Triglav
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Here is an overview of peaks climbed at my Europe 2012 summer trip.
Route description:
From the parking, walk directly further along the road (beyond here it is closed to traffic) and shortly, pass by the
hut Aljazev Dom.
Continue along the wide path until you see a war memorial
consisting of a giant carabiner, up front.
From here there are two routes and the best approach is to make this a circle loop by ascending one way and take the
alternative for descent. These two trails merge again higher up at approximately 2100 meter of elevation.
Acending along the shorter (and somewhat more exposed) route called the Tominskov Pot trail, means that you should
turn left and cross a dry river bed before you get to the war memorial. This fork is well signed.
The trail now climbs steeply uphill, but on a good path, often with wooden steps.
Higher up, the trail turns right
and starts its interesting traverse in order to rejoin the other route called Cez Prag trail.
The continued route is more horizontal as it traverses natural ledges
and crosses a few brutal looking culoirs. There
are no technical difficulties, but considerable exposure. The route is secured with iron pegs (handholds) and about
a dozen cables across the more exposed sections.
There is a great view back down int the valley as well as directly
ahead to the towering Triglav summit.
After merging with the Cez Prag trail, the route continues uphill, then across a somewhat broken mountain landscape
before a final ascent crossing up a slightly steeper section in order to reach the Kredarica hut, located at
N46:22.732, E013:50.938, elevation about 2510 meter.
From here, the route turns right (as seen when ascending) and descends to a small col before the final ascent.
The route first ascends directly up the broad ridge facing the hut, then makes an ascending traverse on its left side.
This section is protected by iron pegs providing extra handholds. The route climbs back onto the main ridge and crosses
over the Mali Triglav (Little Triglav). The route now stays on the top of the ridge which sometimes gets fairly narrow,
but never difficult and always secured by cables. Finally, you climb the last stretch to the summit, still protected
by pegs and cables across the most exposed sections.
Descent, Cez Prag trail:
When back at the trailfork, descend left using the Cez Prag trail.
This trail basically negotiates a huge, steep slope that
runs all the way down to the valley floor, between Triglav and the rocks above the Tominskov Pot trail. Mostly an easy zig-zag trail,
often across scree, but there are slightly steeper sections where
more vertical rock must be bypassed. The crux of this
trail (called the bears step) is a pretty steep section that
must be down-climbed on rock. This stretch is equipped with a wire as well as iron
pegs and steps. Some climbers may want to clip in their via ferrata kit here for added protection. Further down, it seems that
the trail will traverse left (as seen when descending) and make it down with no further complications, but alas, this is
not quite so. The final descent follows what looks like a dry drainage. Again somewhat steepish with protection
provided in several places. Near the bottom, the route exits this couloir and finally reaches the main valley floor with a
small river. From here, the trail is broad and easy as it runs
down the main valley back down to the war memorial with the
giant carabiner.
Comments:
We stayed in Kranjska Gora after moving from Italy where I had climbed Jôf de Montasio the previous day.
I had my sandwitch breakfast at the trailhead and was ready to go hiking at 0545. From reading about Triglav, I was prepared for
a long day. Many people make this a 2 day climb.
I quickly came to the giant carabiner and
decided to take the left route uphill. This was a decision made on the spot, when planning
this climb I had thought conservatively, that I should follow the "normal route" both ways. "Do not risk any complications that
might cause delays or even the climb to fail." However, everybody seemed to continue straight ahead, thus I simply could not
resist going left across the dry river bed. I quickly convinced myself that this would result in a more varied and interesting
trip.
The trail quickly gained elevation. There seemed to be nobody around. the weather was dominated by fog, essentially low clouds, thus
visibility was limited. I continued uphill, then started traversing. La-la-la, the terrain started to look more advanced up
front. The fog perevented a global view on the challenge, but there were several local problems in plain view. However, the
route always found a nice way around and across seemingly hard sections. The exposure was significant in several spots.
Suddenly a man came down in the opposite direction. He told me there were very few ahead. He was Slovenian and appeared to
have walked in this mountain before. Shortly before my route merged back with the Cez Prag trail, I met two guys from
Oxford, England. We had a nice chat before proceeding in opposite directions. This was also when I broke through the
clouds and into blue sky, a very scenic moment. I could
now see Triglav ahead
and the summits of other peaks across the valley.
I reached the upper trail fork at 0830, so 2:45 from the car. From here, the hike was uneventful until reaching the
Kredarica hut at 0925. I had met two fellow Norwegians below the final uphill section to the hut.
I continued to the summit without any
pause and soon the Kredarica hut was
directly below me, while I could see climbers
on the final summit ridge, still high above me.
It was a day for Norwegians as I ran into 5 more Norwegians just before the summit.
Among them was Martine Løvold, an active member of the DNT mountaineering group in Oslo. We had never met before,
but had a pretty large group of common friends.
I subsequently arrived at the summit by 1020, having used about 50 minutes from
the Kredarica hut.
The summit was nice, but a bit unreal. Three
painters all dressed in white outfits, did work on the main summit marker.
A few other climbers were all celebrating their achievements.
The view was nice,
but clouds were swirvling around and changing the scene.
At least, it was possible to get a good view of the local peaks as well as the somewhat more
distant Jôf de Montasio that I climbed yesterday.
After 20 minutes I descended back down to the Kredarica hut (50 minutes) where the group of 5 Norwegians had a nice outdoor lunch on the
terasse. I ordered a cold beer and pasta and joined the group. This took a while, but it was nice resting and in this
way breaking the trip into two. After a long, good break I started downhill
at 1240, this trail is still steep and requires care.
On the way down, I spotted a mountain deer that
had fallen to its death, they are so sure-footed, but a reminder that things may
go wrong also for the very best. I lost the trail at the very end of the dry creek and descended it all the way down, while the
route makes a right exit somewhere. A long and almost perfect day was coming to an end as I reached the car at 1535.