A little after I had left Herl'any, as I was beginning the climb back up to the ridge line, I met another hiker. He was a Slovak, out for the day, aiming for a viewpoint. As we were following the same track at similar speeds and he had a little English, we shared a few words before he turned off for his destination. After swapping our destinations and commenting on the surrounding trees I asked about the lack of water from springs. He said that there had been very little rain recently. On later checking the Internet I read that Slovakia had the driest April since records began. Despite this I did find some water at the two springs I investigated today. Many of the springs have a depression dug out to collect the water, on top of which a little house is placed to stop it being filled with leaves etc.. At the springs I visited there was water in the depression but it was still, there was no flow. I collected some but added a water purification tablets as the water was stagnant.
This morning was sunny but later it clouded over and grew dark. Rain was forecast but it only amounted to a few short showers. Apart from a few modest meadows today was all through trees. On one steep slope crossed by my track, many trees had been uprooted by a storm, the trees that the wind had pushed over crashed into others causing their trunks to break in a mass of splinters. Fortunately the fallen trees had been cleared off the track otherwise my passage would have been difficult.
There was much climbing up hills today, at times very steeply. Along the ridge there are numerous summits, some the route bypassed but for others it was a climb up followed by the inevitable deacent, sometimes steeply. Due to the trees there were few views, the exceptions were where trees had been cut down. A few summits were marked by outcrops of rock, volcanic tuff maybe, one peak had a profusion of towers and aerials another had a simple wooden cross. As I reached higher elevations, the beech trees had smaller leaves, maybe at the higher altitudes it was cooler so growth had bern delayed. My total ascent today was well over 1200 metres, which is appreciable, so my tiredness is to be expected after walking around 27 kilometres. I would have liked to walk further to minimise the effort needed to reach Prešov tomorrow but the map suggested I had walked far enough and I was tired. Seeing a seemingly flat area I decided to pitch my tent, before the next climb up to the top of Čierna Hora. Sadly, the ground was less even than it looked with hidden stones, too big to be removed. I will just curl myself around them when I sleep tonight.
When I went out to brush my teeth the mist had gathered around the trees and a song thrush was singing me a goodnight.
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