In the Julian Alps

Why is it that the Julian Alps remind me in a peculiar way of the English Lake District? Other than the stupidly obvious fact that they are both mountainous, they wouldn't appear to have an awful lot in common. I can only say that, for me, what both areas share is a certain quality of miniature perfection. Not seeking to impose by their sheer mass, each in its own way wins you over with the delicacy and grace of an intimate beauty approaching to a sort of platonic ideal of mountain landscape. Andy and I had visited the Italian Julians two years previously and had been entranced by them. This year, turning our backs on the more blatant attractions of the great glaciated peaks, we once again opted for small is beautiful and planned what we hoped would be an idyllic long weekend, this time on the Slovenian side of the range, setting out from the Hartleys' place in Monfalcone on the Italian Adriatic coast.


Landing in Treviso on the evening flight from Charleroi, I drove down the hellish autostrada to Monfalcone. Andy was there right on schedule to meet me and guide me straight to a family party organised in honour of his sister-in-law's birthday. It was like a scene lifted directly out of a Fellini movie! I blundered into a crowd of new faces and through a bewildering fast-forward of introductions. "Piacere, piacere!" My pleasure was completely sincere. There is something irresistibly contagious about good humour and hospitality, particularly when coupled with the unerring Italian instinct for the human. All too humanly, I soon found myself outside a good few glasses of the unpretentious, but highly potable local wine. In the balmy summer evening, under the illuminated awning, around the gingham-decked tables, with Andy, Clara and my new-found friends, all was more than well with the world. I got to talking with "Johnson", a larger-than-life Obelix figure with a classic shaddapayaface accent. He had worked in England in the sixties and, amazingly, had retained a very positive memory of the experience. He had done factory work in Preston and had subsequently worked 12-hour shifts tunnelling the Picadilly line. I sought to bond with him by recounting my experience as a so-called chain-boy, working on the M5 near Cheltenham in the Spring of 1970. [Readers will be relieved to learn that I was never actually bound in chains. The "chain" in question is an antiquated unit of measurement: 22 yards if I remember rightly. A chain-boy was, in fact, an engineer´s assistant - the lad holding the measuring stick for surveying the levels. Part of the job involved pounding heavy stakes into the ground with a sledge-hammer, prior to fixing a cross-lath to it to mark the level. The sledge-hammer was a bit of a knack. I went through an appalling ritual of 17 year-old humiliation before mastering it. I do however know what a bench-mark actually is: a fixed mark in the ground with a known height above sea-level from which all fresh points can be determined. Working on any new site involved first identifying the local bench-mark, taking the measure and working from there. Hence the verb,"to bench-mark".] By now I was on the grappa. Andy was strumming his genial, if by now uncritical, way through a few numbers on the guitar. "When I'm 64" featured prominently for self-evident reasons. Suddenly we discovered we were among the last of the guests. We made our farewells, headed back to the Hartleys' flat and passed out for the night.


We were up and away the next morning by half-past nine - not bad considering the previous evening's overindulgence. We had the usual rashly ambitious programme ahead of us, the first stage being the drive to the mountain heartland of Slovenia. We drove north out of Monfalcone, following the frontier on the Italian side over the limestone Carso and on to Gorizia. In the town we crossed the abandoned border post into Slovenia and continued up the valley of the Isonzo, the Soca, in the language of the new, mysterious country we had entered. There is something improbable about Slovenia - like a vast set for a modern remake of the Prisoner of Zenda. The strangeness of the language on the signposts and hoardings adds to the atmosphere of unreality. At any moment you expect a cigar-chewing director to intervene impatiently with an abrasive "CUT! OK, let's take it again, but this time lose the trees!" Heading east away from the river, we motored on through densely forested hill-country to Podbrdo, beyond which we entered a lost kingdom of wild hairpins as we revved and gunned our way through ludicrously picturesque villages, up and over the mountain pass and tortuously on down to Bohinjska Bistrica and Bohinjsko Jezero - Lake Bohinj itself.



