Christmas midnight mass on Velika planina

For those who have been waiting for this post: better late than never, they say. :)

After two years of really bad rainy weather for Christmas I was finally happy to hear a nice weather forecast for December 24, so I headed up the mountain in the evening to take photos of an extraordinary event that only takes places once a year - on the Christmas eve. The procession of people hiking to the Velika planina chapel with torches and flashlights is a sight you don't get to see very often, religious or not.















After everybody was gone, I climbed the ridge overlooking the valley and took a few photos of Kamnik, Mengeš and Ljubljana in the mist below.


An hour later the chapel was deserted again.

Midnight mass and night skies above Velika planina

After attending a midnight mass at the chapel on the Velika planina plateau for Christmas a couple of years ago, I decided to give it another go this winter. Instead of taking the cable car (going up is ok, but the wait for going down can last up to three hours!) we hiked from the valley. It was quite romantic especially when we turned the headlamps off. Walking in the dark, first through the forest and then up the open slope, fills you with all kinds of feelings - even a little bit of fear for the fainthearted, but mostly it was exhilaration for me.

Once we crossed Mala planina, we could already see a long procession of people walking with headlamps and torches.
People were throwing all sorts of explosive devices. :)
There was a constant flow of people coming to and going from the chapel.
Around the chapel:
The village of Velika planina:
Ghosts and trails of headlamps:
A procession, star trails and light pollution from the valley:
Night illumination penetrating the fog in the valley below:
More photos here.

Midnight mass in the mountains

There is a midnight mass held every Christmas in a chapel on Velika planina mountain. People hike there and it's wonderful to see the procession of torches and lamps moving through the night.
This is what it was like around the chapel: The mountain huts, light pollution from the valley and a passer's-by headlamp:

It was very windy and I had to put all my weight on the tripod to push it to the ground, but still most of the photos turned out blurry.
There was fog in the valley below and those red and orange patches are citylights penetrating through the fog:

Some more photos here.