Seven Lakes Hike, Slovenia

Heading into Triglav National Park my friends and I had two objectives: to hike and to spend the night in a slovenia mountain hut.

From Lake Bled we drove to lake Bohinj, another famous slovenia alpine lake within the bounds of Triglav national Park. We hit up a grocery store to provision for an over night hike, picking up the essentials: beer and chocolate. Then we bypassed the lake for now, and headed straight to our trail head.

We decided to hike up to The Valley of the seven lakes, one of the most popular hikes in the julian alps.

Planina pri Jezeru

My friends had a rental car which was such a treat. We drove up to the trail head, organized our packs for an overnight stay up in the mountains, and then followed the trail at a surprisingly steady incline. This trail lead to Koča na Planina pri Jezeru a mountain lodge settled by a lake with a collection of other small wooden huts.

The trail led us right to the lodge where we thought we would spend the night. However, a school trip had just moved in to the lodge for the night and there was no availability. In a combination of German, English and Italian which I have no understanding of, the caretaker assured us another hut a little higher up would likely have space.

Lunch with a beer

bought another bag of slovenia sauerkraut

Before heading off to find this other mountain hut or lodge, we weren’t sure what to expect or exactly how far away it was, we stopped for some lunch and a sneaky mid-day beer. This was a moment when I realized just how happy I was to have company, and company that felt like home.

Sweet Sweet Mountain Hut

I love when things work out better than you could have imagined or planned. After a short but intense incline, we arrived at another little alpine village: a clearing with five or six structures spread across it.

It felt magical walking into this place and I crossed my fingers that there was space for three. We met the caretaker of the mountain hut and sure enough there was space for us. We were all super excited that this was a more rustic mountain hut, not a mountain lodge. We met a couple who were also spending the night here after several days of hiking out in the park, a German woman and French man whose bald head was unbelievably sunburnt.

This mountain hut was sweet and no frills. We would all be sleeping in the attic space, where seven mattresses laid in a row, like camp. The caretaker also lived in the attic but had a little space curtained off. The first floor was just two rooms, a small living and kitchen area, where the caretaker would make us all dinner for a few extra euros if we wanted.

Around the hut was a small sleepy looking garden. Spring had come so late to the mountains and this little garden looked to be just on the edge of waking up. There was also an outhouse with composting toilet and a small cabin where the French/German couple were staying.

I was in awe of where this day had taken us, but we still had a long hike ahead of us. We were hoping to get to at least the first lake in The Valley Of The Seven Lakes. So we booked our spots for the night and then hopped back onto the trail.

The first glacial lake

At the end of a pretty mild hike, we arrived at this epic glacial lake.

I can’t quite put my finger on what is so magical about a glacial lake. Maybe they give a feeling of something untouched, undiscovered, pristine. Maybe it is that they feel secret, a gift from the mountains to just you. Maybe its just adrenaline kicking in, since you know regardless of how cold, you are getting in that water.

This lake was really special, and really cold. I love cold water, but after a quick paddle around I had to get out. We took turns jumping in, then sat and admired the reflection of the tall pines and mountains.

At the other end of the lake is a mountain lodge that was still closed, apparently the snow up here had just melted away and some of the other lakes in this valley were still surrounded by snow. No wonder it was so cold.

Top Tip:

I was just researching this hike more and discovered that while this hike can be a circuit it can also be a through hike from Bohinj to Trenta, a village I had passed a few days earlier on my three hike along the Soça river. Combining these two hikes would be really epic!

back the way we came

We new that we didn’t have enough time to do the entire seven lakes hike. We had started later in the day, it was already 3pm when we arrived at the first lake, and the next day we were heading to Ljubljana. The entire circuit is something like 25km and if you jump in every lake it probably takes a good 10 hours, maybe more.

The beauty of traveling solo and plan-less is that on a hike like this that turns out to be really beautiful you have all the time in the world. However, having friends around was such a special treat and I was just as excited to share some beers and swap tales back at the mountain hut.

wild flowers

these friends of mine live in utah & do a lot of hiking, camping, & back country skiing. they are seriously cool and I always learn something from their experience in the outdoors.

Evening at the homestead

Back at our humble abode for the night I befriended a tiny white dog that belonged to the caretaker of the mountain hut. We also befriended another German couple who were wrapping up two years of world travels.

The care taker made us all dinner: vegetable soup for the vegetarians and pasta with sausage for the meat eaters. As evening set in, we all sat around a big table outside, swapping travel stories and eating these delicious hazelnut wafers Wiz had picked up at the market.