Adventure

As an owner of a touring agency and a mountain guide I feel fortunate to be able to do many mountain climbs and hikes in Slovenia and see beautiful hard-to-reach places that many only dream about. Whether it’s a daring ascent of Triglav, the highest Slovenian mountain, wandering among colorful meadows in the beautifully remote mountains above Jezersko, or a dreamy hike in the hills around Lake Bled. We’ve done all of them together and it’s been pretty damn awesome.

This past summer, Tracey, a wonderful gal from Australia, whom I shared two great via Ferratas with, asked me if I ever influence people’s decisions about which tour to select. Put aside professional decision making to suggest an appropriate mountain tour based on people’s skills and experience, I most definitely do. To be honest, I always try to push a bit of my own hiking wishes into the decision process and that is not necessarily a bad thing either. Our clients end up visiting all the best places in any given moment of the season. 

When flowers bloom in the mountains, we do the most beautiful loops among fragile daffodils, crocuses, wild orchids, gentians, edelweiss and many others. When an abundance of rainfall fills the enchanting Triglav Lakes up to the brim and sometimes even over, we absolutely skip other hikes and go there instead. When it’s time to do a breathtaking via Ferrata in the mountains, we climb Mala Mojstrovka, but when we want a challenging via Ferrata, we go for the bold climb to Gradiška Tura even if the drive takes much longer than the mainstream ones nearby. Given the fact that I’ve been going around Slovenian mountains for a couple of decades, I can confidently say that those who have trusted Exploring Slovenia so far have not been disappointed. Biased or not.

To prove that, here are ten highlights of our best mountain hikes and climbs in the summer season 2023. Enjoy!

Exploring Slovenia’s best day hikes:
Stunning Julian Alps
Fairytale hike in Karavanke
Goli Vrh above Jezersko
Flower hike on Golica

As the season turns around and we are suddenly faced with high temperatures and lots of hot sun, it’s nice to look back and daydream about the awesome mountain adventures you’ve done in the past months. Due to a colder start of the spring, the nature remained in its snooze mode for a couple of weeks longer this year, but once it finally did wake up, it was freaking insane! I’d never seen so many daffodils in the mountains before, nor had the mid-elevation peaks looked so lush and verdant in early June.

Let’s go through the most memorable mountain hikes in Slovenia (and one awesome climb!) that we explored together this spring.

Close your eyes and listen for a moment. Did you hear loud voices from the road outside? Or a faint rumble of a home appliance? In an ever-louder noisy world of the valley one needs a sporadic retreat to the silent world of amazingly wild and incredibly remote mountains. To lie down in an empty Alpine meadow, bask in the warmth, and daydream to the light symphony of birdsong and distant whistles of a chamois guarding its territory. There is no need for silence but only to become in sync with nature, whose vague silhouette we can barely still recognize in the cities.

Whether you live here or are planning just a short visit, here is a list of the best twelve beginner-to-advanced hikes and climbs in Slovenia I’ve done this summer. Maybe you’ll find an intriguing idea for a bad-ass family outdoor adventure or maybe you’ll head for a romantic getaway high up in the mountains. Either way, while you’re huffing and puffing your way to the top, stop for a bit to reflect and appreciate how divinely different the Alpine world actually is. Serene and tranquil.

Here are twelve beautiful mountain hikes and climbs in Slovenian Alps. Enjoy!

I’m very excited to give you a story written by Nick, our very special guest from Ireland who hiked and climbed with us last summer. Enjoy the read!

It was a wonderful sunny summer’s day in Kranjska Gora, Slovenia. I had been comfortably dined and rested at the hotel and just finished a magnificent breakfast that was truly regal in its volume and variety. That day was my first day climbing of a ten-day mountaineering trip expertly planned by Exploring Slovenia. As the early morning sun warmed me up, I eagerly awaited the arrival of Neja, who owns the company, and has arranged all the guiding and mountain accommodation for my stay in the Julian Alps. Neja arrived promptly and introduced me to Samo, an IFMGA mountain guide and an expert on these demanding high level routes. Neja and I had planned some tough climbing over the coming days and I quickly found both Neja and Samo easy going, chatty and with a good sense of fun too.

I’ve made it no secret that the Julian Alps are one of my favorite corners of Slovenia. Remote and rugged mountainous landscapes full of pinnacles, huge rocks scattered along open trails, vertical walls and dense forests. I love them. That’s why I was thrilled beyond words to return there in September after a busy summer only to experience the most unforgettable adventures. The three-day traverse from Bohinj to the Soča Valley was simply gorgeous, but the two Triglav climbs definitely packed more adrenaline. Exciting times!

It’s been 124 years since Jakob Aljaž, a great patriot and a priest, paid one Austro-Hungarian gulden for the top of Slovenia’s highest mountain. The amount of money one could have bought 50 eggs or 10 liters of milk for. His idea was to oppose the prevalent Germanization of the Slovenian people and the mountains in the Austro-Hungarian Empire back then.

Once the top of Slovenia was again Slovenian, he had a 2×1.25 m symbolic tower erected at the top of Triglav on 7 August 1895. In the following years he also mined an almost impassable 30-cm ridge between the peaks of Triglav and Mali Triglav into the nicely wide ridge we know today; besides, he also built the mountain hut Kredarica at 2,515 m and the Aljaž Hut in the Vrata Valley below Triglav. His far-reaching idea was to stimulate more Slovenians to visit the mountains, conquer the very top of Slovenia – the symbol of the Slovenian nation, make new legendary routes, and thus make the mountains Slovenian again.

I love mountains. I love the people, the energy, and the genuine love for anything that’s outdoors. Yet more and more, I’ve been noticing a trend lately towards regular people like you and me taking greater risks, perhaps too big to handle safely. Although everyone passionate about mountains should feel equally deserving of climbing them regardless of experience, age, or gender, there are ways to minimize the risks.

Certain places resonate with us, hikers, in many unique and mysterious ways. Whether I can envision myself exploring one mountain top after another or just falling in love with a particular area, often-times I find myself returning to some spots again and again.

The Upper Soča Valley is definitely one of the corners of Slovenia where I have left bits of my heart.

With the early snowfall coloring the peaks of our highest mountains white, my thoughts go back to a special two-day climb in late August to three beautiful mountains in the Julian Alps I was honored to climb with my Dutch-Austrian friend Georg. Originally, we had been planning to climb Triglav over its 1-km high vertical North Face taking the Prag Route on the first day and explore the Triglav Lakes Valley on the second day, but as fate would have it, Slovenia experienced a sudden extreme drop in temperature just a few days before our trip and the mountains above 1,800 m dressed in an unexpected 30-cm snow cover. That called for a quick last-minute change of plan, and instead of climbing the Triglav North Face, we rather opted for the southern slopes of the spectacular mountains on the opposite side of Vrata Valley, also home to the beautiful Alpine ibex.

As much as I boast about Slovenia’s autumns being amazing for mountaineering, there’s still a tiny corner of my soul that’s always a little disappointed when October starts to roll around. The cold sets in, the fog sits low in the valleys until late morning or even early afternoon, the daylight dwindles, it’s too early to ski and can be too late to get up into high mountains after unexpected early snowfall. Yet the colors autumn brings make my heart sing (remember last year’s Kranjska Gora and Kobarid?). Last week, that autumn heart singing got me wandering around Lake Bohinj, searching for the entrance to its best kept secret to the heavenly views and hell of a climb – a via ferrata called Ožarjeni Kamen (Eng. Sunlit Stone).