Paradise in Slovenia

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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 the 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 crisis in 2007. The population is overall very well educated and nearly everyone speaks English, 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 and hitchhikers make this the perfect place for an adventure. I started my second trip to Slovenia at a campground in a small mountain town called Bovec.

Immediately I made friends with the others staying at the campground and by day we hiked to gorgeous waterfalls and lakes and by night we played endless rounds of king’s cup. Amy, the first American I had met in at least a month, was a great hiking companion for our trek up to Krn Lake, an amazing lake in a lush mountain valley with happy cows, purple wildflowers, and giant rocky peaks. I had been loving being the only American in all of the groups of friends that I made along the way, but it was really nice to meet Amy and hear an American accent that I could always understand and be able to use my full vocabulary. Being the only American makes me feel unique and I find it exciting to make foreign friends, but it is definitely nice to meet like-minded people from my own country once in awhile.

The waterfall near Bovec, Slovenia with Amy and Natalie

Happy Slovenian cow at Krn Lake

Self-timer above Krn Lake

After a few days spent at the campground and exploring the area around Bovec, it felt like time to move on and achieve my goal of climbing the highest mountain in Slovenia: Triglav. The hike began in a village called Trenta and rose steeply up from 693m to the peak at 2,864m above sea level. Triglav National Park is full of huts for hikers to stay in, some free and some not. 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. That evening was spent sipping wine with some Germans in the hut and listening to the extremely drunk men from a Slovenian Alpine club play traditional Slovenian mountain songs on the guitar, singing at the top of their lungs. It was quite entertaining, and they were very good musicians considering their alcohol consumption. Though the mountains in the US may be more wild, it is unique experiences like this that make me treasure hiking in Europe.

The beginning of the hike in Trenta

Looking down on the trail from the hut

The entry in my journal about Krn Lake and the first day on Triglav

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 9,000 feet 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. 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 7,000’ 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.

The 900 foot cliff that must be climbed to reach the peak

Climbing

The view from the top

Celebratory liter of milk at the peak 

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 make people laugh at me, the silly foreigner, or if it was actually a hilarious tradition. Anyhow, I obliged, and later internet research proved that he was not joking. Next time you meet a Slovenian, ask them if they’ve been whipped in the ass by a climbing rope on top of the highest mountain, they’ll likely say yes.

Earning my right of passage as a Slovenian

My journal entry after the second day

I descended from the peak with a Canadian and a Slovenian guy that I met at the top. We opted to run down the scree fields rather than follow the trail, but they were practiced trail runners and eventually I couldn’t keep up any more. I decided to slow down to my own walking pace, and soon met some older Slovenian 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. My destination for the night was the Triglav Lakes valley, which I reached a few hours later.

One of the Triglav Lakes

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.

The lake next to the hut

That night I was unexpectedly reunited with a group of Belgian guys who I met at a campground a few days earlier, and after a few beers it seemed like a good idea to teach them how to casually shotgun. So, several miles into the backcountry, we drank half liter beers in under 5 seconds through holes in the bottom of the cans. Not exactly the type of backpacking experience I was used to, and a huge contrast from my philosophical thoughts earlier in the day, but it was great fun nonetheless. 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 stood on the road to thumb a ride back to where I had left half of the contents of my backpack. The car which stopped for me was exactly the type people who I love to meet. They first told me that they just wanted to say hi and wish me good luck because they were full, which was clear by the backpacks piled up to the roof, but when I told them I was just going to the next village, we decided it would be possible to make some space and squeeze in. In the car were four Germans, all around my age, and I found out that the other two people in the back seat were also hitchhikers. Immediately we all felt like good friends. They told me they were going to the spring where the Soča River comes out of a cave in the mountain and asked if I wanted to join them for a small adventure before going to pick up my stuff. 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 12 feet long and maybe 50 feet deep. It was a truly magical place and I was so thankful for having such amazing people pick me up on the road.

The hole in the mountain where the river begins. Looking down into about 50ft of water in a cave. 

One great group of travelers

My final journal entry from Slovenia

That evening I made my way to Ljubljana, the small and charming capital of Slovenia, where I stayed with some friends of a friend (now just 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 with a tap 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. 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 travel visa was about to expire and I had to leave myself some time to get to England a few weeks later. Soon I found myself hanging out at a rest stop with three other hitchhikers from Poland and Kazakhstan, asking every car that drove by for a ride towards Belgrade, Serbia.