Just a few impressions and reminders following our first trip to Slovenia.
The Julian Alps area, and Slovenia itself, seems to be a well-kept secret. A stunning area with lots of interest and variety; natural windows, caves, ravines, steep sided mountains, VF routes, endless hut-to-hut opportunities, accessible peaks, superb public transport and friendly people.
Huts
Having spent 8 nights in 7 different huts and called in at a few others, we feel to have experienced them! All have been excellent although the higher mountain hut toilets leave a lot to be desired!
Great atmosphere as always, with a tradition of singing songs later in the evening. Ceramic stoves (usually fuelled from the kitchen) are in most dining rooms.
For dinner, bed and breakfast, we usually paid €25-30 per person, and that included a Laško (beer).
Food
Food in the huts was mainly goulash or soup. There wasn't a huge choice for the vegetarian. Most soups are cooked with meat in (for flavour!) and taken out to become veggie!
Jota = sauerkraut soup with potatoes
Ričet = barley soup
Pasulj = bean soup
Klobasa = sausage
Being so close to Italy, the pizzas in the towns are excellent, and cheap.
People
The Slovenian people were extremely warm, friendly and helpful. The only grumpiness we encountered was a couple of bus drivers and a frosty reception at Hotel Lek when we arrived wet and bedraggled! An Austrian guy at one of the huts commented that he thinks Slovenians are friendlier than his own nation and that they are "half enlightened". We agree with the latter.
Camping
We only stayed at one campsite. Natura Eco Camp was a beautiful campsite with a wonderful owner. It's new so doesn't feature in any guidebooks yet. It was unlike any European campsite we've experienced. Situated in the forest, it was quite small and had no marked out pitches. It was rustic, in a nice way. A wooden, al fresco block houses 3 toilets, 3 showers and a few sinks. Any hot water was solar powered or heated by a stove in the evenings. Water was straight from the mountains. There was an outdoor kitchen area with a gas hob for anyone to use at any time. There was also a fire pit which we sat round one evening, having returned from the huts, where we were served homemade minestrone soup and fruit salad. Ideal. Zoran was a wonderful person, who was so relaxed and seemed at one with the world. He was more than happy for us to leave our tent set up for nothing while we went into the mountains. We just hope it doesn't get spoiled as people find out about it.
Meths was hard to find in Kranjska Gora. We tried petrol stations, sports shops and supermarkets. There wasn't a hardware store. Fortunately the pharmacy could provide us with 90% alcohol which, at €13.90 for a litre, was extortionate! We consoled ourselves that we'd saved ourselves return bus fares to Jesenice and a few hours of time to get to a Merkur shop, where we're sure you could find it. Moral of the story: consider bringing a gas converter, as gas was readily available. Or drive and take your own!
Flora and fauna
We were fortunate to have seen the following on our travels:
Chamois
Marmots
Ibex
Black salamanders
Varieties of funghi
Triglav rose
Enzian
Loads of alpine flowers (which we need to research)
Guides
We relied on the Cicerone Julian Alps of Slovenia by Justi Carey and Roy Clark which is a very comprehensive guidebook. For adventurous routes in future, we might look at High level routes in the Julian Alps. We used a couple of different maps but predominantly the Sidarta Triglav 1:25000.
Quotes
An Austrian guy at Dom Planika: "Well.... Where do you train?" In a way that sounded like we have no rocks or mountains in the UK.
An Austrian guy at Dom Poštarski to Mani (in German): "It's nice to see young people in the huts and mountains, as we're all getting old!"
Kit
We seemed to have the right gear with us yet felt to travel with large bags. By the time you've packed a tent, sleeping bags, mats, a trangia, VF kits, harnesses and helmets we didn't seem to have an awful lot of room left!
One thing we did lack was ice axes. We had a couple of instances on our first trek when we encountered snow at a relatively low height, for August at least. One was just under the Krišta Stena wall at about 1700m on day 1 and the other was under Razor at a similar height on day 3. Having done a fair amount of research in guide books, we didn't anticipate needing any snow gear. Authors tend to mention where snow is likely to lie late in the season. However the situations we were faced with stopped us in our tracks and we had to think carefully about whether to go ahead. We weighed up the 'stepth' of the slope and went ahead across the short sections but felt quite vulnerable without axes. This was the main reason for buying poles out there - it provided us with some support. It is clear that the area has had a harsh winter, and a mixed summer to say the least, but in future we plan on contacting TICs and huts near the mountains we intend to roam to get the latest information. And if in doubt, axes will be in.
CP
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