Slovenia Mountain Trail – Day 21

7/30/2022

Daily Miles: 12

Total Miles: 208

We heard it rain over night, but it never seemed to rain too hard. As it got light in the morning, we could tell that it was very foggy and we had little visibility. By the time we got up for breakfast, it seemed like the visibility had increased a bit, but it was still misting and it was really windy and cold.

As we were packing up this morning, SweetPea realized that her hiking skirt was missing. We looked all over, but it seemed that another hiker in our bunk room must have put it in their pack accidentally as they were packing up in the dark. It is a real bummer to lose hiking clothes, especially something that SweetPea wears all the time at home. But for now, it means that she has to hike in her spare pair of pants for the rest of the trip. If the temperature is cool, it won’t be a big deal, but with the really hot weather we’ve been having it would be really uncomfortable.

We ended up leaving a little before 9am with our rain gear on. Even though it was just sprinkling, the strong wind made it very cold. At times, it felt like you had to really brace yourself for the wind as it could come up really quickly. Luckily we only needed the rain gear for an hour or so, as the weather started to clear.

The trail today was pretty good. While we had a few short climbs and descents, the bulk of the trail was rather gentle. Lots and lots of rocks, but it feels like we just kinda expect that at this point. With all the rocks, Beardoh has appreciated his new shoes. He bought La Sportiva mountain running shoes that have have a beefier sole that our typical trail runners that we use on hikes.

The landscape in the first half of the day ended up being totally different than the second half of the day. In the morning, it felt at times like we were walking through a moonscape…pale rock landscape with no signs of vegetation. Then we descended into the Seven Lakes Valley (we only saw four of the lakes), where we started to see trees and then the forest really filled in. The rest of the day was hiking in a forest with lots of wildflowers.

Down in the valley, we stopped at a hut for lunch. This isn’t something we’ve done much, but we’ve been getting pretty hungry during the day and this hut timed out perfectly. SweetPea had barley soup and Beardoh had goulash and we shared a piece of tiramisu for dessert. As we were finishing up lunch, a couple we had met at the previous hut showed up and sat down with us. We chatted with them for probably an hour and didn’t start walking again until around 2pm.

The afternoon was nice hiking and we both put on a podcast to listen to. SweetPea’s hip has been sore, so we stopped a few times so she could stretch and have Beardoh massage her hip. That seemed to help and we eventually saw our hut off in the distance, nestled in the woods.

We got some sprinkles in our last half hour of walking, but it didn’t amount to anything. Our hut tonight seems quite large and new (rebuilt in 2005 after an earthquake had cause damage). We had a nice dinner (with our second tiramisu of the day!) and as we were finishing, Leah showed up, so we chatted with her about the day.

Our room has a really nice view out to Lake Bohinj down in the valley. A nice end to a really good day.