I love nature, it becomes clear if you just scroll through my blog. I can literally write love poems about the mountains. And when it comes to my favorite valley in my favorite mountain in my favorite country.. things becomes serious, maybe I’ll need to drop a tear or two writing this just to lower the pressure of the strong emotions 😃.
I would not expect you to understand this (unless you have a mountain addition like me). And I accidentally (or not) learned a lot about a person with a unique gift to describe this same mountain love.
So.. The place is the valley of Malyovitsa, Rila Mountains. One person used to say - Something interesting always happens in this valley. I’ve been there countless times and can confirm It is true! The Malyovitsa region is the cradle of Bulgarian rock climbing and mountaineering.
The main starting point for treks in the region is Malyovitsa Hut.(1960m asl)
Around 300m higher is « the second terrace » and on this second terrace there is one super big stone with a lot of memorial boards of perished bulgarian alpinistes.
I always stop there and read them - on some of them are written beautiful quotes . One of my favorites since a lot of time is « Не питай за цената на мечтата » (Do not ask for the price of the dream).
One summer day I was in this valley for a quick trek with a friend, we didn’t have a plan, just went to breathe a little fresh air and to roam a little bit around the valley.
Eventually we decided to go to the shelter «Orlovets », which is located a little higher than the terrace. A steep path leads there, the altitude is 2550m asl and the views are magnificent.
The place is simply gorgeous, and in the shelter I found a notebook with notes from people who had been there. I wrote a note too and while I was reading the other notes, I found a beautiful poem that was actually the source of that favorite quote - Do not ask for the price of the dream
For my Bulgarian steemit friends:
I will try to translate it, but it won’t be the same with my poor English, and it is so beautiful in Bulgarian. So literally that’s it: ( Bulgarian Steemians, It would be great if someone with better english try to translate it :) I dare you!)
Don’t ask for the price of the dream,
Fight, fly off, fall and die.
Carry it always forward - in your hand.
Resurrect, stand up, seek and find.
Don’t close it in yourself, in your soul,
Stand straight, breathe, never stop,
Dream about the joy, the beauty.
With delight and thrill, with faith in miracles -
it brings forth the peace and the light.
With blood it pays off the love and freedom.
Don’t ask for the price of the dream.
Lyudmil Yankov
I had no idea who Lyudmil Yankov is, but I liked the poem so much and I was happy to discover where the quote comes from.
The peace and the silence around us, the spectacular views, this gorgeous poem, and the most important - the majestic energy of the place, these were some memorable moments, it was beautiful and we didn’t want to go back and decided to elongate our trek and to reach some of the peaks around. We chose Камилата ( The Camel), it is a famous peak, that I had seen many times but I had never climbed it. It was a foggy day so I didn’t take a lot of photos, but this is how the peak looks like :
Source -
http://www.verticalworld.net/school/programs/program.php?id=19
And that’s me on the top
It is quite high and scary when you look down from there, although it is not visible from this photo because of the fog
Later I googled Lyudmil Yankov and what I found out was quite interesting. He was an amazing legendary bulgarian alpiniste, who was one of the participants in the bulgarian expedition « Everest » 84. In this expedition Hristo Prodanov became the first bulgarian who climbed Everest and the thirteen person in the world who did it without oxygen. He did it through the hardest way, alone, in april 1984, and also was the first one for this year. He was the No. 1 Bulgarian Mountaineer for the 20th century.
Unfortunately the ascent took him too much time and he didn’t succeed to come back.
Lyudmil Yankov made an attempt to help him and climbed the record displacement of 1330m (from 7170 to 8500m) for a record time but he couldn’t find his friend. It was an incredible act of self-sacrifice and heroism and there isn’t an analogue for such an ascent in the whole history of climbing Everest. He lost 4 fingers because of the cold weather and it was the end of his dream to climb the peak. (He had to do it a week later with his climbing partner)
« There isn’t death on Everest, only a fusion in your dream» - that’s what he said about his friend’s death.
He was an amazing person, climber, mountaineers, and reading about him I couldn’t believe how many things he managed to do in his short lifetime - countless ascent of high peaks around the whole world, 2 kids, two degrees, two books, he was auto racer, he made movies about his ascents, he played guitar, he sang, he worked in the municipality of his birth town in
«Architecture and Public Works » department and a lot more. He was a doer, the best poet among the alpinistes and the best alpiniste among the poets. In one of his poems he literally described his own death exactly the way it happened. It’s creepy.
He died when he was 34 years old falling from the rocks while climbing The Camel Peak. (The same that we climbed that day). He was training for a national expedition for climbing Anapurna. And I read that there is a tradition and every year on his birth a lot of people climb the peak to honor him. And guess what - his birthday was two days ago. Just too many coincidences! The poem, the place, the day.. coincidences or just synchronicity.. who knows :)
Людмил Янков: "Една нощ в Рила наистина за пръв път, но не и за последен път, разбрах какво са звездите, почувствах ги като нещо, което прогонва от моето същество всичко лошо, всичко мътно, всичко неясно, всичко фалшиво. И така ги разбирам и днес. Жалко, че в тоя напрегнат, динамичен живот човек все по-рядко и все по-трудно намира време да се обърне към звездите."
« One night in Rila for the first, but not for the last time, I really understood what the stars are. I felt them as something that repel from my being everything wicked, evil, blurred, fake. And now I see them in that way too. It is unfortunate that in this strained and dynamic life a person less often and harder finds the time to turn to the stars. »
I am sure he had known what the price of the dream was.
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