Triglav national park

Ready for new adventures!

Before the trip the most interesting thing for me in Slovenia was Triglav National Park. The national park isn't located too far from Bled and it's named after the highest mountain in Slovenia, Triglav. Triglav isn't only the highest mountain in Slovenia, but it also has one of the biggest north faces in the Alps, and that's exactly what I wanted to see.

A helpful guy at the tourist agency in Bled provided us with a simple topographic map of the area, and soon I noticed that there is a road going almost next to the famous north face of Triglav. The road seemed rather small, and somehow I was pretty sure that there wouldn't be any public transportation there, which made me think about renting bicycles and cycling the twelve kilometers there. Luckily we were smart enough to tell our perfect plan to the guy at the tourist agency, who told us that the road has been closed for the whole winter due to a landslide and that the road would most probably be covered in a thick layer of snow. This information didn't leave us with many options, so we decided to walk.

Early in the morning, after two bus rides, we found ourselves in the closest town to Triglav and started walking. The weather was considerably better than the day before, and there were only a few clouds on the sky. The first couple of kilometers before and after entering the national park were on dry asphalt rode and for a while we thought that this would be a walk in the park (pun intended).

Inna heading up

A couple of kilometers after crossing the national park border we ran into a sign telling that the road is closed, which was pretty obvious because of all the snow! The road wasn't too bad for walking though, as there was a good, although narrow, path carved in the snow after all the people who had taken on the challenge before us. Happily we started strolling along the path and quickly realized that bike would have been of no use. On the left hand side of the road there was a small river running, which made the already great scenery even better.

The Peričnik waterfall

Before long we reached our first destination for the day, the Peričnik waterfall. After Luang Prabang in Laos this one didn't really manage to amaze us, but it was nice to see it anyway. What was more important about the fall was the fact that most of the people had apparently turned around after this point as the nice path in snow disappeared fairly quickly after we left the fall. The lack of the path made it a lot slower to walk, but we decided not to give up anyway.

We didn't have to break the trail most of the time, because a few people had already walked the route before us, but it still was nothing like real path. In many places there was at least half a meter of snow, and even with the already existing footsteps we didn't manage to walk all that fast. Except for a group of three snowboarders we didn't see anyone on the route, and I think even the snowboarders didn't make it to the viewpoint close to the north face.

The day before the guy at the tourist agency had told us that we might be able to see avalanches coming down the north face of Triglav. We heard a couple of avalanches on the way, but unfortunately we didn't see any. Inna didn't agree with me though - she didn't feel so comfortable being all alone in the middle of nowhere with avalanches around. The road follows pretty much the bottom of a valley between two mountain ridges, but there's more than enough clearance on either side to avoid any and all avalanches coming down.

Triglav's enormous north face

After almost four hours of walking we made it to the place with a couple of big mountain huts and a few other buildings, and the view was better there than anywhere along the way. We walked even a bit further to make sure that we had seen it all and found a winter room there that was open to all visitors. There was no one inside, but we signed the guest book and ate our lunch there. On the way back we took a final look at the mountains surrounding us, and just then Inna asked me if it was Triglav's north face we were looking at. That got me thinking and with the map at hand I soon realized that it wasn't! We almost walked away without even really seeing what we came for! The actual viewpoint was maybe fifty meters away from the route we had used, and luckily it wasn't far behind us.

We took our time taking pictures and just staring at the huge north face before turning back and heading down. Nothing special happened on the way down, but it was a long way. Over seven hours after we started walking we made it to the bus that took us back to Bled and to our comfortable bed.

Snakes in camouflage!

A couple of Triglav's little sisters

Blocked toilet - a plumber needed!

These narrow wooden structures can be seen all around the Slovenian fields.

Our well deserved meals after a long day