Slovakia (8): Lomnický štít

We had planned to start our day with a sunrise trip to the spot we visited on Tuesday night, but since the weather didn't co-operate, we enjoyed a lie-in instead. As we had arranged to be picked up from the chalet at 12.15, that left plenty of time to process some of yesterday's photos and hold another critique session. I included a selection of detail shots from the visit to Spiš Castle and some HDR shots from the same evening.

We spent the night on Lomnický štít - at an altitude of 2634 m. The trip up there is a multi-stage process - first by cable car to Skalnaté pleso, where we spent half an hour photographing the lake, and then a gondola up to the peak itself. The gondola trip was a little unnerving, as most of the journey took place in the clouds.

Up on the top of the mountain, I was very quickly overcome by vertigo. There was a small building, surrounded by a wooden walkway which was suspended halfway up the building, with a steep drop on every side. After about half an hour, with the encouragement of Chris, I finally managed to make the walk around the side of the building to see the mountains from the other side.

Getting photos was a challenge - not only because of my vertigo, which rather limited the opportunities, but also because of the constant cloud movement across the peaks. Eventually, as the wind was picking up, and the temperature was dropping, we went back to the main entrance to sample our welcome drink, a lethal pear schnappes, and take a group photo.

Once the final group of visitors for the day had left, we had the chalet, and attendant waiter, to ourselves for the night. As the cloud was getting thicker, and the wind harder, we settled ourselves into the bar for the duration, and ordered a bottle of wine. We passed the evening chatting about the trip and possible future trips that Chris might offer. As the weather didn't show much signs of improvement, we didn't worry too much about getting an early night! By the time we went to bed, snow was falling, and the outside temperature had dropped to about -5C.