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Malá Fatra National Park was added to our trip after I read about the Janosikove diery hikes. Plus, I wanted to visit as many of Slovakia's nine National Parks as possible. We ended up seeing four of the parks: Malá Fatra, Slovenský raj, Slovenský kras, and High Tatras National Parks. Malá Fatra National Park is famous for two natural highlights - it has a long hiking trail that runs along the top of the ridge line of the lesser Fatra (Malá is Slovakian for Little) mountains, and it has a network of trails through three gorges that are collectively called Janosikove diery. After our hike through Sucha Bela gorge in the morning, we drove west to Terchova, arriving in early afternoon. We didn't have time to do the long ridge hike, but Vrátna has cable cars that will take you up to the ridge for some fine views. We got to the cable car station just after 2 PM, and learned that the cable cars only run at the top of the hour. We had to wait for the 3 PM cable cars. I was glad that we got there early in the afternoon, if we had tried for an evening trip, we would have learned that the cable cars stop running at 4 PM. At 3 PM we rode up the the station that sits in the Snilovské saddle (1525 meters elevation). The nearest peak is called Mt. Chleb at 1645 meters (Chleb is Slovakian for bread, so it is called Mt. Bread?) - it is just a 20 minute walk to the summit, with only about 100 meters of elevation gain. We walked quickly because we didn't want to miss the return trip, and because it looked like a front of rain was moving in from the south. From the summit we had a nice 360 degree view. I took a few photos, and then we hurried back to catch the last cable cars down - we didn't want to miss them, because it is a long walk back down to the base station. Also, the rain was coming in - we got a few drops on the window of the gondola as we were descending, and by the time we reached our lodging in Stefanova, it was raining. Here is a picture I took of the trail map in Malá Fatra. I added the pink arrows to show our short hike from the cable car station to the summit of Mt. Chleb. The long red trail is the ridgeline hike.
This is a link to the Vrátna cable cars Panorama Photos:
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Single Click on any thumbnail to begin the slide show at that photograph Vrátna Photos 
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