Svinjak

The guide book estimates that the walk to the summit should take approximately 2.5 to 3 hours but in late June with temperatures of above 30 degrees I felt that might be a little optimistic.

The footpath starts pretty much right at the back door of the house and follows a stream over rough ground between two meadows before hitting the start of the ridge. At the top of the meadows the path becomes more defined with walls and fruit trees on each side, everything looked good but the cherries were easiest to reach so I helped myself to a small handful.

Once you get onto the Svinjak path proper you soon leave behind the sounds of the valley, the only noise is the brown leaf mulch rustling under foot, the sound of grass hoppers popping as they take off and landing all around you, the buzz of insects going about their daily business and the occasional cry of an eagle or buzzard.

After about twenty minutes you reach a turning to  the left for the WW1 trenches and gunning placements of the Austro-Hungarian forces. If you're not in a hurry to get to the summit it's well worth taking twenty minutes to walk around the recently excavated battlements, if you have a torch there are even a number of underground bunkers dug out of the rock that are well worth exploring.

Beyond this point the woodland becomes more open as the trees become larger and less sunlight hits the floor, the smaller shrubs, flora and fauna of the meadows all but disappears.

About twenty minutes beyond the trenches you hit the ridge for the first time and the ground to the left drops away affording a fantastic view up to Mt. Rombon, Fort Kluze, along with the Bavsica and Koritnica valleys.

Sadly this superb vista is short lived and the path soon climbs away to the right leaving the ridge behind again. The walking for the most part is pleasant enough although you do become aware that before too long you've been walking uphill of over an hour with very little respite.

As the foot path hits the ridge once more the trees become smaller and stockier in stature to brace themselves against the elements, at this point the family of golden eagles that I had heard on the footpath below came into sight, circling in the thermals and cruising past, skimming the trees at less than five meters above my head.

About two thirds of the way up you reach an area of the woodland that has been killed off leaving the skeleton trees looking petrified. Although it's a little sad to see so many dead trees, it does mean that you get your first fantastic view back into the Soca Valley and the Bovec basin, it also means the return of the valleys flora and fauna along with plenty of wild strawberries to feast on.

The bright sunshine of the break in the trees is short lived and soon enough you're back in the cool, dappled light of the woodland again, all views are taken away from you and you're back to the relentless march continually upwards.

After about another half an hour you break out into the final climb, you leave the trees behind and you start to feel the cool breeze of altitude. The path becomes steeper and more broken once again, in sections it even starts to resemble a mild scramble. The climbing is never harder than that of Striding or Sharp edge in the Lake District but the exposure is possibly enough to deter some with an almost shear drop down both sides of the ridge.

On the way up this final section I passed a number of areas of rough brush that had been burnt, the fires presumably caused by lightning strike, indeed some areas still smelt of recent fire, with very little cover it would certainly be a scary place to be caught in a storm.

Once I reached the summit I was disappointed to find that I was unable open the little cylinder that houses the visitors book, I couldn't determine what was making the door jam but judging by the white scratches by the latch several people had taken pieces of limestone to it in an effort to get it open.

My disappointment soon faded as what I had at first thought to be another golden eagle seemed to be getting unfeasibly larger and larger as it came closer and closer. It wasn't until it's final pass that I realised it wasn't an eagle at all and I got a good look at my first European vulture, it's wing span must have been close to 3m and it dwarfed the eagles of earlier in the day. 

Coming down was slightly less eventful but considerably quicker than my journey up. It had taken me two and half hours to reach the summit but just forty-five minutes to jog down. The top section of the path, above the trees was a little exposed and the stones of the path a little loose but once you reach the safe haven of the trees, the cool shade and nice soft leafy path meant that it was easy to make good progress.

All in all Svinjak is a superb half days walk, the summit is a little bit of an anti climax in that it isn't really a true summit but actually the start of a high alpine ridge system, that said the views are spectacular  and the miniature replica of the hut at the summit of Triglav is an entertaining way to store the summits visitors book. There's plenty to see on the way up and the abundance of wildlife here in Slovenia is in plentiful supply on Svinjak. This is a walk that I'll no doubt repeat again soon but maybe next time I'll pack a screwdriver and hopefully get into the visitors book.