Overjoyed, grateful and shiny we were…