The hostel in Mojstrana wakes up early-people are bustling around, packing backpacks, putting on boots before 6:30 am. I start walking up the road just after 7 am. I follow the road for some time to Aljažev dom mountain hut. There are a lot of people around-many, many more than at any point on the trail before now. This doesn’t surprise me, based on how difficult it was to book bunks in the high mountain huts in Triglav National park. I waited until a week ago to try and book my itinerary, to make sure I was going at the correct pace and that there would be a good weather window to climb Triglav and be in the high alpine for the better part of a week. Sadly, this was really too late to be trying to book mountain huts, I soon realized. Most of the bunks along the Slovenian Mountain trail were completely booked out. I ended up making my own itinerary through the park, piecing together an open bunk here, an open bunk there-this was my only option, unless I wanted to wait. I don’t feel particularly heartbroken about this plan-it’s mostly shorter days, staying in the very high alpine rather than exhaustively ascending peaks and then descending all the way down to low passes. I realized in the Kamnik-Savinja Alps that I do not have the strength or drive to try and complete this trail in the 30 days I have-i comfortably need about 6 weeks to do it, but I also just don’t want to be away from Bishop and Jordan for so long. It’s amazing how different this is from last year, easily spending 5 months on trail.
Anyways, I hike on past the mountain hut. The grade gets steeper immediately as I ascend to the end of the Vrata valley. I take a sharp left and climb steeply through dwarf pines to what looks like a vertical limestone wall, shooting thousands of feet into the air. Still, on-brand, the route finds a way to pick through cracks and fissures in the rock, ever steeply upwards.
I come to the base of a vertical via ferrata and stop to put on my harness and helmet. The route continues onwards, mostly with steep scrambling with steel pegs and handles driven into the rock to assist.
There are plenty of people around, mostly descending-I ask, “where are you from?” If they make a friendly comment-I hear Slovakia, Czech Republic, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands. There are no other Americans.
I come to the base of a steep pitch of rock and see a group of older men in helmets and harnesses at the top. They motion me up- “Daj no! Daj no!” The first man calls to me. I climb up and ask in English, “what does Daj no mean?” There’s a hurried conversation in Slovenian amongst the men. It means “come on!” I’m told. “Great. I’ll take that back to America,” I respond. There’s general laughter and merriment, and a lot of commentary in Slovenian-and the first man says with a twinkle in his eye, “he’s just saying…..that you are very beautiful.” “Oh yah? You sure about that? I’m not so sure that’s what he said…” I joke.
I continue onwards and upwards. The terrain is open and spreading out, exponentially, in every direction.
I can see why this climb is so famous. The spirit amongst the people I meet is friendliness, consideration, joy, relaxation.
Big, dark clouds hurry across the sky and I worry about a thunderstorm-but they rush over and on, not meaning any harm.
When the sun catches a break in the clouds, the limestone glitters brilliantly-I squint against the white brilliant rock-my sunglasses are in my backpack, because they can’t sit on my head with my helmet on. I finally ascend onto the big plateau, 5000 vertical feet above where I started, and round a corner to find the little cozy dom Valentina Staniča pod Triglavom mountain hut. I settle in for the evening to a big bowl of juta soup- fermented cabbage soup with salty ham.
I hiked 10.2 miles today. I gained 5500 feet. It is my 18th day on trail.
I do not sleep very well. There is an awkward man staying in the 6-bunk room I am in, who starts talking in a normal-toned voice to someone else at 5:45 am. The other gentleman “shushes” him-but I am awake now. I sit up a little later and the man loudly says “good morning,” as if he was watching me. Later on in the day he sees me at the next hut and says. “Hey, roommate! Are you staying here tonight?” I’m pretty good at shutting down this type of unwanted attention-I almost feel as if it radiates out of me, and 9 times out of 10, men like this back off. It’s just a bit of a fact of life at times, traveling alone.
I have the half-board breakfast downstairs and head out, walking the one hour across alpine landscape to Kredarica Triglavski hut.
This hut is really incredible. It is absolutely huge, and it runs like a well-oiled machine. I leave most of my gear in the drying room and start the climb up Triglav.
It is so, incredibly fun. There are pegs, rings and full via ferrata cables to assist-I clip in to the cables about 75% of the time on the way up.
