I would put in even more exclamation marks to capture how happy this makes me, but that might get obnoxious to read, so I’ll resist. But rest assured that I am more than just a little excited about this turn of events. Before I tell you the exciting snow stories, though (and put up some pictures), a brief recap of recent events.
I haven’t written much lately. We’re entering our final full week in Romania (aaaahh!) and I’ve been trying to spend as much time living as possible (which means as little time as possible on my computer). Classes are wrapping up, with four papers due this week instead of final exams, and on Friday we leave Lupeni for a few days in Bucureşti before we fly back to the States. It’s weird to be this close to the end. I try to imagine what it’ll be like to be sitting in my parents’ kitchen in nine days, and I simply can’t—the worlds are too far apart right now. Please pray for my transition. I’m not sure how I’m going to handle the reverse culture shock.
But anyway. This Thursday we celebrated Thanksgiving out at the Bates’ house, which was lovely—so much delicious food (I even got to eat stuffing, hooray! …I’m kinda a stuffing freak), a beautiful little hike to a gorgeous view of Lupeni… really, a comfortable and homey afternoon. Thursday evening we drove up to Straja (the ski mountain above Lupeni where Viaţa is held in the summertime) to stay at the Fundaţia cabana for a couple days. We intended to leave on Saturday evening, but it’s been snowing almost nonstop since we’ve arrived, so the road down the mountain was too treacherous to drive last night. So we’re still here! And it’s glorious.
I’ll try to demonstrate with a few pictures how beautiful it is up here, but there’s no way to capture it. Last night as Julie and I came back from our hike (more about that in a second), we stopped and stood in silence, just feeling it—the icy wind on our frozen cheeks, the scent of chimney smoke and evergreens, the sound of Romanian radio from ski cabanas whispering faintly in the wind, the firmness of the snow-covered ground beneath our feet, the dark of the sky punctuated by familiar constellations, the Jiu Valley scattered with town lights like fallen stars or spilled golden glitter, the silhouettes of mountains stretching into the distance in a 360-degree panorama… I can still feel myself atop that mountain. It’s beautiful here. I don’t want to leave this.
The stations of the cross end at the top of Straja
Ski lifts run up and down the peak
The church atop Straja
Straja, looking down toward Lupeni
Yesterday in the afternoon we decided to go outside and play for a while (to burn off some of our energy… most of us had been writing papers all day). We bundled up and started climbing the mountain towards the big cross which sits above the Straja church. Julie and I found a tree to climb on the way, but eventually we all made it to the cross… and promptly started a snowball fight/wrestling match. I bowed out for a while to take pictures, and they’re hilarious. (I really love these people! …even if they wrestle me to the ground and shove snow in my face.) Eventually we calmed down and kept walking, finding this path winding into the forest. It was beautiful—huge, tall evergreens, their boughs heavy with snow, laced overhead as we walked underneath… gorgeous. Eventually the path ended at another ski slope, this one significantly steeper than the earlier ones we’d seen—so of course, Julie and I look at each other and decide to climb it. The others bowed out, saying they didn’t think we’d make it to the peak by dark, but we headed up anyway.
The view partway up
It might have been one of the more foolish things I’ve ever done, but it was completely worth it. They were right; we couldn’t make it to the top by dark (it’s hard to make good time when the snow comes up to mid-thigh and the angle’s often steeper than 45 degrees). But it was fun. Julie… uh… well, she doesn’t have very good balance, so we stopped a lot for her to return herself to right-side-up, but that was fine—it was a good opportunity to check out the view, which just got better and better the higher we climbed.
The lights of the Jiu Valley, far below.
Eventually, though, it got dark. We were at the tree line and decided we should probably listen to the voice of reason and head back down to the cabana, to prevent the others from worrying if nothing else. But we didn’t think we’d be able to make it back the way we came safely, so instead we decided to cross a ridge of snow and head down the other face of the mountain (which was a more direct shot to Straja anyway). It was a good idea. Mostly. The wind hit us as soon as we were over the ridge (which was, by the way, simply a cliff of snow about eight feet high). It had swept some of the snow away so that portions of the mountain were now shallower (maybe 6 inches of snow, which was great); however, the wind had also created a thick crust on the snow in other parts, hard enough to make it difficult to break through but not hard enough to support our weight—so it was exhausting, pounding our legs into three-foot-deep snow, jolting through the crust and sinking deep with each step. Occasionally we would army crawl (or, in Julie’s case, roll) instead, because then our weight was more evenly distributed and we wouldn’t break through the crust… but then the crust would get thinner and we’d find ourselves nose-diving into the powder, so we’d scramble to our feet and begin stomping again. It was awesome.
OK, it was cold. And once it was dark my imagination did wonder if there were still wolves and bears and dogs in these woods like there are on the other mountains surrounding Lupeni. But hey, it added to the experience… I felt like we were exploring Everest or something. Seriously, I might want to start climbing snowy mountains more often. It makes you feel so alive!
Me and Julie... mountain explorers!
We eventually returned, snowy and frozen, to the cabana and spent the evening talking, playing games, watching a movie, and finishing up a couple papers. It’s started snowing again, so I’m not sure what the plan is for today… but I’m sure we’ll get down to Lupeni somehow. They’ve got the telescaun (chairlift) running, so maybe that’ll be our strategy…
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