Slovenia: The Soča River Trail
“One of the most beautiful and the cleanest karstic (from German der Karst, the name of a limestone region in Slovenia) water sources in the Julian Alps is the birthplace of the daughter of mountains, the majestic Soča River.”
Tucked away in Slovenia’s northwestern corner, along the country’s mountainous borders with Austria and Italy, lies the Soča Valley which has been called “the most beautiful valley in the world.” In this lovely valley flows the Soča River for 138 km through western Slovenia and into north-eastern Italy. The river is famous for its crystal clear, sometimes emerald green and other times brilliant turquoise blue, water and has been the inspiration to several poets; its magic and charm not lost on any of us having the privilege to share time with her. The Soča plays home to the 'Marble Trout', which are unique to the river. The trout are now endangered following the introduction of other non-indigenous species sometime between the first and second world war.
Running alongside the river is the Soča River Trail which goes through the heart of the Triglav National Park, Slovenia’s only national park. Interestingly, this was the very first trail created in the park. Of the 4 days of hiking I planned, the Soča River Trail was the one I was most excited about. It required us to move our base from Lake Bled to the town of Bovec. The cool thing about driving to our new location is the route we took brought us through Tarvisio, Italy and therefore offered us the perfect opportunity to stop for pizza and red wine…YUM!!! I digress…back to our hike…
There is a folk tale about the Source of the Soča River in Trenta Valley and the Evil Water Spitter. It says there were three gods who lived in Trenta – the god Triglav, the god Jalovec and the god Mangart. When an evil water spitter, who flooded villages, arrived in Trenta, the gods decided to capture him and tie him up inside a cave. They opened his mouth just a little to let him irrigate the valley. When he serves his sentence, he will be free and the Soča River will dry up. With this drought, and the river being very low to non-existent in certain places at the time of our hike…I am hoping the Spitter hasn’t already been set free.
Trailhead: Izvir Soča K Bus Stop| One Way Trail
Distance: 28.5 km / 17.7 mi
Time Needed: 7:40 hours of hiking = 9 hours total
Elevation Gain: 660 meters / 2165 feet
With over 28km to cover and having to take a 45-minute bus ride to the starting point for this one-way hike, ending back at our hotel, we knew it was yet another epic and very long day. The rains came in the night before, and it rained and rained and when we woke it was still raining. Nature needs the rain, so it felt wrong to pray for clear weather. The question was…do we do the hike and spend potentially 8-10 hours getting soaked, after all we did come prepared with some of our rain gear? We pushed our start time by 2 hours and then decided it was a go and jumped on the 0930 bus out of Bovec and were on our way. The first 3.5 hours we hiked in a very steady, sometimes heavy, rain and then it cleared up for the remainder of the hike.
We are feeling beyond grateful for this exceptional and unique experience. The route featured easy on the feet alpine forest trails all along the river, beautiful, steep gorges…Mlinarica, the Great Soča Gorge, and the gorge at Kršovec, as well as a dozen or so picturesque very bouncy suspension footbridges used to cross over the river and back again. There was supposed to be views of the 2864m/9396ft Mount Triglav, the country’s highest peak, to our left yet the low cloud cover prevented us from seeing it. The entire hike was just gorgeous. The unique beauty of this area was also recognized by the filmmakers of The Chronicles of Narnia, who filmed some scenes on location by the Soča River, and I have ALWAYS wanted to go to Narnia!!
Imagine our chagrin when we showed up for our Soča River hike only to discover no penguins allowed!! Shouldn’t that information be given in advance?!? (LOL)
As a hiking bonus we met the most amazing sister and brother, Nina & Andrej, who have a summer cabin on the Soča River. Their parents bought it when they were small, it was an old WW1 building that housed recovering soldiers and they renovated it keeping with a classic Slovenian style. We were hiking by, and I told Nina how beautiful her house was. She then proceeded to walk over and tell us the history of their house and their family history as well. She is a museologist and he is a cinematographer & photographer. He lived in New York for 25 years. He also did several documentaries on the Soča River** and the surrounding forests that show at the Information Center in Trenta. As we were hiking away commenting on how special she was, she called us back over because her brother wanted to meet us. They insisted we stay and visit…Krisztina positioned that if they offered me wine, we would stay…and we all know that is true!! They offered a beer instead, and fresh squeezed juice for Krisz, then brought out cookies and even offered cheese & crackers trying to convince us to stay and visit into the evening by offering to drive us back to Bovec. They were beyond brilliant and charming and so, so lovely. It was a magical moment on the trail. We took pictures together all 4 of us but Nina felt she looked unpresentable, so I promised not to post one of her. Just so you know…we finished our hike on our own 2 feet without hitching a ride back to town. We did have to rush to make it before nightfall though.
** https://andrejzdravic.com/installations/secrets-of-soca
