Bobby Gilbert Adventures

Hot on the heals of our success on Prisank we had a pre-dawn start on the 26th June for our 2 day climb of Triglav. At 2864m the highest mountain in Slovenia. You aren’t allowed to drive up the approach valley so we caught the park and ride shuttle service in the dark. After some blundering around route finding we found the path which soon steepened as the sun rose. Lovely views across the valley while we stopped for breakfast. Strange to think we’d end up higher than all the peaks we could see. We carried on up to the Tominsek Via Ferrata.

The Via Ferrata sections started to come thick and fast with some superbly exposed sections (I thought they were superb – Sally was staring down at the 2 metres in front of her).

At one point we were passed by a fast Slovenian who was soloing up. He gave us a little lecture about our lanyards not being the safer, stretchy, ones (I’d warned Sally that someone would do this). I pointed out that he didn’t have any lanyards at all, which made him laugh (nice chap). He didn’t seem to notice that Sally was in trainers and I had a cycling helmet on so we avoided another lecture. I’d have had to explained that it was all in the spirit of British mountaineering (that’s what I told Sally).

Some serious concentration needed on the steeper bits.

We arrived at the Triglavski Dom refuge late morning. It is an hour or two’s sustained Via Ferrata to the summit and our original plan was to stay the night there and climb to the summit in the morning. But we’d made good time, the afternoon storms didn’t seem to be arriving, and the forecast for next day was not so good, so we decided to press on to the summit. First we treated ourselves to a small beer (a large one would not be advisable when climbing – I think we agreed). Sally ordered from the refuge bar and was told “We only do large beers”. “We’ll have two of those” she instantly replied. Very nice too.

The Via Ferrata up to the summit was steep, but if you clip in on every section it does slow you down a lot so I explained the concept that you could decide on each section if you want to clip in, or treat it as a hand rail. Sally was soon surging up many sections without the lanyards clipped in, though she was still pretty much refusing to take her hands off the rock at any point. Her crab-like progress was amusing but effective.

Nearing the summit there were some horizontal, but very narrow edges. In one of the pictures Sally is pointing at the summit, but refused to look at where she was pointing because it was too scary. We got the photo though with a bit of direction “Up a bit, to your right a bit, hold that…”.

The summit has a tiny, steel, shelter on it. Just the thing for the many electrical storms that pass over? Hmm.

After descending back to the hut we checked in for our evening meal and another beer. There were up to 100 people staying in a mixture of alpine bunks of different capacities. We got one for about 10 but with subdivisions for two which was nice. It was in the roof space so if you sat up you hit your head and had to swear loudly. During the night there was a huge thunderstorm. Most of the dormitories had skylights that had to be shut to keep the rain out and became stiflingly hot. We were lucky in having an eaves window which could be kept open. Sally said next day she wished she had gone out to see the storm properly. It was a real alpine one, full on explosions, torrential rain, lightning.

Next day we made our way back down to the valley via the Prag route. An easier scramble with fewer sections of Via Ferrata (which we didn’t bother to gear up for, pros that we now were).

A lot of tedious scrambling down scree until we finally got to dip our feet in the cold river before strolling down the easier path back to the roadhead. At the refuge there we were amazed to get some of the cheapest beer in Slovenia. Cheap beer is unheard of in a mountain refuge. It would have been rude not to have a second one.