Night Walking

Mt Triglav is 2,864 metres high. Right now, that is 2,863 too many. This fear of heights is a newly arrived and unwelcome guest, choking me in my bunk in the night. I have to start my fight with the fear immediately before my opponent grows too strong. I get Richard up. It is 4.03am. We creep down the steep wooden ladder in the dark while the night orchestra in the guest house continues - mostly nose horns and mouth organs.

Our torches do not seem to be on at all as we begin walking. The stars are very bright and some spin in a disconcerting way - except maybe that's a satellite. The rock is still warm from the previous summer's day and it has many little metal and wire piercings. The path is surprisingly easy to follow in the dark. Everywhere there are worn patches in the rock from many hands and many feet. I breathe the fear out of my chest 'You Will Not Fall Down' then I breathe it back in 'Maybe You Will'. In the paths scoured by other walkers, keeping constant contact to the ground (let's be honest, clinging to the ground), I rise up into the sky.

There is a slight increase in temperature - about half an hour before the first light - and then I begin to see my crazy shadow stretching out over the cliffs. One person is ahead of us on the route, swinging on the wires like a gymnast, jumping two steps at a time, kicking a rock out over the one thousand metre drop below. It falls for what feels like a minute.

At the summit, a quick country check. In the clouds that way Austria and Germany, across the way we've come, Italy, out towards the sea, Croatia, behind us, Hungary. But the fear is still with me. The sun is up now and what I want most is to be down. Somewhere wide and flat, with sour bean soup for preference.

Reputedly, the aspiration of all Slovenian citizens is to climb Triglav at least once in their lifetime which I find both terrifying and magical.

On the descent, sliding along the fixed wires, the citizens and I pass each other, briefly negotiating the same thin slice of rock, briefly touching. The bent grandmother who has applied her make-up to welcome the sun, the boys in jeans whose cellphones played "I want to f*** your dog in the a**" to the hut last night, the intense climbing sorts with their ropes and carabiners, the families in their sneakers, no one else seems to have any nonsense in their heads. I take my unwelcome guest back to the guest house and dump it at the front door.