offline photos on Flickr

I woke after pretty lousy night of sleep in Bohinjska Bastrica and spent some time working on downloading some offline trail maps in Gaia GPS and AllTrails which required some nuisance troubleshooting but eventually worked out. When Maddie was up we dropped our luggage in storage, got some bakery items next door, and a coffee across the street.

After a few more rounds of packing and re-packing we finally felt decent about our packs and we set off on day one of our loop on the Juliana Trail, circumnavigating Lake Bohinj, going towards the peak Črna Prst where we would stay at the hut called Dom Zorka. Dom translates to house and Zorka comes from being named after a Slovenian national activist who was named Zorko Jelinčič.

As we started the trail we first passed through a neighborhood then carried into the pastures at the base of the mountain. From there we passed into forest on a trail blazed straight up the mountain that looked like maybe it had been driven by ATVs. Eventually the trail became more of a traditional single path that was scenic with ferns, a mix of deciduous and coniferous trees, and many wildflowers. The trail was quite steep but very pleasant and temperate in the shade of the forest. We encountered very few people- maybe 6 on our way up.

After a while we arrived at a hut at the base of a large bowl in the mountains which had some picnic tables and a grassy space overlooking a meadow below. We sat in two cute low slung lawn chairs and basked in the sunlight. After we continued up the mountain and the wildflowers became increasingly abundant and diverse. Along the way there were little markers indicating the species of plants we were seeing; it was very impressive to have an arboretum-like experience while trekking up an actual mountain trail that was very steep.

After more climbing we broke past the tree line and our views of the Lake Bohinj and the surrounding mountains became very impressive as we trudged up the steep face of rock. Towards the top we were both a bit unnerved by the sheer dropoffs and level of exposure as we scrambled up the mountain.

Soon our hut came into view; it was quite large and perfectly placed on the mountaintop. We checked in with our host who spoke a few worlds of English and he told us we could go our dorm in a few hours. We were also asked to leave our boots in a boot room and take a pair of hut slippers for walking around in. Maddie sat a picnic table and listened to her audio book while I roamed about to scout out the views which were absolutely awesome!

In the end we were 2 out of 5 total guests that night. There was one other couple from Denmark and one solo hiker from Germany. At dinner we were served piping hot gulash which was tasty along with some bread and an apple streusel for dessert. We chatted with the couple from Denmark who were roughly our age. Notable things we learned were that the guy was a semi-professional footballer with a fear of heights and she was self employed in a Covid era company her brother started which arranges dates for couples to go on in small cities around the Netherlands. After SLO they were heading to Croatia but they weren’t sure whether they’d continue on the trail or turn back because he’d been so anxious about the high, narrow, and exposed trail conditions. We watched the sunset which was nice but nothing out of the ordinary then went to bed around 9:30 while there was still some light left in the sky. In the middle of the night to use the restroom we had to exit our dorm room, scurry down a flight of stairs, go out the front door around the side of the building to a side door. When we went outside at some point in the middle of the night, the wind was really whipping, there was fog rolling through at an unbelievable pace and the starsbetween clouds were quite nice, so worth the long cold walk.

According to my Garmin watch, we hiked approximately 5.5 miles and gained 4,508 feet of elevation over 3 hours and 41 minutes.

Photos: Macson McGuigan

DSCF2521 by Tootington