The weather is unseasonably cold, windy, and rainy in the Julian Alps. For each good climbing day I get one or two bad ones. It is quite iffy today, and the clouds are gathering ominously. As I am writing, I am sitting on top of Križ, or Cross in Slovene, and looking at Škrlatica, the Scarlet Mountain, the second tallest peak in Slovenia, and quite an inaccessible one. I will attempt to climb it tomorrow, the weather permitting. The way it looks from Križ, I will be equally happy if the weather is good or bad. The climb will be tough. It will take me at least six hours to get up there from the mountain hut in which I will be staying tonight, plus some two or three hours to get to one of the valleys below, whence my friends will be taking me to Ljubljana. Lauren and the children are supposed to arrive the following day for the second part of this year’s vacations in the Alps.