Lake Bohijn

We squeezed into what must have been the last parking space in the village of Stara Fuzina and set off through warm sunshine and sunny meadows to the eastern end of the lake. Perfectly landscaped among the surrounding mountains, it was an enticing prospect. Bathers were splashing in the water and sunning themselves on the little beach. It was a holiday brochure come alive. Andy confessed to having stashed two pairs of trunks in his pack. We were tempted... but, doubtless moved by an atavistic puritanism, resisted, promising ourselves a dip on the way back down. La dolce vita could wait, or so we thought. We walked round the northern shore of the lake, passing other ramblers, mainly local, in an atmosphere reminiscent of a summer Sunday in the Ardennes. Sitting down at the edge of the water to eat our lunch, we spotted the antiquated ferry making its way along the lake. We could have taken it! Wouldn't it have made an elegant start to our climb? Andy somehow implied that I was getting soft. Was it my imagination or was he whistling the tune of a hymn? ...but the steep and rugged pathway may we tread rejoicingly... we would have plenty of steep and rugged by the time we were finished!

Leaving the western end of the lake, we headed up a track beneath a grateful shade of mountain beech in the direction of the Slap Savica, a local beauty spot. Slap is the Slovenian for waterfall, a linguistic accident which predictably released an outpouring of schoolboy puns, the best of which was Andy's definition of the fall, and the less powerful force of water downstream of it, as the "Slap and Trickle". Having dutifully admired the Slap, we followed the path up the steepening escarpment of Komarca. The fun and games were definitely over. We slogged up a seemingly interminable series of steep zig-zags, to arrive at the Crno Jezero, a perfect mountain tarn of inky-green water nestling among fir trees and boulder scree. We threw off our packs and rested for a while on its shores. Small, liquorice-black salamanders paddled awkwardly with their proto-limbs in the shallows at the water's edge, escorted by darting schools of tiny fishes. That this ungainly, primitive life-form should have survived to eke out its little existence in this harsh ecological niche, was somehow a source of wonder and fascination. Yet how strange, I thought, that we should constantly forget the wonder of our own so-much-more complex existence. It struck me that, as salamander life is to ours, so is our sleep-life to the conscious life within and about us, which we contrive to neglect, for fear of...what? accepting our relative salamander status, perhaps?



Crno Jezero

Continuing on from the lake, we lost our way momentarily, but were quickly able to correct our error and reestablish contact with the main path, which led us unforgivingly up the wooded Lopucniska Dolina. On we trudged. It had already been a long first day out for a couple of hungover gentlemen in their late prime, but we still had a good way to go. Completing another apparently endless series of zig-zags and we suddenly found ourselves in ... The Promised Land! We had debouched into the Dolina Triglavskih Jezer, the valley of the lakes of Triglav. Before us was the first of a series of seven lakes from which this high mountain valley gets its name. All tiredness gone, we wandered through a vision of utter loveliness. The golden evening light imbued the scene with an other-worldly beauty. Looking up to the soaring crags of amber-lit limestone and around at a teeming infinity of exquisite alpine blooms, we proceeded as through an earthly Eden. The heart has no choice but to open itself in a spontaneous movement of gratitude and humility, of acknowledgment of our participation in the greater mystery of life. This, I feel , is the true nature of all aesthetic experience - that, like it or not, one is called to something more noble in oneself. The same is surely true of all real Art. To talk of Art's supposed ennobling purpose always sounds unbearably worthy. But to understand that this is not so much a moral question, as a question of a broadening of consciousness, offers the possibility of new insight.

Approaching the Triglav Lakes

Arriving at the Triglav Lakes hut, we dumped our gear upstairs and went back down for dinner. The place was buzzing with the organised chaos and general hubbub of hut life. The voices were overwhelmingly Slovene, the Julians in general and Triglav in particular being a place of national pilgrimage. Gesture and rudimentary English enabled us to obtain a hearty goulash-soup, followed by the local speciality, palachinke, pancakes, which they seem to rustle up at the drop of a hat and with a swanky little fold! Retiring to the cosy privacy of our little room, we were soon sleeping the deep sleep of the just. We had full need of it. The next day didn't promise to be any easier. If anything, it was going to be more physically demanding than what we'd already done.

