Today was a long tough hike. We did two stages in one day. First from dom Planika to Koča pri Triglavskih jezerih and then from
Koča pri Triglavskih jezerih to Koča pod Bogatinom hut (the second link shows a trail beyond the section we hiked, we only did the 7.2 Km hut to hut portion.)
Mac's Adventures and Bering Travel do this hike over Day 4 and Day 5 of their itinerary. While we
were hiking, I was tired durng the second part from Koča pri Triglavskih jezerih to Koča pod Bogatinom hut and wished that we had also split the hike over two days - but once we arrived, I was glad that we had combined the two stages. The second portion is short and not scenic, it would have been a disappointing day if that had been an entire day of our trek. This was a long day,
18 Km with +1505' of gain and 4406' of elevation loss.
Knowing that today was going to be a long day, we got an early start. Fortunately, we were blessed with ideal weather. The hiking was slow going, there are many rocks to step upon and over. There are several sections along the face of a cliff where a cable is anchored to the rock and the footing is a bit "airy". I always made sure that I had one hand on that
cable as we skirted the steep drop off. Most of today was downhill, but early in the hike there was a big obstacle to climb - Hribarice Pass. This was a tiring ascent because it was up a scree slope, so the gravel gave beneath our boots as we tried to get up the slope.
Going down the other side of Hribarice Pass was another adventure - it was much further down than what we climbed. There were numerous hikers climbing up the pass from the other direction, they faced quite a long hike up. The route was marked by red painted dots on the rocks, but with so many
boulders it was easy to go slightly astray. I think some of the more difficult rocks that we had to scramble down might have been slightly off trail; if we could have found the marked path, perhaps the descent would have been easier.
We saw two alpine ibex. They were close to the trail, drinking from a puddle. The ibex were quite unafraid of humans, my photographs of them are not zoom pictures, they stood right next to the trail. I was delighted to see them, it is nice to know
that wildlife exists in Europe. (The ibex were wiped out in the Julian alps centuries ago, the animals we saw were descendants of ibex imported from Italy in the 1960s to re-establish their population.)
After more hiking over rock fields and more descent, we passed two beautifully colored lakes: Zeleno Jezero (Green Lake) and the much larger, spectacular Jezero V Ledvicah (Kidney Lake - named because of its shape.) All the waters in Slovenia were clear and
had beautiful coloring. More hiking and we finally reached the Koča pri Triglavskih jezerih hut. I was pretty tired at this point. I think our speed had been only about 1 mph, over the rocky trail. Pretty slow! There was a fountain of running water to fill our bottles. I bought ice cream and diet coke and ate
my granola bars for a late lunch. There were another 7 Km to go to reach our final destination, so it was hard to get started again.
The final miles were in forests - we were now low enough that there were trees all around. This limited our views, so the final portion of the hike was not that scenic. However, since we were out of the rocky alpine region, the trail was much easier to stride over - no more careful stepping over boulders along the way.
I was quite pleased when Koča pod Bogatinom finally came into sight. Today was a long and tiring day, but also full of amazing scenery (in the first half) with some memorable views. The Julian Alps might have been the best part of our Slovenia trip, even though the other sites we visited were also quite nice.
The people at Koča pod Bogatinom hut were quite nice. There was a shower there (€5 for 5 minutes). We ate a tasty barley soup for dinner. We had a five person dorm room upstairs all to ourselves.
