Retired in Rome Journal: You’re never alone when you hike solo across 11 miles of High Tatras

I just finished an eight-hour hike that had my mouth blabbing adjectives at the top of my lungs from high atop Eastern Europe. Yes, eight hours. This was what TravelSlovakia labeled an “easy” hike. Tell that to my thighs. They feel like lead barrels. My shoulders are sagging from carrying a pack up and down a 11-mile ridge. My jogging suit, shorts and T-shirt are drying in this hut’s heated drying room after a torrential downpour that shepherded me down a 1.2-mile mountain. The trail zigzagged down to this gorgeous, crystal-clear lake at the foot of towering rock walls of the same relative grade as elevator shafts.
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