There are what feels like hordes of people ascending and descending the narrow route-but I am amazed at how considerate people mostly are, taking turns and waiting for slower or anxious climbers to work their way up or down an exposed section. Of course there are a few exceptions-people rudely shoving through in front of everyone else over narrow shelves-but it’s only maybe 2-3% of the hundreds of people on the mountain.
I ask, “where are you from?” Whenever it feels appropriate. “Poland. Czech Republic, Slovakia. Germany.” I meet no other Americans, or even people for whom English is a first language, on the mountain.
I reach the summit in about 2 hours, have a snack at the iconic Aljazev tower, and turn around to do it all in reverse.
I am alarmed-or surprised-to find that the rocks are so polished, that my TX4s slide right off of them if I try and descend anything even remotely steep, facing forwards-I think to myself, “well, I always meant to get more comfortable with down-climbing…” everything works better when I turn around and down-climb the steep sections, and my confidence increases significantly.
I reach the base and Kredariča hut again at about 2 pm. I relax on the patio all afternoon with the hundreds of other climbers coming and going on Triglav. A delightful aspect of this hut is that it is situated at such a place that you can watch the climbers on the mountain from the hut’s patio, for almost the entire route. Tiny Aljazev tower even twinkles at the top.
The hut staff is upbeat, friendly, interactive, and somehow not at all burned out staffing what feels like Grand Central Station in the Slovenian Alps. In the evening, I settle into an 11 person bunkroom-which again feels like not enough space or privacy, sleeping in tightly-packed mattresses on the same sleeping plane as four other people-two Dutch boys to my right in what feels like sharing a king-sized bed with 2 teenage strangers, and a couple rotated 90 degrees with their feet to me, to my left. I’m getting older, I think. It isn’t as comfortable to be crammed in like this anymore. I hiked 3.9 miles today. I gained 2000 feet. It is day 19 on trail.
I wake up today around 6:30 and have “half-pension” breakfast of a fried egg and bread. I don’t have far to go, today-I really had to scramble to find any open bunks at all that were a reasonable walking distance from Kredariča, because it’s Saturday, and the park is extremely busy. I walk the easy 3 or 4 miles gently downwards across open alpine meadows to Vodnikov dom.
The trails are absolutely jam-packed with people, in a way I haven’t seen in Slovenia-even Lake Bled, which is a tourist hot-spot, felt less crowded. I round a corner in the trail, and the Vodnikov hut comes out of nowhere, tucked into a little gully in the side of a mountain.
Delightfully, traditional Slovenian accordion music is drifting upwards from the hut’s patio. I descend to see that a teenage music group is playing a little free concert today. I hiked about4.5 miles today, day 20 on the trail.
I have breakfast and get moving late today, around 8. It’s day 2 of my short days inside of the National Park. As I put my backpack on to leave the hut, I’m surprised to see a big cow standing just outside the hut door, like it is thinking about letting itself in the hut.
It sniffs my open hand with its huge wet nose. A little calf is just outside-i talk to jt, and it licks my leg with its impossibly scratchy tongue-and tries to chew on my hiking shorts, which I stop-probably because they are salty from hiking. I haven’t been able to rinse out my clothes since coming into the high mountains. Hiking here is really different from hiking on the West Coast USA-humidity is so much higher, and the hour-to-hour effort so much greater, that I am pouring sweat most of the time-in dirty rivulets down my temples, stinging my eyes, dripping off of me.
I walk down, curving around the impossibly green Velo Polje alpine meadow.
Then the trail curves up, back into the alpine, all-rock environment. I cross a saddle, and the mountain hut Koča na Delicu comes into view.
The weather is changing. One huge thunderhead drifts overhead, then sun-then another, then another. I settle inside at a dining room table and listen to my book to pass the time, nodding off here and there.
A huge, loud group of maybe 15 people comes down the trail and settles at the tables outside. Then, without warning, as it starts to rain, they come into the dining room, settling around me at the long table. I am jostled this way and that, mildly bewildered, as they crowd in around me and pull out a huge bottle of light pink liquor. One of the beautiful smiling girls in her 20s explains that this is a Lithuanian tour group, and they have just climbed Triglav. They are passing a shot glass around and offer it to me, as if I hiked in with them. Suddenly, I have 15 new Lithuanian friends. They barter with the hut warden for another bottle of liquor, then another. They switch between Lithuanian and English, trying to keep me up to speed with the jovial conversation. And I am in the middle, with no warning-relationships, politics, everything. It is utterly charming. I hiked 6.8 miles today , day 21 on the trail.
