A difficulty with writing travelling notes is that it's all retrospective, the blog is written some time after the event and several other things will have happened in the meantime. Writing about climbing Triglav, the highest mountain in Slovenia is one of these cases. If I'd have had the luxury of having a laptop and internet connection up there, this would have been much more interesting as it was a hell of a walk!
Climbing Mt. Triglav in Slovenia has been an ambition for years after walking in the Slovenian Alps several times. Triglav is the only mountain in the world to appear on a national flag and at 2,864m will be the highest mountain I'll climb in Europe. I've never climed so high so quickly and also never used 'via ferrata' - systems of steel cable and pegs to help you climb steep / narrow parts before which are widely used on the mountain so there's no doubt I was nervous just from reading the route description.
Last time I walked in the Alps, I packed loads of clothes, a couple of books, cameras and all sorts. You soon learn that with water and food on top, every single thing you take adds to what will become a painfully heavy rucksack as tiredness kicks in. This time then, I took just one change of clothes and minimal equipment, just a first aid pack, small camera and a towel, anything else would be too heavy to haul up the mountain.
After a 2 hour bus ride from Ljubljana to the gem of Lake Bohinj with turquoise water, it was time to get going. One thing that never changes with setting out on a big walk is how you press on with relentless optimism in the face of all experience to the contrary. No matter how many times you go through the three days of pain after a big hike, the next one always seems like a great idea.
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| River running into Lake Bohinj |
The first part was a stroll past hotels on roads and woodland paths for 45 minutes to get to the start of the walk proper. As the woodland path steepened, a junction had a sign pointing straight uphill with an estimated time of 3hrs 15 to the balck lake, though these are always a bit optimistic and dont allow for any rest stops or gawping at waterfalls. All the signs give time rather than distance as distance can be misleading given its far slower climbing steeply than ambling along an even path. After just a hundred meters or so of climbing I passed 3 guys sat on a fallen tree who noticed my cricket top and asked if I was English. We spend a good 20 minutes just chatting, they were a group f old boys out on a walking holiday for a few weeks and recommended a small diversion to see a waterfall. They werent big walkers and were wondering about following the route I was on, in the end they didn't which I was dissapointed about at first, but glad after I realised how tough it would be.
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| Walking to the start point |
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| Savica waterfall |
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| The path winds through a small cave |
The next part is hard to describe other than saying, the path goes up, then up, then up some more as it zigzags steeply up the side of a steep cliff through dense forest. It's hard to rest because of ants crawling everywhere and small flies and wasps buzzing round that get annoying in no time.
After about four hours of climbing pretty much non-stop, I arrived at the first lake, known as the Black Lake for a reason I don't know as the waters are still clear and blue. At last a place out of the trees to have a break for a few minutes!
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| The Black Lake at Triglav Lakes Valley |
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| Not ready before the 10 sec timer counted down |
From the first lake it was another hour or so the Lakes Valley hut where I was hoping to stay the first night. I did a short film clip to say it was great that the path had levelled out and would stay that way for a while... Not having checked my map an noticed there was still 400metres of uphill to go, this was unfortunate!
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| Triglav Lakes Valley mountain hut |
Mountain huts are fantastic places, usually at least 4 hours walking apart from each other, they're havens of food and water meaning you dont need to carry days worth with you. That said, at E3.90 for a small bottle of water, maybe that would have been better! They do have to fly everything up by helecopter though, and to be honest, on a hot day you'd pay double that for a drink anyway. A comfortable nights sleep in a small room led to an early start with morning mist still covering the tops of nearby peaks. This was the best time of day to walk though and I must have done two hours straight without stopping because once the sun is up, your pace has to slow considerably.
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| Early morning mist at 8am |
The first few kilometers of the day were great, steadily rising but not proper climbing until a rocky pass at the top of the valley. The pass was fine, just slow going, above it were two large ice-fields for want of a better expression that were straight-forward enough to cross. After these however, a really steep 200m sheet of ice and snow had to climbed down, and doing down over slippery terrain is always harder than going up. I was aiming for some rocks to avoid having to go down the snow, but after a couple of huge boulders just gave away in my hands and bounced down the hill, it had to be the snow as it was too dangerous for me and if anyone was walking below. The snow was icy and tough, fortunately as I had to go down backwards, kicking footholes in it, then using them as hand-holds as I slowly got down the steepest part until it was safe to zig zag down to the bottom.
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| The first snow and ice field of the walk |
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| Going over a saddle between two valleys |
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The Hribarice valley, a 200m descent down the snow
was tough going |
After all the drama of the snow and some very slow progress, and a quick lunch of soup, I could see the tops of the Triglav range (there's 4 peaks very close together) for the first time and it came as an enormous boost. Even though I was exhausted after about 1,500 meters in and afternoon and the following morning, As it was only about 2pm, I became determined to climb to the summit this day rather than sleep a night at a mountain hut nearest the top and go the day after. Weather wise this would turn out to be the best choice as it clouded over and started raining the following day.
