Sokolets Peak

Yesterday was the first sunny day since a long time and of course I used the opportunity to do some hiking. I mentioned in one of my previous post, that I'm trying to find how to go to one of the peaks above the river Beli Iskar. I asked in a mountain facebook group and some people told me where I should start my hike from but also that it would be hard to find the way without GPS. I don't have one and for the first time my favorite app - maps.me, which was always enough for my hikes around Rila, was useless. They send me some screenshots of the pathway in the group from another app, available only for Android, and it really helped in combination with maps.me, where the path was missing, but the peak was there. This peak - Sokolets, is 2021m high and has a gorgeous view of the valley of the river and many other peaks. It is not a popular place for hiking and I met no one else there, even though it was Sunday and the mountain was full of people.

It's a light hike for Rila - around 6km to the peak and 600m difference in altitude, and perfect for sunny and windy day because most of it is through a forest.

After many rainy days the forest was full of mushrooms

This was what I saw when the forest ended

Surprisigly, it wasn't so hard to find the peak with a little more vigilance.
And the view was actually even better than I expected. I thought that I would see Beli Iskar Dam, but it turned out it was not visible from there, so I should keep looking for another peak.

Sokolets from the village Beli Iskar

I am glad that I found this place, because it is perfect for a half day hike, and I don't know many good places like that around Rila, most of them require a full day.

Thank you for stopping by!