Stozina / Unsuccessful ascent of Sljeme

This was an aborted attempt to climb Šljeme a few days after a more than a foot of snow had fallen. The road from Virak to Trsa was completely snowed under, so we parked by the main road, opposite the first turn-off to Trsa (by the road that leads down to Pošćensko Lake). This meant an extra kilometre above what we had walked along the road on 27 Feb, but also there was much more snow, so we had to snowshoe the whole time. We left the road just before Stožina and skirted around the depression next to it (on the opposite side from the road) amid worsening conditions due to low cloud. At times visibility was down to 100 metres, plus the uniform white of the snow made it very hard to judge distance and surface contours. In places we were creeping along using our walking poles to feel the surface a metre in front of us, afraid that there would be a sharp fall. A few times we fell over due to not seeing the edge of a snowdrift. The decision was made to not climb Šljeme but to explore nearer to the road, and all of a sudden there appeared a spot of blue sky and the sun illuminated one of the peaks of Sedlo. 

 This lasted roughly five minutes before the cloud swallowed up the surrounding peaks. Our passage to the climbable south face of Stožina took us along the side of a very steep slope, which was very tricky with either snowshoes or crampons. We had lunch sheltering under an overhang of rock, hemmed in by icicles which would periodically detach themselves and shatter by our feet. Once we passed this part, the ascent to the top of Stožina was a relatively simple affair, but as last time, visibility was poor and the wind was persistently cold. The return to the car seemed to go on for ever, but although we had failed in our initial goal, we gathered enough information and experience to plan a subsequent assault on Šljeme, when hopefully the sun will shine a bit more.