The absence of any glacier spared us the purgatory of an alpine start. After a leisurely breakfast, we shouldered our packs and set off up the valley. We planned to undertake the traverse of Kanjavec, descending to the Trzaska hut, from where we hoped to climb Triglav the following day. There was a lot of low cloud, but our hope was that we could time our arrival at the summit to coincide with one of the breaks which seemed to occur at irregular intervals. As we continued up, we gradually left the alpine garden behind us. The scene became sparser, rockier. Splashes of bright colour were provided by patches of a sort of densely flowering moss presenting a mass of tiny blooms in pinky red and intense yellow. Heading past the Jezero Ledvica lake, we arrived at the little Zeleno Jezero where we sat down for a short rest. Then the climbing started in earnest. Breaking out of the valley of the lakes, we headed east up steep screes to the col below our designated peak. As we climbed steadily on up, we emerged into a totally other, mist-shrouded, geological world, an undifferentiated chaos of derelict boulders and shattered rocks. There was no sign of the cloud lifting. Would we be able to find our way through this lunar landscape? Steering by compass offered no guarantee of us finding the best route. Fortunately, as so often happens in the Alps, our way was marked. Moving from one red and white stripe to the next, we climbed by numbers. And so, in this reassuring if possibly less-than-adventurous manner, we carried on until we found ourselves on the summit of Kanjavec (2568m). With very little prospect of a view, there was no temptation to linger. We were soon up and away, on down the other side, but were quickly brought to an abrupt halt as the route seemed to lead down a vertical cliff. We donned our via ferrata harnesses. These allow you to clip on to in situ metal hawsers, thus limiting the consequences of any slip. Not particularly heroic perhaps, but terribly welcome. Gingerly, we edged ourselves over the drop. After only a few meters we found ourselves again on easy ground. With a certain sense of anti-climax we restashed the gear and clattered on down the marked way through loose rocks and scree, arriving presently at the Trzaska hut.

Rock Blooms

Inside the hut we reflected on our position. We were in something of a quandry. Although we had completed our route as planned, it was still only early afternoon. Ordering a soup, we explored the options. Basically, it came down to a straight choice between luxuriating where we were or pressing on to a higher hut. Heading higher would cut a couple of hours off what was going to be a long enough day anyway - the ascent of Triglav followed by the long descent back down to Bohinj. It would mean missing out on the ambitious traverse originally planned, but the unpredictability of the weather counselled against such an undertaking anyway. Timetable constraints also dictated a return to Monfalcone the following evening. The logic of the situation was inescapable. Despite the automatic protests of the flesh, we heaved on our packs and plodded off in the direction of the Dom Planika, the classic jumping-off point for Triglav. It was a grinding enough exercise, but we consoled ourselves with the thought that any step taken today would be one less that we would have to take tomorrow. As we worked our way around the flank of Smarjetna Glava and across the southern slopes of Triglav itself, sudden breaks in the cloud tantalizingly revealed the next day's goal to us.

Looking out of the hut window the next morning, we were confronted with cloud and rain. We'd mostly been lucky on our trips, but this time it looked as though our luck had run out. We dragged out breakfast, hoping for an improvement. No such luck. We calculated that if we were not able to set off for Triglav before ten o'clock, we would not have time to climb the mountain and get all the way back to the car before nightfall. We waited in a state of bored impatience. Then, shortly before ten, we put our noses outside the door to find that the rain had ceased and that the mist seemed to be brightening. That was good enough. We were off. The forecast was for a gradual improvement. We might yet be fortunate enough to obtain a view from the summit.

