SLOVENIA
A PAINTED RED CIRCLE WITH A WHITE DOT MARKS THE TRAIL. THIS IS THE ‘KNAFELC BLAZE’,SO NAMED FOR THE SLOVENE MOUNTAINEER WHO DEVISED IT A CENTURY AGO
pencil squiggle bisecting the vast, steely grey bowl of loose stone. As I step gingerly across, Boštjan suddenly gestures for me to stop. A small cube of rock bounces down the slope ahead and takes a dozen or so other scraps of scree with it on a clattering journey to the base of the 45-degree slope. We look up to see a brace of short-horned chamois scuttling away on the ridge line like pranking adolescents. Painted on rocks and trees along our
route are trail markers (a white dot in a red circle). This is the ‘Knafelc blaze’, named for the Slovene cartographer and mountaineer who devised it a century ago. It’s simple, conspicuous and of huge symbolic value to Slovenes, who’ve fought and died in these peaks over the centuries and clung to their mountain identity when the country was subsumed into Yugoslavia for much of the 20th century. As we hike, Boštjan reminisces about his
family’s experience living under Marshal Tito and the handbrake of communism. Profits from his father’s business were capped; ‘Western’ luxuries could only be purchased by stealing over the border to Italy. Twenty years into Slovenia’s EU membership, it all feels a very long time ago. The point is emphasised by our fellow guests
at our first mountain hut: Planinski dom na Zelenici, 5,039ft up in a clearing beneath Mount Begunščica. Stepping into one of Slovenia’s
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best-equipped cabins, we find the corridors of the dorms lined with combat fatigues. American accents are heard. Italian, too. A NATO training exercise, it transpires — or at least the downtime following one. The local Laško beers are lined up and a
rowdy but good-natured evening ensues. Early the following morning, I wake to find the entire unit has dispersed without trace. Only the faint echo of Bon Jovi hanging in the mountain air suggests they were ever here. It’s a frat party, special forces style. The reclaimed peace gives me a chance to
chat to hut manager Petra Malavašič. She’s got a big smile and an eyebrow stud and, she tells me, has worked here for three years. The demands of the summer season — 14 hours a day for four months — are compensated for by the setting and the free time that follows. Holding a spiralling finger to her temple and smiling, she says: “It helps to be a little crazy.”
Turbulent history Certain qualities are evident in all the mountain huts we visit over the five days. They’re invariably snug and welcoming. Crocs are provided to stop you traipsing bits of hillside through the fastidiously cleaned corridors. And the strip-your-own-beds and muck-in etiquette is scrupulously adhered to. Yet each has its own distinct identity, one that stems from a combination of the
Clockwise from top left: A typical trail marker on the way to the summit of Mount Stol; hiking guide Bostjan Mikuž on a ridge in the Karawanks range; Petra Malavašič, manager of the Planinski dom na Zeleniciy hut; a hearty dish of sausage, cabbage and pork fat served at the Koča na Golici mountain hut
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