Passing Dom Planika, the place I would stay the night, I called in to check there was space (pretty sure I was the only guest there that night!) and but some more water before setting off at 4ish for the final 400m to the summit which was clearly visible from the hut.
Leaving Planika Dom for the climb to the top, the first thing to cross is a steep snow and scree slope to get onto the ridge line that jags up and down to the summit. I walked a few yards as a test, it looked steep and hard going. It was steep and hard going.
After this, on already tired legs, was more snow to ascend, though thankfully it already had foot holes in from earlier climbers, and some easy scrambing over loose rocks to get to the start of a cabled section.
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| Planika moutain hut and the start of Triglav climb behind |
Getting used to climbing holding onto steel cables attached to the rockface in steep and slippy sections was going well. At one point a mountain rescue team of a dozen or so people had to pass carrying a walker down from the top as his legs had gone and the nearest helecopter landing pad was some way below. The route became steeper and more exposed to way beyond anything I'd ever walked before. To be honest it was terrifying and I was just walking in silence concentration on the next few steps and never looking down.
I could really write more and more about the last part but it's just so many thoughts lost in a blur of fear and adrenaline, especially on the parts where there were no cables and it was just walking along a sharp and very, very high ridge. Unsurprisingly there are no photos of this part!! The summit couldn't come round quickly enough! On the top was a guy from Preston called Sundeep who was fantastic to talk to as his experience of getting up was fairly similar to mine.
I did another small film clip on the summit but had been intending to do a lot more and be much more lucid about it, but partly the relief of being on reasonably level ground, the exhaustion and fear still rolling round meant it was more a rant of whatever was in my mind than a celebratory piece.
Standing on the summit with the Aljazev Stolp (a metal structure erected by an early alpinist) I actually felt incredibly proud. Many people climb the moutain, so it's no great feat in the grand scheme of things, but it was the hardest climb I'd ever done and the most technically difficult. Despite wanting to turn around as the final climb to the top became incredibly scary, it was definately worth completing. Achieving the summit when for the last two hours of the climb I was struggling with a sense of not belonging there, especially as the mountain rescue experts in all the technical gear passed by was really something, it's easily as much a mental as physical challenge and passing both (just about!) was a personal high point.
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| Mountain rescue carrying a walker down to the helipad |
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| Steel cable section on the way to the summit |
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| Finally seeing the summit! A last bit of easy scrambling |
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| On the roof of Slovenia: 2,864m / 9,396ft |
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| Clouds rolling over lower peaks |
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| More steel cables on the way back |
The only negative to being on the top was knowing how far it was to get back down, and knowing that going downhill is always harder on your legs than going up. Taking a good couple of hours to carefully descend the 400m back to the mountain hut, there was barely a moment when I didnt need to be crouching and using hands and feet to carefully balance and grip on to any solid bits of rock. Climbing down the steeper gully's I was thinking all the time about joining a fell rescue team which is something I will definately look into as there can't be anything in the Dales or the Lakes to compare with the difficulty of this, and it would be fun to learn rope climbing and rescue techniques.
After a night at the cold Dom Planika, the following day passed in a blur of descending a never-ending 1,800 or so meters back to Lake Bohinj. First over rocky scree, then throguh increasingly dense forests before pretty alipne meadows and a finally a pleasant walk alongside a turquoise stream. It was exhausting and with my camera being almost out of battery, I don't really have any record of it, which is probably for the best! I really need to work out the distance walked on my map as apart from the height, I decided to take the longer route so it would be intersting to know, a rough guess would be 26km over 2 days.
Walking to a pub on the shore of Lake Bohinj for a self-congratulatory beer and lunch was just what was needed as well as a long sit down to take the weight off my feet. After this just a short walk to the bus stop was all I could manage and had to call to see if friends in Ljubljana could come pick me up from the bus station and drop me off at their place for a first shower in days!
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| Exhausted, on Lake Bohinj shore |
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Fantasitc, I'll have one of everything.
Do you supersize?? |
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| Final beer of the walk, never had one more deserved! |
Looking back, it was such a worthwhile climb to make in terms of overcoming barriers and pushing myself to do a more difficult walk than I would have though possible. Would I do it again? No. Once was enough! It's good to look back on the fear of climbing along the higest points and know you did it, but being there in the moment, which lasts for hours, isn't something I'll be racing to do again anytime soon... Until the next bright idea comes pops into my head as it always does!