On the Triglav Ridge

Route-finding was no object. The trade-route was generously marked with red-and-white stripes, with the trickier sections equipped with hand-rails and cables. Excitingly, but in complete security, we followed the twisting ridge through the mist up to Little Triglav and on to Triglav itself (2864m). Arriving at the summit, we were still in cloud. There was a small group waiting, hoping like us that the sky might clear. We nibbled on some food and chatted. The leader of the other party manifested the slightly tiresome confidence of the self-appointed local guru. Proudly, he confided that this was the nth time that he'd been at the summit of his country's highest peak. We widened our eyes and opened our mouths in a grotesque simulacrum of amazement. "Do you know what they did when Tito died?" "Impale his severed head on the summit cross?", I didn't say out loud. " They came up here to fly a Yugoslav flag at half mast!" We affected an unfelt empathy with his national-political ardour. "Oh, and have you been whipped?" "Whipped?" "Yes, it's a tradition. You have to accept." He claimed that new Triglavians were required to undergo a rite of passage, which involved putting their head in a sort of aluminium box on the summit and submitting to a ritual beating with a piece of climbing equipment. Meekly, we subjected ourselves to this humiliation. They're probably still laughing at us now!

On the summit of Triglav

Reluctantly admitting that we weren't going to get the view, we headed back. Collecting our spare belongings at the hut, we continued on down. It was a relief to escape the world of stone and mist which we had inhabited for the last 24 hours and allow our senses to be assailed by nature's own green. Coming down the steep path from the Planika to the mountain crossroads of the Koniski Preval, we enjoyed splendid views across to to the mountains to the east of the Krma valley. We were going at full tilt now, on round an awkward "false step" in the path, heading in the direction of the Vodnikov Dom. Here the slopes were thick with dwarf pine and Alpenrosen. At the hut we met a group of Germans, two couples with their children. By dint of constantly leap-frogging each other on the way down, we got on quite friendly terms.

View across the Krma Valley

Continuing on down from the hut, all of a sudden we found ourselves in a fantastic never-never land of alpine flowers. The Triglav lakes had been something very special, but this was a whole other dimension. I can honestly say that I have never seen anything quite like it. It was like moving through a canvas of Hieronymous Bosch's "Garden of Delights", but untrammeled by any anthropomorphic symbolism or laboured moralism. It was exactly what it was - a living miracle. Nor was it just a small local phenomenon, it went on and on. An extasy of life, but life of a subtle, unforced delicay to which no greenhouse bloom could hope to aspire. I am no botanist and anyway, no mechanical listing of names could possibly convey the overwhelming effect of such an unconstrained multitude of different flowers. I can particularly remember a sort of red orchid (could it be?) that contrived to turn back on itself like a living geometrical figure, or an almost obscene purple and white kind of cow parsley bursting with uninhibited life, or a scruffy-haired waif of a plant like a sort of botanical hippy. Beyond mere enumeration was the overwhelming impression of spontaneous harmony brought about by the unaffected juxtaposition of different groupings of varieties - not only of blooms, but of leaves. And all of this, as it were, landscaped, tumbling down the steep slopes and interspersed with perfectly gnarled small larch and pine. If I concentrate hard enough, I can still smell the air, heady with scent and fresh from the morning rain.

In the Alpine Garden

As we climbed on down, the effects gradually subsided and we moved among taller trees and denser forest. Mists hanging in the trees created their own magical monochrome effects. As we continued on down, pine gave way to deciduous forest. Still further on down, forest gave way to delightful unmown meadows, which in turn gave out, as we plunged into forests of still greater trees. By this time Andy was slowing. A cartilage problem in the knee was turning very painful as a result of the constant downward jolt. He battled on manfully, but, stopping at the Planinska Koca na Vojah, we found ourselves exploring the alternatives. We ordered soup. It was so poor compared to the rich, nourishing brews we had enjoyed at the higher huts, that it convinced us not to spend the night. We opted for a taxi which took us the last three or four kilometers to Stara Fuzina.

During the difficult late-night drive back across the mountain passes and round the hairpin bends, Andy very considerately kept me alert with constant conversation and intellectual parlour-games. We made it safely, physically tired, but elated by the intensity of our shared experience.