Join me on my adventure to the highest mountain in Julian Alps - Triglav

If you've missed part 1 and part 2 be sure to check them out before reading this one to get insight into the full story or to check photos of the lakes.

Four O'Clock in the morning, the alarms on our cell phones started buzzing. Already?! :/ Oh well, time to dress up, eat a 2 days old sandwich and empty my bladder. On my way out of the room i almost stepped on a hiker sleeping in the hall. The hut was completely booked and those without reservation that came at night found their place on the floors. The dining room was without light and empty. I step outside and ... and the toilets were empty! You should see the line last night. It was like they were giving away free candies. But no, the line was for a disgusting toilet with no water only a deep hole (lol) and a bucket of used up water from the kitchen, to flush it ... manually. I really regret using this toilet the next day, because I am almost 100% it was the reason for my stomach flu, that i brought back home :) Sadly or luckily (??) i don't have any photo of the toilets, so I'll let each of you to imagine the scenery :)

Enough of this shit (uuups :D ) it was time to bring this journey to the top. Even tho it was in the middle of August, we were on around 2200 m of altitude and it was cold, just above 0°C. We dressed up, mounted flashlights on the helmets and started the last climb. We still had around 600 m difference and we wanted to get on top before the majority of the hikers. The initial plan was to get on top before the sunset, but we were already too late for that - maybe next year.

Our path lead us to an old almost paved road left from the Italian army who had a post near by in the Second world war. The post was abandoned and destroyed, so the remains are barely visible and a bit off our path, so we didn't visit it, but the road was actually in quite good shape.

Remains of a paved road from WWII

After arriving at a small saddle our final destination - luckily for us not the one from the movie :) - opened in front of us, glowing in the morning sun.

And a special surprise in the valley bellow that is hard to spot on the photo bellow. Take a good look.

Do you see it? No? Lets have a closer look.

You see ... someone draw a smiley face with rocks =D <- just like this one, I don't see anything else in the photo ...

Soon we arrived to the technical part of our climb. Since we didn't know what to expect, we've put our climbing gear on ourselves and started climbing. Only later we realized that we had only little places to buckle up and we were mostly carrying our equipment for no reason, but better safe than sorry is my motto while hiking!

Shortly after we came to the ridge with a nice opening to the other side of the mountain. And it was time for some shots.

View of Planika Lodge at Triglav

If you look closely, you can see fake Gandalf from part 2 photo bombing my photo

Lake Bohinj still surrounded by fog

View of surrounding mountains

We were almost at the top, the sun was already up and some hikers were sunbathing at the top while the others enjoyed the view.

Almost at the top

This was it! The moment I so eagerly awaited has finally arrived! Triglav hike accomplished! From this moment after i
can confirm, that I've climbed the highest mountain in Slovenia and i have become a "real Slovene".

I didn't feel any different until my friend reminded me of an old tradition... Every time someone is on top of Triglav for the first time, he needs to get spanked with a rope! And since he was the only one on Triglav before ... he had the honor to spank all of our rear bottom aka asses!

Auuuuchhh =D

We really wanted a proof of our accomplishment as a group of friends, so we asked a nice older lady that were standing near us, to take a nice group photo of us. We sat down, smiled like we had never before and like frozen waited to be as gorgeous as possible on the photo. The lady took 2 photos, just in case and we jumped away from the tower, to let the others photo next to it. And that nice photo came out like this ...

If she wanted a good photo of Triglav rocks, than this is actually a good photo :)

Hahaha!! With all the sun glowing from the camera screen and an older lady without glasses didn't even realize that we were completely out of bounds. Words can't express how I laughed when i saw this photo! Just remember always check the photo that someone else take, while you still have a chance to take another one! So we found another hiker, waited for the tower to get free and the second photo was what we hoped for.

The fellowship of the mountain =)

Here are just a few shots of a view without an explanation. I believe that these photos are worth more than a thousand words and that explanation isn't needed.

