STORYTIME brija #01 - The night adventure on Sljeme, Medvednica

So I think I should start off with the adventure portrayed in the first post. 

Being young and wild comes in handy with many crazy ideas, you just gotta surround yourself with the right people who have similar mindset as yours!

So if I recall it correctly, it was mid July, 2017, just and ordinary summer day in Zagreb. Summers are pretty hot in Croatia and so was that day, so if you're stuck in Zagreb and not by the beautiful seaside of Adriatic sea, you have to find another way to cool yourself out. So we came up with this somewhat crazy idea. That day, the four of us decided to go to Sljeme, the highest peak (1,035 m) of Medvednica, a mountain located in the northern part of Zagreb. And there's nothing crazy about it, Medvednica is equally beautiful both covered in snow and on summer days. So we had to make it a bit more "difficult", or should I say challenging for us. 

You can climb Medvednica in all sorts of ways - by bus, car, bike, foot... The most challenging way would obviously by foot or on bicycles, but since we've done it so many times before, it shouldn't be a problem. So we decided to mix things up a bit.

One of the most common starting points is from a roundabout Mihaljevac, located just at the bottom of the mountain. We've arrived at the starting location at about 8:30 PM. Why is this sentence in bold? See, at 8:30 PM, it is night. The whole mountain is practically a forest with lots of forest roads, which means you can easily get lost even during the daylight if you don't follow the markings. Since it was night, there were no lights at all on the whole mountain, except on the points where the restaurants and some suites are. So back to the bolded sentence, we arrived at Mihaljevac at about 8:30 PM. We've decided we'll spend the night lurking around and camping on the mountain, guided by our intuitions only. Geared up with some beers and greens, we arrived at the bus stop which would lead us nearly to the top of the mountain (Sljeme). After a short argument with the bus driver, who didn't want to take us up there 'cause we had no cash for the bus tickets, he agreed he'll drive us all the way up, but refused to drive us down. He thought he'll get rid of us that way, because he was driving the last bus down the Medvednica, and no one with one's right mind would like to get stuck all the way up there at night. And man, he was wrong! We got exactly what we wanted. He took us all the way up (we were the only passengers on the bus), and left 20 minutes later while making a cross sign with his hand (lol). At that point, the four of us were left all alone about 1 km above sea level, at night. Adventure time is about to begin. After a whole lot of exploring and goofing around, we decided to put up a campfire to keep us warm. Remember, it is summer, and summers are pretty hot in Croatia, but on 1000 meters at night it was pretty damn freezing.. one of my friends even had his shorts on, and when he left the bus, he had immediately regreted it. After a couple of beers and happiness (blaze it!), we decided we should head back down, since there is hell of a long road in front of us. It was cold and it was really really dark, but trust me, it was worth it. The view from Sljeme is PHENOMENAL! You get a full view of nearly complete city of Zagreb, which is the capital of Croatia, and also an amazing view on Zagorje!

This is a view on Zagreb:

And this is a view on Zagorje:

Eventually, after about 4-5 hours of walking through the pitch darkness, we've managed to get down in the civilization safely. We were pretty wasted and tired, and we've also encountered some wild foxes on our way down, which were pretty terrifying in the complete darkness with their flashy eyes.



All in all, it was one hell of an adventure. I tried to sum it up to be as short and as readable as possible. I hope you enjoyed reading this story! :D