All hot and sunny

"So, you're saying the weather's all hot and sunny up there, clear blue sky and all that? You sure? Okay, we'll drive over tonight then."

We pull out of Brno around six and at eleven thirty are on our way up -- the map says a two-and-a-half-hour hike should get us to the lake and then it's maybe another hour straight through a rock field to where we want to spend the night. It's hot and stuffy and overcast. By the time we reach the lake, huffing and puffing all the way up, we're drenched in sweat. Then the first rainstorm hits. We curse a lot but can do very little about it, so in the end we get up and walk on in the pitch dark. We finally make it through the rock field, find our friends -- sound asleep, obviously -- and lie down to snatch a few hours of sleep; it's roughly three in the morning.
It rains some during the night, but who cares. In the morning, the weather looks a lot better and we think we definitely deserve it.

We have breakfast, pack the gear and hike a little ways up to a snow patch where the route begins. Practically my first climb after a year-long pause, so I want to take it easy; apparently not my lot this time though, because instead of some piece-of-cake face climbing I end up in a tough corner, slapping in pro as fast as I can. Further on the route eases off, and two or three hours later we're on the ridge leading to the main summit. Since it was supposed to be major hot, we didn't even take jackets and now we only have one choice -- forget about the summit and rappel down as fast as possible in this wind and cold.

When we get down it's completely overcast, with more and more clouds and fog pouring in from behind the ridge. Time to time the sun succeeds in piercing the seemingly impenetrable cloud bank..

We go to bed soon, and pray for no rain and a clear sky in the morning. No such luck, however, so in the end we're forced to pack everything and retreat.

We wave goodbye to the valley and are off -- be back soon though.

One last look towards the High Tatras: the clouds have cleared out now, the wind has stopped sending chills down my spine and everything looks just like it should have two days ago: all hot and sunny..