The Triglav Lakes Valley, seven lakes beneath Triglav

How to hike to the Triglav Lakes

There are three ways up from Bohinj. Via Stara Fužina, Blato pasture and the pastures of Planina pri Jezeru, Dedno polje and Ovčarija, you reach the hut in about five hours. Via Komna takes almost as long. And from the Savica waterfall, up the steep, winding Komarča path, it’s about two hours to the Black Lake and three to the hut. From there, a good two hours more lead to the Zasavska koča na Prehodavcih hut, at 2,071 m.

Hut, rubbish and rules

This is a high-mountain hike that needs two days, good boots and fitness. Book your hut bed early and carry your rubbish back down, because in the mountains you leave only footprints; the valley lies inside Triglav National Park and its rules apply. There are more routes in the guide to hiking in Slovenia.

The seven lakes, one by one

Although there are more lakes and pools, people speak of the seven Triglav Lakes because those are the permanent ones; the others dry up several times a year, so the landscape is never quite the same. The highest is the Lake under Vršac, at 1,993 m, frozen for much of the year. The largest is the Great Lake, or Lake at Ledvica, at 1,930 m, 300 m long, 120 m wide and up to 15 m deep. The Double Lake beside the hut, at 1,685 m, becomes a single lake at high water, and the Black Lake, at 1,319 m, is the warmest. Their names are colours, the Green, the Brown and the Black. Swimming is strictly forbidden.

Curiously, water from the Lake under Vršac flows towards the Soča and the Adriatic, while the rest runs down to the Sava Bohinjka and ends up in the Black Sea.

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Flowers, fossils and karst

The upper valley is covered mostly in lichens, and the lower you go the more flowers appear, some of them endemic, such as the Julian poppy, along with mountain avens, martagon lily, Carniolan lily, great yellow gentian and alpine clematis. The reddish Jurassic limestone holds ammonites up to 20 cm across, and the easiest one to see is in the rock of the hut’s east wall. The valley is also a museum of karst forms, with stepped slabs known here as lašti, grooves, limestone pavements, sinkholes, perched blocks and chasms, and it’s wrapped in the legend of Zlatorog.

So you do not lose the morning at the ticket office, browse tickets and tours in Triglav Lakes on GetYourGuide.

If you are staying the night, see the best hotel deals in Bohinj for your dates: the well-placed rooms go fast.