We were on top for over an hour, talked with many hikers, it is amazing how all the barriers disappear. It doesn't matter if you know the person standing next to you, it doesn't matter if he is two times older or younger than you, Slovenian or foreigner we were all communicating with each other and sharing snacks. We even got the chance to see a fella who brought 50 cans of beer in his backpack to the summit and started selling them. He was yelling: "7€ for large beer and 5€ for small beer". I wonder when he will start accepting STEEM DOLLARS? A true entrepreneur! At that time we realized that time is our greatest enemy. We had a long long walk to the end so we picked our backpacks, said goodbye to the Aljaž tower and started descending on the opposite site of the mountain through Little Triglav toward the Triglav Lodge at Kredarica.

Climbing down without the help of steel cables would be much harder and on some parts more dangerous

The view was amazing for the entire descend

Soon after we left Triglav some clouds started to gather around the peak. But they didn't hold for long and the wind blow them away

It didn't took us long to reach the lodge and it was already full of hikers. For many of them is this the top of their hike and they don't go to the Triglav. Lodge has the highest altitude of all buildings in Slovenia and it is the only lodge that is inhabited for the entire year because of the near by weather station. At winter time, lodge is officially closed for visitors, but they won't leave a hiker in need outside.

View of Triglav Lodge at Kredarica

Hikers resting, eating snacks and drinking

Well deserved short rest =)

Next photo has an amazing story behind it. This small chapel which is the highest chapel in Slovenia was opened and blessed on 19 of August 1992. And on that day two from our group was there. This was the first time after almost exactly 25 years (the photo was taken on 22 of August 2017) that they have revisited this place together! An occasion worthy of a photo for sure!!

Exactly 25 years after their first visit of this chapel

Again time was our enemy ... we could easily enjoy the sun for the entire day, but we had a bus to catch (no kidding). On the way down we had the opportunity to see how it is if you are not in a rush and actually can sunbathe for the entire day/week/month ... Unfortunately time gods are not in our favor as much as they are for sheep ...

Sheep: "Yummy!! Chocolate desert after a self service salad bar!"

Sorry nothing left here ... and no being a black sheep is not the reason

Another inhabitant of the mountain with no rush

On the way down we meet a young girl who turned out to be a really pleasant company. She was working for few weeks in a mountain lodge during her end of high school summer break. She was really informative and we could ask her anything about her summer job. Like how do they get supplies without a cargo cable (by helicopter), how was working in mountains away from home (great, she would do it again), how much are they paid (not much!), how many foreign visitors they had (a lot, most of them renting a room), etc ... She even shared an occasion with helicopter deliveries. Once they've packed wood and eggs in the same basket! You can guess how many eggs survived - none :) And they had to pack another batch of eggs for the next basket.

After 8 hours of descending we were almost at the lake Bohinj. Our cars were parked 10 kilometers away and we were in hurry to catch the last bus of the day. It must have been a funny sight ... seeing 7 people fully equipped for mountains running between tourists. We were just on time. Bus arrived only 5 minutes after we came to the bus station. Two of our drivers got on the bus and the rest of us took a nice refreshing swim in the lake. Well deserved after 2 days of walking.

The best finish of our hike

And so did our journey end. It was quite exhausting but totally worth it. I would definitely recommend this hike to all experienced hikers, just bare in mind that it isn't a short one. If you have any questions or would like to share your hiking experience, leave a comment bellow and I'll be glad to look at it!

Thank you for reading! All photos are taken by me and are Steemit exclusive!

If you missed my previous hiking days you can find them here:
#1. Hiking day - Kamnik–Savinja Alps
#2. Hiking day - Stol (surviving a thunderstorm on the peak of 2000m high mountain)
#3. Hiking day - Ledinski vrh (seeing how global warming is wiping the glacier. Flowers instead of ice!)
#4. Hiking day - Oj Triglav moj dom or climbing up the most important Slovenian mountain - Triglav! - (Part 1 - history)
#4. Hiking day - Triglav lakes and wild alpine goats in natural habitat (Part 2)

I would like to express my greatest gratitude for big support of my previous hike to all of my voters and followers with special thanks to @hendrikdegrote, @liberosist, @curie, @anwenbaumeister, @kushed, @oldtimer, @meerkat, ...
Full SBD reward was converted to STEEM POWER!!

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!! Enjoy your hiking and stay safe !!