Slovenia, a tiny country of only 2 million people, a bit smaller than New Jersey, contains some of the most impressive natural beauty in all of Europe. Unlike other parts of former Yugoslavia where mountains and rivers are littered with trash, nature seems to be a prized value in Slovenian culture and they have the infrastructure to keep it nearly spotless. Thanks to that, they have one of the cleanest countries in the world. Largely unaffected by the Yugoslav wars in the 1990s, Slovenia is now a part of the European Union and had a very rapidly growing economy before the worldwide crisis in 2007. The population is overall well educated and English is widely spoken, making communication easy for a traveler. The mountainous landscape, the close proximity of snowy mountains and the Adriatic Sea to the capital city Ljubljana, the abundance of extreme sports opportunities, and the locals’ friendliness towards travelers make this the perfect place for an adventure.
I started my trip to Slovenia at a campground in a small mountain town called Bovec. Bovec, known as the adventure sports capital of Slovenia, is a small tourist town with an abundance of activities like trekking, paragliding, skiing, zorbing, rafting, climbing, and bungee jumping available. For budget travelers, Bovec is most useful for picking the minds of the local guides to gather information on trail conditions and hiking routes. In true Slovenian style, it seemed that most tour companies were quite friendly and happy to help out by giving some information without expectation of purchasing one of their packages.
My goal for this trip was to conquer Slovenia’s highest peak: Triglav. Topping out at 2,864m elevation, Triglav is a steep but absolutely gorgeous hike. There are several routes to the peak of varying difficulty from all sides of the mountain, some of which require technical gear and some of which do not. The tour operators in Bovec told me that the easiest nearby route begins in the village Trenta, just a short ways up the road. They recommended taking a harness and helmet to hike Triglav since the peak contains some short via ferrata sections, but I decided against it and was happy with my decision. My recommendation to others hiking the Trenta-Triglav route is don’t bother with the harness as long as you’re a reasonably surefooted hiker and the snow has melted. I can’t speak for other routes, though, and I’m sure there are others which would require a harness. A helmet is always a good idea to prevent injury by rock fall, but if you decide not to take a helmet, just make sure you leave enough space between you and the person in front of you on the steep sections.
The hike began at 693m with 2,171m to gain before the peak. Triglav National Park is full of huts for hikers to stay in, some free and most not. Since tents aren’t allowed in the national park, the huts are the only accommodation option. Luckily, they don’t require reservations, so there’s no need to make plans beforehand (recommended but not necessary). There are three huts near the base of Triglav’s peak, and due to cloudy weather at the peak that afternoon, I decided to stay in a hut at 2,150m the first night and go the rest of the way to the peak in the morning. It was a good choice. I coincidentally chose a night when a local alpine club was staying in the hut and had brought a guitar and abundance of alcohol with them to provide entertainment in the form of traditional Slovenian mountain songs. Though the mountains in the US may be more wild, it is unique experiences like this that make me treasure hiking in Europe.
My second day in Triglav national park was the best day. Graced with a perfectly cloudless blue sky, I headed out towards the highest point. This part I hiked alone, getting lost in my mind thinking about origins of nature and evolution and people’s place in the natural world. I spent my time gazing in awe at the rock masses that lay ahead, contemplating the absurd amount of energy that caused tectonic plates to crush together and push rocks almost 3,000 meters into the sky, which then eroded to a point that soil covered the rocks and plants could grow on them. How do humans fit into this enormous power that is nature? We are nature, nature created us, but we have more power than any other being on the planet to alter the systems of nature which created us. How do we direct this power to do the most good? Is it possible to define what constitutes “the most good” with our limited knowledge of how nature works? Would it be best to direct our human energy and resources in one direction to try to shift the balance that humans have with the rest of the world, or would it be best to go with the flow, guided by the natural powers that allowed us to evolve here in the first place?
