32. Sky turtle at Stol mountain

Stol, 15 km from Bled, is the highest mountain in the Slovenian alps. 2236 meters means that it is 100 meters higher than Kebnekaise, but Stol is much easier to hike since you can get high up on the mountain by car, so almost anyone can go there regardless of age. But I don't have a car, so I set out at sunrise to get there as early as possible with my bicycle.

Morning mist over the Sava river.

Approaching the bottom of the mountain. It was a sunny and lovely fall morning with no wind at all. A perfect day for a mountain hike. I parked the bike and went by foot.

There is an easy via ferrata road to take that snakes up the mountain, but Google Maps suggested a different route, so I went for that instead. I know that you are supposed to be sceptical of automatic map navigation, but I tend to always use it anyway. It is more fun that way.

All the leaves had fallen, covering the entire mountain with a thick leafy blanket. It made for a beautiful walk, but tricky since you couldn't tell where any paths were.

It got steeper and steeper. The perspective is a bit skewed here, but I'm standing almost upright on a log after crawling here on all fours.

As I reached a plateau I walked past this sign that pointed towards the route I had just taken. "Experts only - extremely difficult", with a stick figure on a bicycle. That explained all the drops I had to climb. The route I took up the mountain wasn't a hiking trail, it was a downhill mountainbike track. Thank you Google maps for the excellent guidance. 😅

At lunch time I reached the mountain cabins, where hikers can stay before going up to the peak the next day. The cabins were closed for the season, and I didn't see anyone else on the mountain the entire day.

Meditated for a bit, and then noticed the smiling ninja turtle in the sky. Can you see it? Lake Bled is shining below in light blue between the tree tops.

There must have been animals grazing here until recently, but now there were none to be seen as I approached the end of the tree line before the summit.

This is where I unfortunately had to stop. It was steep, and I couldn't see where I was a supposed to go because of the leaves. The biggest concern was all the big trees with exposed roots on the cliff side, which poses a significant risk of falling down on you.

As you get older you tend to realize that you only have a limited supply of knees and ankles, and even the tiniest risk of being trapped under a tree on a freezing November night wasn't appealing at all. So it was time to descend.

As I got home I started to watch the documentary series "Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone", by Adam Curtis (thank you Dave for the recommendation). It is a BBC production in seven parts (available on Youtube) about the fall of communism and democracy in Russia. It is beautiful, bleak, hilarious, tragic, hypnotic and informative at the same time, and I strongly recommend it. https://youtu.be/EDA3hIsf7LA