It was a dark and stormy night, when I looked out of the window. I couldn't see anything, but when a lighting ripped the sky. We were in the kitchen, a nice and warm kitchen, seated around a table: Oleg's grandmother to my left, the mother in front of me, Oleg going around the table, trying to phone people to organize our trip.
"it's
very not safe to go out with such a weather during night" said the
grandmother, looking very sorely at me. "Not very safe".
It was 8 PM,
we were waiting for three other persons to start our expedition toward the
highest montain in Ukraine: the Hoverla - 2061 meters. I had no idea what I
was getting into: Oleg just told me it was a montain trip, a funny, relaxing,
peaceful walk at the highest Carpathian montains of Ukraine, among trees, grass
and colorful flowers. I did not get that we were supposed to reach the very
peak. I did not know yet that the peak was 2061 meters above my head. A snowy,
windy, scary high peak in the middle of the Karpats.
Half an
hour later the crew is complete, fully sit around the table: Oleg, Sasha,
Galina and Boris. And me. It's already 9pm, but of course we cannot leave the
place without have eaten something (for this, Ukranian grandmothers look very
Italian). When all the stomachs are duly full, and the car is properly filled
with packages and more food, we left (I had only a modest bag half empty.. the
first clue that something was wrong started to pervade me). 
When we
arrived to the lovely wooden house in the middle of nowhere it's already
midnight. It was quite difficult to actually find the road, and once there we
were forced to go very slowly, since there was no light at all, and the road
was full of holes and craters. The light of the car cut the darkness like a
knife in the butter. First thing we did, after having turned on a fire in the
yard, was going to the sauna. Yes, we had a sauna in the wooden house we rented for the night. A sauna, at 12pm in the night. It's my first sauna, and the heat is barely bearable. Barely. Huge waves of heat burn my skin like if I was in hell. I am sweating the hell out of me. When we went in the snow, it was an immense relief: it felt like a re-birth. We repeated the procedure other 3, 4 times, trying also to reach a river nearby, which was too dirty to bath in cause of the rain. When we finished the sauna I was very tempted to go to bed: it was 4am. But only Oleg spoke English there, and I cannot share my thoughts: 4 o'clock in the morning happened to be the best time to cook some meat on the fire: we prepared a lovely barbecue, “shashliki” they called it. It was 5.30am when we finished. We looked at each other: in 1.5 hours we will have to wake up to climb the highest montain in Ukraine. Nuts, you said?
At the beginning it was a child’s play: we walked on terrain and grass, and it was very pleasant all around. We had a very nice time enjoying the view. It really looked like a funny walk to enjoy the nature. But then the snow came. And the wind. And I was in my office-jacket. My clothes were completely inadequate for that. I had no idea we were going to do something like that. To cover my bad unpreparation, I put my pijama under my jacket and my jumper. All the others had very serious and professional montain-suit, only me and Oleg were in casual winter office working day clothes, as if it was any other day in Brussels. He was a bit luckier than me because had more layers and the hood, further than the wool hat. What a lucky duck! After hours of walking, we stopped for lunch in a quite large area completely covered in snow. Everything was covered in snow now, and after lunch things got worse. The slope became stiffer, and every three steps my leg sank in half meter of snow. Once I cut myself hitting the ice with my shinbone (the wound will stay there for weeks after). Fortunately I had proper shoes, the unique Oleg’s recommendation about the clothes, and my socks didn't get completely wet until almost the end of the day. But walking was a very, very difficult task. At some point I started to think I understood where is the good and dense enough snow, and where there were the bloody hidden holes: there, for example, where is darker, is clearly a compact bunch of... nope, sunk in the snow. Shit.
The last part was the worse: the slope was considerably big, we used feet and hands to climb, while we were hit by strong gusts of wind, cold bloody wind that cut my face and my hand until I didn't feel anything anymore. I couldn't handle my camera, I gave it to Oleg and I put my hands in the pocket when I did not use them to help me advancing: now walking is barely possible. I was completely bended, fighting against the wind, with my legs burning like crazy for the effort of climbing that hell of a montain. I was hating Oleg. I was at the edge of my limit. Probably, I pushed the bar a bit further. But at the end, as soon as we arrived at the very top, the view was amazing, and the satisfaction of having done it was the best reward. I suffered the cold the whole time we were there, and I couldn't wait to go back down, where there was no bloody wind. We took the usual pictures, the usual funny poses. Finally we went down. I was exhausted, but I felt I did something extraordinary.
Oleg told me something funny days after. Few days after our epic achievement a bunch of people climbed that mountain doing exactly our path: they were super equipped, super trained, and did that for some sort of hiking certification. It took me that to realize how crazy and tough it was.
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