After about an hour I reached the point where the hiking trail turned into a cliff and the climb began. Many other people had helmets and via ferrata kits with them, but I found that the climb was just fine without any gear, as it was no more than a simple rock scramble. It would only be really necessary to have technical gear if there was snow. I climbed the ladder rungs drilled into the rock and clung to the cables as I neared the peak. I found this part much more enjoyable than the hike up, getting to use my hands and feet was fun! I felt like an animal effortlessly scaling the mountainside, at least for a while until I realized I was completely out of breath. Well, an animal scaling the mountainside, definitely not effortlessly. I hadn’t quite reached the level of mountain goat yet. Finally, exhausted and pouring with sweat, I reached the summit, joining the few dozen other hikers who had come up for this beautiful day. I felt a rush of accomplishment, having scaled the highest peak in my new favorite country, having completed my first semi-technical solo hike, having walked and climbed over 2,000m uphill in the last 24 hours. This sense of accomplishment faded a little bit when I noticed that another guy had managed to carry an entire case of beer up the mountain on his back and was selling it at the top, but I still felt amazing as I looked out over the rocky ridges and valleys that divide Slovenia, Italy, and Austria.
For Slovenians, hiking Triglav is a sort of right of passage, and part of that tradition includes being whipped on the butt with a rope by someone who has already hiked Triglav. When a Slovenian guy first told me this, I wasn’t sure if he was just trying to troll the silly foreigner or if it was actually a hilarious tradition. Anyhow, I obliged, and later internet research proved that he was actually not joking. Next time you meet a Slovenian, ask them if they’ve been whipped by a climbing rope on top of the highest mountain, they’ll likely say yes.
On the descent back down from the peak I met some older local men. They told me about a crazy mountain man who lives near the top of Triglav, and has lived there alone for 30 years. Apparently this man has some sheep and only goes down to the village a few times a year. It’s a tradition for hikers to bring him food and come say hi to him, but unfortunately his home was in the other direction so I didn’t get to meet him. If you hike Triglav, keep an eye out for him! The guys also gave me the tip that Triglav Lakes Valley is worth a visit, so I changed my plans to head back down to Trenta and turned towards the lakes valley instead, about a 5 hour hike from the summit.
As I walked down into the valley, my mind wandered back to the questions about humans’ place in nature which I had been contemplating previously. I came up with the analogy that humans are to nature as a sci-fi robot takeover is to humans. We are nature’s creation, but we have gained the power to alter it. This is akin to a person building a robot which then becomes too powerful and gains the ability to injure its creator. In this analogy, human genetic material is equivalent to the software with which a robot is programmed, and our cells and organelles which process DNA and RNA are similar to the hardware inside the robot. If robots were to become too powerful, they could cause great harm to humans, but would likely be eventually wiped out because humans control their power supply and a few crazy robots are no match for 7 billion humans armed with explosives and wire cutters. Similarly, people can cause great harm to the natural world, but if we cause too much harm, nature has the ability to wipe us out because we rely on natural resources to sustain our own lives and even 7 billion humans are no match for the natural powers of fire, lightning, wind, drought, flood, etc. We as individual humans need to find our place where we’re living inside the energy flow of nature, rather than counteracting it, but of course nobody really knows what that means.
That night was spent in the Triglav Lakes Hut eating expensive but delicious authentic local food. The weather began to turn for the worse the next day, with fog and rain forecasted in the afternoon, so I headed back down to the village in the morning. Six hours of downhill walking later, I make it to the road about 10km from my starting point in Trenta. I held out a thumb and the car which stopped for me was exactly the type people who I love to meet. In the car were four travelers, two of whom were also hitchhiking, and they told me they were going to the spring where the Soča River comes out of a cave in the mountain. Sticking to my rule of never saying no to an adventure, we went together to the magical Soča spring, lacking swimsuits but armed with Slovenian honey liquor to combat the frigid water. One after another we stripped down and lowered ourselves into the cave where the crystal clear water came from the mountain into a beautiful pool about 5 meters long and 10+ meters deep. It was a truly magical place and somewhere that is absolutely worth a visit to cap off an incredible hike and soothe the sore muscles.
That evening I made my way to Ljubljana, the small and charming capital of Slovenia, where I stayed with some friends for the next few nights. The last time I was in Slovenia I had discovered a “mlekomat” in the center of the city, which is a vending machine that pours fresh raw milk into a bottle right in front of your eyes. It is refilled by local farmers daily and is the most delicious milk I’ve ever had in a city, and the greatest thing to drink after an adventure. My first time discovering this was the moment that I knew I could happily live in Ljubljana for the rest of my life, and this visit just reinforced those feelings. Unfortunately, though, my time was short, as my Schengen visa was about to expire. Soon I found myself at a rest stop with three other hitchhikers from Poland and Kazakhstan, headed in the direction of Serbia.
