We had made a ambitious plan for the third day: we wanted to not only climb Triglav, but to first descend down a couple of hundred altitude meters from the Tarzan hut to be able to take what was called "the hardest via ferrata in Slovenia", then climb Triglav and get back to the Tarzan hut and from there walk down to lower altitude with better chances of finding a suitable place for spending the night.
Temperature had once again dropped below zero in the night.
We woke up at six and started descending as soon as we packed and eaten breakfast. On the way down we had a good chance to show Turo the Northern Ledges -route we had taken the day before. It looked quite impressive! We made it to the start of the via ferrata at around ten o'clock. The weather wasn't very warm and after taking a short break to eat my cold muscles and fingers didn't feel very comfortable on the first steep sections of the route. Henkka didn't feel very comfortable initially either but made it through despite the nerves and exposure.
These are the northern ledges from day two.
The valley on the northern side of Kanjavec is absolutely massive.
The guy at the Zasavska hut had told us that this route was protected well but I have to disagree. The route is graded C/D (the via ferrata parts) and T5 (the hiking parts). The thing was that the via ferrata were so few and far between that it almost felt like a 'real' mountain scramble instead of a via ferrata route. The via ferrata parts actually felt easier than the other C/D routes that I've seen, but from my experience T5 hiking grade is really not for tourists or for people who are afraid of heights at all. There were some exposed but easy climbs up and a bit tricky climbs down too. I tried to push our group to move as fast as possible because I didn't want to risk end up being on the route in bad weather.
One of the down climbs on the T5 hiking section
This is the valley we walked with Inna in deep snow in 2013 :).
The weather didn't change for the worse and we made it without mishaps to our final real challenge of the day, Triglav itself. Henkka and Turo were feeling quite tired and hungry but wanted to continue anyway. I didn't have a handy light backpack with me so I didn't have any means to carry water for the day with me. I ate a fistful of snow just before the last strip to Triglav, which helped quite a bit. The climb to the top of Triglav was supposed to be easy and well protected, but once again this wasn't exactly the case. The snow, sleet and wet rocks made the route quite slippery in some places and we couldn't really rush things too much to stay on the safe side. There were quite a few cables installed on the way but not always in places where they would have been needed the most.
The steep part we had to climb to get to the summit of Triglav
One at a time we reached the summit. Happy, but a bit tired. The scenery was once again as good as ever despite the clouds that moved around us. I think in the back of their minds everyone knew that the way down would be long and taxing so we left the summit pretty quickly to make sure the darkness wouldn't get to us too soon. On the way down we first saw a very old man (could have been 70+) climbing up the same route we had taken. What was so remarkable about him was the fact that he was wearing clothes that looked older than he did and that he wasn't even wearing any gloves. With his bare hands in the snow he was crawling up the steep snowy mountainside. I have a feeling that he knew what he was doing but I still hope he made it up and down alright.
The lovely and tiny shelter that sits on top of Triglav
Right after passing the elderly man we ran into a group of a lot younger men or boys who I'm afraid had no idea what they were doing. Few of them had gloves and some of them were wearing sweatpants and hoodies and naturally no one had a harness. In the weather we had that day they probably made it to the top and even back down, but had the weather turned they would have been in serious trouble. These are the kind of people who end up in news papers sooner than they should.
The way down wasn't very eventful after reaching the bottom of the steep section. A long and relatively boring walk took us finally to a perfect camping location in a green mountain valley somewhere on the southern side of Triglav. Over ten hours after leaving in the morning it was finally time to rest!
Resting in peace
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