Slovenia Mountain Trail – Day 11

7/18/2022

Daily Miles: 6

Total Miles: 119

So, we knew we wouldn’t be hiking the SMT into town today because it has via ferrata sections, so we had looked to find our best alternative, which was heading back down to the valley and then walking out to a road where we could hitch or catch a bus to our next trail town. There really weren’t any other options that stayed away from the technical trails.

At this point, we have been on four trails which connect this range of mountains to the valley (including the one today) and we can say that the one we came down today is the roughest of the bunch.

It was pretty steep and rocky and didn’t have the same wildflower fields as the other trails. At times we were going down a dried up river bed and climbing down big rocks. We only saw two people going up as we came down, which is a big difference from the previous two days. Of course, today is a Monday, so that accounts for a lot of it, but still the trail felt very quiet.

When we got to the parking lot at the trailhead, there were only six cars there, and we figured people were just starting their hikes, since it was only 11am, so we decided to walk down the road to get to a bigger road which goes to Zgornje Jezersko, our next trail town.

We figured that if we tried to get a hitch, we would at least need to know how to pronounce the town we were going to. We practiced saying the town name as best we could, but we think it was still far from how Slovenians would pronounce it. It is hard to keep location names and even food words straight in our minds, because the words sound so different than they look and there doesn’t seem to be a lot of intuitive words or sounds for someone who speaks English.

When we got to the bigger road, we realized it was actually a pretty quiet road. There were definitely more cyclists than cars going by. We have noticed in each town that cycling seems to be super popular. It can be hard to go for even a few minutes without seeing cyclists ride by when we are going through towns.

We walked up the road to a bus stop and then tried to hitch from there while waiting for the bus. Luckily we only had to wait for 15 minutes until a guy stopped to pick us up. He was on his way to work and dropped us off at the small grocery store in town. We have hitched a number of times on other hikes, but weren’t really sure what Slovenians thought of it, so we were very glad to have been picked up so quickly.

The small town of Zgornje Jezersko is another picturesque mountain village. The views of the mountains from town are really spectacular and we even have a fantastic view from our hotel room.

Luckily we were able to find a room for the night without difficulty. We were able to check in early and then we went to find lunch. We had a great pizza and a salad as we sat outside enjoying the great weather and views.