Climb it, they said. It's not so hard, they said

When one gets a recommendation from a  Slovenian climber as to where to hike, they should be prepared to frequently be clinging to the edge of a cliff and to get their butt kicked. The super fit looking owner of our Hostel, Stefan, suggested one of his favorite routes for us to try with the caveat that he didn't know how we do with heights. It included 3 summits (all above 2000 meters), exposed ridges, and it was a loop - kind of like hiking Franconia Ridge, right?

Dan driving through a tiny "tunnel" along the road that is on the way to our lodging 

Hay drying in Slovenia

Sign at the trailhead that talked about "quiet areas" where you need to be quiet for the animals 

All of the hiking times are one way. Our destinations are not on this sign. A funny phenomenon that happens is that you can be hiking for about an hour and the times at the next sign will not be different.

We hiked to the summit of the peak just up and to the left of Dan's head

Being able to see where you are heading can be daunting 

Shepherds' plateau in the distance 

The peak in the top right corner was the second peak that we summited

A water trough in a glacial cirque 

A protected flower in Slovenia - it looks like a pom-pom 

We summited the peaks on both the left and the right and hiked along that ridge after summiting another peak beforehand

Starting up a ridge that went to the summit of the peak in the top right hand corner (Veliki Draski)

Dan consulting with the maps on his phone because the "trail" didn't look much more than a herd path

Part way up the ridge to The summit

All smiles after surviving some hairy hiking, but still plenty left to go 

The trail was almost non-existent and there was lots of scrambling up the ridge

We hiked in four-wheel drive for a lot of this ridge. You know that when Dan goes into four-wheel drive that it is sketchy!

Four wheel drive 

Wildflowers with the second and third peak of the day in the distance

The trail was steep with lots of death cliffs

Fueling up with gummy worms for the summit push

The stamp on the summit of Veliki Draski (2243 meters)

Lunch time!

Ptic bird on the summit of Veliki Draski with Triglav (the highest mountain in Slovenia) in the distance 

On the summit of Veliki Draski with Triglav in the background 

On the summit of Veliki Draski with our next two summits in the background

Dan dreaming about hiking Triglav (highest mountain in Slovenia), but it's not in the cards this trip 

A stamp book of a Slovenian hiker. We met two Slovenians hiking 5 summits this day, but we didn't see any other hikers on this mountain all day

One of the books that the Slovenian hikers we met kept their summit stamps in. They said that they have stacks of these kinds of books in their home.

Using the summit stamp

After soaking in the awesome views of Triglav and surviving the hairy scary ridge hike up to Veliki Draski, we began our trek towards Mali Draski and Visevnik. Just looking at where the trail went made me nervous so I wasn't sure if I was going to do all of the planned summits. The photos don't make them nearly as terrifying as they look in person. I was just glad that we didn't have to hike back down the trail we ascended.

Taking a little food break after descending from Veliki Draski (in the background) before heading up our next summit

Veliki Draski with "kneecap" wildflowers 

On the trail towards Mali Draski with Veliki Draski in the background 

Looking back at Dan with Veliki Draski behind him - the picture doesn't really show just how steep the slope that he is on is.

We had to cross paths with this giant group of Spanish hikers going the opposite direction on a VERY skinny trail - it took a long time 

Crossing paths with hikers going the other direction was tricky - these were the last few from the group of Spanish hikers. Luckily, they were the only hikers with whom we needed to cross paths 

Dan hiking along the trail

There were a few spots where there was a cable which made me very happy 

Me hiking along the trail

Some very old boards as part of the trail

Me hiking along the trail

Next was decision making time: should we do the spur trail up to the summit of Mali Draski, which looked super sketchy or should we just continue along the regular hiking path which is what most people do? After seeing the trail up to the summit, I made the very rational decision to not go up. Dan decided to check it out to see just how unsafe it was. He kept going so I got a little FOMO and followed him. We weren't worried about going up, which ended up having some rock climbing scrambles - it was the descent that was the worry. For what it's worth, I use the the term "trail" loosely - clearly some other hikers have gone in roughly a similar direction, but it is by no means what we would consider a trail.

Looking down part of the spur trail to the summit - so much loose rock!

Looking up at Dan on the spur trail to the summit

Maybe rethinking my decision to go up to the summit 

Looking back towards what will be our 3rd summit

Dan heading up to Mali Draski 

On the summit (you can see the summit stamp at Dan's feet)

There are sheer cliffs surrounding us on the summit

Relieved to have made it to the summit, but dreading the descent 

Summit stamp selfie (in lieu of an actual stamp)

Looking at Triglav in the distance with the true summit of Mali Draski on the left (small cairn) - you just couldn't get their without climbing gear because of the cliffs.

Triglav popped out of the clouds for a moment 

Now for a hair-raising descent down from Mali Draski. We just went slow and tried not to slip on too many of the loose rocks.

Lots of four wheel drive hiking on the way down 

Checking out the trail up to the next summit

Dan ran out of water right about here and we still had one more peak to hit (the one just beyond Dan) before making our way down

Happy to have survived Mali Draski

The trail up to Visevnik was a gravy train compared to the other summits (because it was an actual trail unlike the other ones)

Summit stamp selfie 

On the summit with the summit stamp near our feet

Time to head down and complete our loop hike after hitting all three summits. I was almost out of water and Dan was completely out. We fueled up on gummy bears and headed down.

Looking back at towards the direction from where we came 

The loop ended on a ski slope

A few cows just grazing in the forest towards the end of our hike 

We finished our hike with no water and no gummy bears left (although we did have more bars still). Our shoes came off and water was consumed before heading off towards our next lodging in Kranjska Gora. The GPS gave us 2 options: one was a little bit longer but without tolls so we chose that one so we didn't have to figure out the tolls. The road we took was through a beautiful valley of gentle rolling hills. Apparently, this was a great place to train as the road did not go straight up and down so we were dodging people out cycling, roller blading, walking, etc along this road. A side note about what we have noticed here: Slovenians exercise outside A LOT! They are on bikes, roller skis, hiking, climbing, and more. It seems like the bigger the hills/mountains, the more they go after it. 

Leaving Triglav National Park

A van full of roller skiers heading out to train

Roller skiers out training 

I took this photo for Maya - Slovenians care about amphibians ❤️

Our apartment in Kranjska Gora

Dan enjoying his "welcome drink"

Kranjska Gora - picturesque ski village surrounded by huge mountains tucked into the northwest corner of Slovenia (right next to Austria and Italy). The World Cup in skiing is held here every year.

Heading to dinner Kranjska Gora

Dinner time

Heading back to our apartment 

But not before getting some gelato 😀

For those of you who follow Dan on Stava, you can see that this hike we did was at a snail's pace - one mile/hr average. Clearly we spent some time crawling along the trail. These Slovenian mountains are no joke!