Triglav

So we decided to spend a bit more time in nature last summer, do some hiking on the mountains and for final boss, climb the tallest mountain in Slovenia – Triglav (2864 m). Through the summer we did some smaller preparation hikes, e.g. exactly 2 hikes to Stol and Ojstrica, well at least from my side, I think the others did couple more, and then already prepared for Triglav.

The best time to visit Triglav are last week of August and first weeks of September. Last year the weather wasn’t cooperating nicely and it was raining on both the last weekend of August and first weekend of September, so when the weather finally cleared for the second weekend, half of Slovenia wanted to go there. We unsuccessfully tried to get a reservation at all three of the cottages below the Triglav, moreover they warned us not to come, as there were so many people expected to come, there will be no room to sleep anywhere. As we later found out, the cottages were actually so full, quite a few people actually had to sleep outside. I can’t imagine that being very fun, at around 2.3k, with temperatures going close to 0. Anyway we decided to postpone the journey for one day, i.e. departing on Sunday and returning on Monday, which turned out to be a great idea.

So on the early Sunday morning we departed from Ljubljana and arrived to our destination at Fall Savica. We (I) chose the path over the 7 Triglav’s lake, which is among the longer paths to the top, you can take, but as the name suggests, it goes through the picturesque valley of lakes. The hike starts with quite a steep hike over Komerča pass and then straightens out a bit after an hour and half. The weather was cloudy or rather foggy in the morning but after about two hours clear skies and sunshine waited for us.

After a longer break at the first cottage – Cottage at 7 lakes, we continued through the valley. It was a nice day, warm and sunny, the landscape is truly amazing and picturesque. After additional two hours we reached the end of the valley and started to rise above grass line over the Hribarice pass, which is at about 2.3k sea level. On the way we saw some mountain goats (chamois) and some marmots, which are quite common in the valley of the lakes.

At the top of the pass, we could finally see the cottage Planika, where we had reservation for the night in the distance. We were already feeling the legs at that point, and the cottage was still far, far away. I guess we were a bit slower than I anticipated and had a bit longer breaks as it was already getting pretty late, we still had more than 2h of walking ahead of us and it was 6pm already. But there was not much to do, except to suck it up and continue walking. We rearranged our backpack a bit, so me and Jakob, who still had some stamina left carried some other things and backpack, and we continued. When we finally reached the cottage, sun was already down, and we were walking in the dusk.

I was so relieved when we finally reached Planika, I was starting to get worried, that we are going to have to walk in the dark, which is not idea at that height. We checked in our rooms, and I was so glad, we chose to postpone the trip for a day. We got our private room for 6 people, and even though we were only 5, we kept it for ourselves. We spent the evening in the kitchen area, talking with other hikers, eating jota and relaxing a bit. We went to bed quite early as the next day the main hike or rather climb awaited us.

We got up something past 6 next day, in order to watch the sunrise and to eat and prepare for final climb. I must say that the sunrise was truly amazing, haven’t seen such colours since Sweden a year before.

We departed from the cottage at around 8, the climb is quite steep and lasts about 2 hours. We were lucky there werent many people, especially the ones going in the opposite direction as it is a bit dangerous to give way or wait at some of the stages.  Speaking of dangers and heights, I remember the previous times I hiked to Triglav to be quite uncomfortable with the heights and climbing parts, luckily this time I felt super comfortable, not sure what changed, maybe because I live in 14th floor now.

And so we finally made it. There were quite a few people on top already, so we had to wait in line to take a photo in front of the iconic Alajž’s tower, and of course as I was the only one who was here before, I took it upon myself to baptize the others, well at least Jakob, he then proceeded to do the rest while I took the photos, haha.

This was my 5th time on Top, I still can’t believe how I managed to climbe on top when I was 6, and I’m not sure how I feel about bringing so young kids on top, but I guess those were different times. The first time we went we did a 3 day hike, from Trenta to  cottage Dolič, then next day to the top and down to Krederica (the toughest climb) and down to dolina vrat, and then the last day back over the Luknja pass to Trenta. I don’t remember much from the trip anymore except that my dad had to carry enormous amount of supplies for me, just in case I would fancy a glass of milk or another jacket. I don’t know  how he managed it, on this trip I carried about 8l of water with me and uff, it was tough, especially at the beginning, when all the bottles were full.

Anyway after taking quite a few photos on the top and resting for some time we descended toward Dolič. There are 3 main paths considered for the masses, each going from one of the three cottages. The Planika is considered the easiest, Dolič is in the middle, while the Krederica is quite hard, requiring quite a log climbing.  After three hours we were at the cottage, where we had another break and ate a freaking melon, which Jakob carried with himself.

It was already after noon, and we had a long walk ahead of us, so we didn’t linger long. At one point we were thinking of making a small detour to Prehodalci cottage, which would prolong our descend for an hour but luckily decided against it. We reached the cottage at 7 lakes at around 5pm, made another rest there and decided to instead of going over Komarča, which is quite dangerous, to take a bit longer path over the Komna, which had an added bonus of another cottage, where we could make a stop. We were quite tired already from all the hiking over the two days so it took us almost 3 hours to reach the cottage, we arrived there just as the sun went down. We ate some warm food at the cottage and then continued down in the dark. Luckily we had the couple of small flashlights with us and the path was soon wide almost rode like so it was possible to do it in the dark. All in all it took us about 90 minutes to reach the dark and on the way Jakob was telling his stories about his travels to China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan and Russia. It was really fun and unbelievable what he had done, e.g. sleeping on the Great Wall of China, smuggling himself in a truck through China-Mongolian border and so on… frankly, I’m surprised he’s not in some Chinese prison at the moment.  But as it is, it had woken this wish of trying to go for a longer backpack trip. As it later turned out, we did it in  Portugal.

In summary, we did about 50 km, if Fitbit is to be believed, although I have a feeling it should be a bit less. We walked for over 17 hours of pure walking, although I must say that total time was more than 20 hours and damn, even if I could run the same distance, my legs actually hurt at the end. In total I think I carried about 7l of water with me, some of which I refilled at Cottage at 7 lakes, which has a spring of drinkable water just in front of it. I carried all my food with me, just some nuts, chocolates, cookies and energy bars, it’s quite efficient as its high in calories and low in weight, I tended to avoid food from cottages as it is quite expensive, although I do admit that a hot meal at the end is very nice.

Day 1:

Day 2: