“A couple of days later, feeling dizzy after too many canoeing and cycling circuits around Bohinj, we followed a dark forest trail from the olive green lake at Planina pri Jezeru.”
His finger traced a route past scattered alpine clearings to a long wrinkled finger of bare limestone. The names of the peaks sounded like some of those old football teams from the Eastern Bloc: Tičarica, Kopica, Zelnarica and Kanjavec. A local derby would have pitted Veliko Špičje against Malo Špičje, since only a high mile of serrated rock links these twin peaks. A goalless draw would no doubt be the best result.
He was right about the weather and, next morning, we were almost first in the queue by the cable car station. At the top, arid ski runs soon dipped from view as we entered a fine secluded valley. Edelweiss decorated a series of little scrambles and, just beyond Vogel’s narrow summit, a sudden shriek made us all swivel our heads. An engagement ring had just made what was obviously an unexpected appearance!
Hidden treasure
A couple of days later, feeling dizzy after too many canoeing and cycling circuits around Bohinj, we followed a dark forest trail from the olive green lake at Planina pri Jezeru. Crags towered overhead and a substantial dom (the Slovenian term for a large mountain hut) was already doing a brisk breakfast trade. Cattle bells chimed amidst a scattering of shingle-roofed rustic cabins. We could have easily idled away the day on a sturdy picnic bench.
A cluster of scarlet fingerposts (some confusing; some sponsored by Telekom Slovenije) pointed the way through a blanket of dwarf pines, where impossible-to-spot marmots squeaked beneath spiky outcrops. Few people had continued beyond the dom, and our young hikers enjoyed breaking a trail through a dazzle of Alpine flora. Once or twice they had to guess the way forward, but we knew we would eventually need to veer north to climb the terraces at the end of that barren, wrinkly finger.
The path dipped into another floral bowl and a gap suddenly revealed a broad panorama to the great ridges and shoulders of the Krn massif. The land fell away at our feet and pines stumbled downhill to meet steep screes and a maze of shady valleys. Grass slopes rose sharply to our right and a path cut wiggled through the rocks to the sharp summit of Tičarica.
Distant thunder was building again. Menacing black clouds
were gathering over Triglav – Slovenia’s highest peak at 2863 metres – but, up here, it was all sunshine and laughter. Immediately to the north, a huge fang rose like a badly scarred tooth and the ridge continued with a series of blunt molars that would have required some serious scrambling. Looking west, across the valley of the Triglav Lakes, great sweeps of limestone terminated in flat-topped concentric circles. They could have been fortified ancient citadels or simply landing pads for mysterious flying saucers.
The descent to the necklace of seven translucent lakes was, quite literally, sheer fun. A narrow notch, named Štapce, led down to a series of steel cables and a clatter of steep talus. Aromas of sauerkraut stew and ričet – a substantial barley and bean casserole with chunks of smoked ham – drifted up from the dom at Triglavski Jezerih. The pristine view of this hut ensures it features in every tourist brochure, and we happily joined the combination of friendly trekkers and high mountain heroes who had all stopped for some R&R.
People watching might not be high on my list of hobbies, but after ten minutes I realised something was amiss: whole rosycheeked Slovenian families were simply chatting and smiling. Children’s noses were buried in story books as parents checked their maps – there wasn’t a phone or a selfie in sight. Many of these youngsters would certainly go on to climb Triglav, and the two-day ascent is often seen as a national rite of passage. They’re all immensely proud of their mountain scenery.
The blaze of white limestone almost hurt our eyes as we gazed into the heart of the mythical kingdom of Zlatorog – a fabled white chamois whose golden horns were the key to hidden mountain treasure. According to legend, a hunter fell to his death after being blinded by the horns but the furious animal then gored its way down the valley and tore the great rocky holes which created today’s lakes. The treasure – whatever it was – still remains hidden somewhere beneath Triglav, but Zlatorog lives on in the form of statues, murals and one of Slovenia’s favourite beers.
A well-used path led south, to cut down and across the bold crags of Komarča, as we forked east through shady spruce and beech. One junction was particularly ambiguous and we weren’t quite sure of our bearings until the strum of a violin broke the silence. The perfect cluster of traditional huts in the clearing at Planina Viševnik welcomes us with warm, syrupy Coke; and, for ten minutes, we felt that we had truly stepped back in time.
Slovenia boasts dozens of well-marked trails, but some require a bit of forward planning. The national Mountain Trail – their equivalent of the Pennine Way with lots of exciting pointy bits – covers 600 kilometres and generally takes a month to complete. The best recorded time is currently just over seven days – but its founder, way back in 1953, once simply said: “Walk slowly, my friend. In that way you will explore much, much more.”
I wish he’d said that to our children.