New day, new journey, same mountain.. but an amazing experience that I’ll remember and keep in my heart forever. It was on a Sunday, December the 10th of 2023. The day began as a working day for me as I was recording audio for an event for Slovenian radio Koper. As soon as I was finished, my girlfriend and I packed and drove to Sviščaki for a late hike on mountain Snežnik, hoping for a stunning sunset. 

We arrived at a starting point quite late in the day and started the hike just before 3pm. It was a sunny and clear day, temperature hovered around 0°C and we were both anxious to see what our mother nature would provide at the end of the day. The path at the beginning was frozen a bit so it was quite slippery in a few parts. I kept struggling for some time but finally gave up and I’ve put on crampons which made the hike much more enjoyable. 

Time was already nearing the sunset as we were closing to the last ascent on the mountain. This provided us with a magical golden orange glow on everything. Every tree branch that was covered in snow, the path below our feet and the sky was all in this beautiful glow. It was a peaceful and indescribable moment that brought calmness to our heart and soul. 

A setting sun below mountain Snežnik with a view on hills and fog over Slovenian coast.

I am always rushing to the top in moments like this and this was almost always a mistake. That day I took my time, I stopped, enjoyed the moment and took some photographs. I said to myself that I’ll regret it if I miss these moments and just rush to the top. Don’t get me wrong, I still rushed on parts where there was no view or a scene to capture. My heart still was racing so those breaks I took for capturing photos were a must. 

Golden orange sunset above hills

Sun began falling below the horizon just below the peak of the mountain. I looked up to the top and the whole mount Snežnik turned into this pink rose color. It created such a beautiful contrast between the pink colored snow and lovely blue shadows and  dark blue sky. It was as if the scenery was taken out of a fairytale. 

Unedited raw photo of the mountain Snežnik with pink glow.

The sun fell below the horizon and soon after we were greeted with a stunning afterglow. The sky turned to magic, shadows got a shade of a soft blue, the wind stopped blowing and the winter silence had arrived. I ascended a bit higher and as I turned around I saw the view of the Croatian sea with a peachy orange sky above. In the foreground the snow still had a bit of the glow of the sun on it. 

Peachy orange sky above Croatian sea with soft glow on snow covered landscape.

First thing that I did as I reached the peak was searching for a local fox called “Joško”. He regularly comes on the mountain and the hut and is a really friendly “good boy”. There was no sign of him and I was shifting my focus on the landscape around me. On the south side of the mountain my interest was piqued by this fog that kept on rolling above the snowy field surrounded by snow covered spruce forest. 

Fog rolling above the snowy field surrounded by snow covered spruce forest.

The sky on the south and south west was still a canvas of magic even long after the sunset. Unfortunately the light in the direction of the alps and mountains was really bad and I didn’t even take a single shot of them. I tried to capture a stacked panorama of that amazing scenery but I didn’t do as I say. I mean, I wrote a whole post about creating stacked gigapixel panoramas and I didn’t listen to my own advice. I had four times as much work to stitch it together because of this.

Low clouds above Slovenian coast and a stunning array of colors in the sky

After taking many photographs of the beautiful sunset sky I decided to go on the north side of the mountain in search of new scenery. I didn’t get far when I heard my girlfriend shout “fox, fox Joško is here”. I quickly turned back and luckily I still had my camera on a tripod with a telephoto lens in my hands. The light was gone so I was forced to shoot at ISO 6400 and more. The shots are unfortunately quite bad but luckily Adobe Lightroom did some magic with denoise so the photos are at least usable to show and keep as a memory. 

Local fox of mountain Snežnik called Joško

I took a short video while he walked below me. His path was straight to the entrance of the lodge. I was directly above him on the peak of the mountain so I didn’t cross his path and scared him away. The video is very short but it is still a nice view of him walking through the snow.

At that moment he passed beneath me and I couldn’t see him anymore. I didn’t want to follow him and scare him away so I went around the lodge to meet with him below on the other side. At first there was no sign of him anymore but he came from below and I took this photo as he was walking around the lodge. His fur is glowing orange creating a stunning silhouette with a frozen fence behind and beautiful sunset orange sky. 

Snežnik fox Joško with frozen fence and stunning orange sunset sky.

After that the light to take photographs was completely gone and he sat down before the door of the lodge and waited. I took a few more photographs of him but it was too dark. I couldn’t get anything more out of that light and I didn’t want to use excessive flash so I left him alone.

Fox Joško sitting before the lodge

We were on top of the mountain for more than an hour and the sky turned into a deep blue with stars shining all around. But the sky above the point where the sun has fallen still had a golden orange red glow. I took some long exposure photographs of the landscape below with some fog between the hills and that magical gradient in the sky from reds to blues. 

Magical orange and deep blue sky with stars

It was already really late and the night had truly arrived. The time had come to descend the mountain and return to the car. It was really dark as we were nearing a new moon so we put on our headlights and started the journey below. We stopped to look at the sky in awe just below the mountain. The sky was full of stars and I couldn’t resist taking a night photo of the mountain Snežnik with the starry sky above. Just as I made some test shots for accuracy I saw this train of dots in the sky. I quickly thought if those were the Starlink satellite and I was right. 

Starlink satellite train in the sky.

For the last photo of the day I used an ultra wide lens and aimed it towards the mountain Snežnik into the darkness. Luckily the snow is a great reflector and I was still able to capture the foreground and the peak. The sky was amazing and it was a perfect way to end the day. 

Magical night sky with stars above mountain Snežnik

On the hike back to the car we both had a feeling that the path is longer and never ending. We were both tired but we still had a full heart with all the stunning scenery from the whole day.