I wake up naturally at 5:45 am and head down to the dining room for breakfast-fried eggs, two thick slices of fresh bread, butter, coffee, fruit tea. The Lithuanians are all a little worse for wear but still in good spirits. I head out to start walking at 7 am.
It is utterly opaque outside the hut.
A thick cloud is sitting on the pass, and you can’t see more than about 20 feet in front of you. Icy rain stings my sun-darkened legs when I briefly step outside the hut. I keep my down coat and rain jacket on as I walk up onto the big Hribarice plateau.
Slowly, the light increases, and then I begin to see mountain shapes and blue sky-as if I’m legally blind and not wearing any glasses.
Then I finally clear the inversion layer into bright sunlight. The cloud sits heavily on the valley below me. I pick my way across the rocky plateau and make my way down to the Triglav Lakes. I see the Lithuanian crew below me in the clouds, and then they hike past, on their way out.
Around noon, I arrive at the mountain hut Koča pri Triglavskih jezerih and have a bowl of mushroom soup for lunch. I continue onwards. The sky is grey and gloomy and this day is mostly walking in the forest, after the big plateau. I feel bored, irritable, and gloomy myself. I listen to a couple books to try and make the time worthwhile.
Just after 5 pm, I arrive at the Komni hut. It is huge, modern; and buzzing with activity. I feel a little overwhelmed after the simple lodging at Doliču. The warden lets me into my bunk room, which has a big window looking beautifully directly down onto Lake Bohinj.
I have dinner in the big dining room and relax for the evening, the sounds of happy tourists in every language wafting up to the open window, I hiked 11.6 miles today, the 22nd day on trail.
I get moving just after 8 am. The hill that Komni hut sits on is swarthed in a cloud this morning, like yesterday morning. I start picking my way gently upwards. Slowly the clouds clear.
I climb back up to 6200 feet elevation, back into the alpine-and I cross over Skrbina pass.
There is a broken monument at the pass, which looks like old rebar, or possibly leftovers from the war. In this area, there are a lot of remnants from World War I. But, this particular pass has apparently been in use since the Iron Age. It’s a little humbling to know that humans have been walking this way, routinely, for at least a few thousand years, considering how much effort it is costing me.
I pick my way down steeply to the valley below, down to koča na Planini Razor. On the way down, I am delighted to see edelweiss flowers growing on the hillside. I have never seen them in the wild before.
I arrive at the hut. There are three wardens-no one speaks English. A funny thing about this route is that each of the mountain huts is independently operated, so you really never know exactly what you’re going to get, because each one has its own “flavor.” Also, I am not knowledgeable enough about the area to predict, for example, that the last hut was a tourist hotspot, because it was an easy walk up from Lake Bohinj. This hut is empty, although it’s almost the same distance from the lake, still inside the National Park, and surrounded by stunning mountains.
Anyways, I enjoy a private room for the first time in a lot of days. The lack of privacy in the National park is starting to grate on me-always people coming and going when I am trying to sleep, sometimes right next to me as if they are sharing my bed; always someone jiggling the bathroom door and then pushing expectantly by when I exit. I had two incredibly friendly people staying in my room last night-a sweet French girl in her 20s, walking the Via Alpina- and a Swiss man in his 30s-but I just didn’t have the energy to interact with either of them very much, which I feel guilty about. “Why are you staying in the bunkroom, if you’re going to be so closed off?” The critical voice inside says. But, I have gotten almost no time alone in my tent on this trip. Finally the crowds seem to be diminishing in the south of the National park. I hiked 7 miles today, my 23rd day on trail.
I take off early the next morning for the final ridgewalk of Triglav National Park. I painstakingly sweat my way straight up 2000 vertical feet to the top of Vogel Peak, with incredible views in every direction.
I see the ridge bumping its way along towards Podbrdo, and feel I’ve had enough.
The old exhaustion is rearing its ugly head again-aching legs at almost no climbing, out of breath easily, “I don’t want to be doing this any more.” I take a look down at Bohinj Lake, which I have now worked my way almost all the way around, and figure out how to drop down. The trail comes close to Vogel Ski Resort, which is buzzing with tourists. I use a pretty easy trail system to get myself all the way down to the lake in the early evening. I hiked 10.8 miles today, the 24th day on trail.
I don’t hike the 25th and 26th days, but move south in Slovenia with the trains to Divača. I see the UNESCO World Heritage site, the Šcokjan Caves, on the 27th day.
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