A trip to picturesque Triglav Lakes Valley

Triglav Lakes Valley is the core of Triglav National Park and unique for its scenery with high rock faces, glacier lakes and plentiful alpine flora and fauna. This valley is one of the most beautiful valleys in the Julian Alps and is famous for its seven lakes. Each lake was named after its characteristic: »Pod Vršacem« Lake, Brown Lake, Green Lake, Great Lake, Double Lake, Black Lake (Jezero pod Vršacem, Rjavo jezero, Zeleno jezero, Veliko jezero, Dvojno jezero, Črno jezero).

Probably the easiest route to visit most of the lakes (apart from the Black lake) is from alpine pasture Blato (1147m). It is easily accessible by car and it’s one of the most popular starting points to visit the Triglav Lakes Valley. The hike itself is pretty easy, with no extra steep sections.

I started ascending from pasture Blato at around 5:30 am. I made the first photo stop in about 30 minutes at Meadow at the Lake (Planina pri Jezeru). Morning was pretty cloudy, but even more dramatic this way:

Just about 15 minutes of walking from this meadow lies the second pasture named Dedno Polje. It looks like a tiny wooden village. Unfortunately the cows were not there yet.

Next destination from here is the cottage at the Double Lake. The path leads through a larch forest, full of flowers and amazing landscape views.

After about one hour and a half of hiking from the pasture Dedno Polje, the valley suddenly opens up and you can observe this fascinating view. On the right is the mountain Mala Tičarica and in the middle you can spot the lake with the cottage just above it.

A few photographs of this very fotogenic lake.

Posing for the postcard. 🙂

On the way to the Great Lake (also known as the Kidney lake because of it’s shape) path leads through a distinct karst landscape. A perfect home for marmots. You can almost always spot a few of them observing you from a distance. And if you don’t see them, you will most definitely hear their loud whistles.

The fourth lake has a length of 300 m, a width of 120 m and a depth of up to 15 m and is the biggest and deepest Triglav lake. As a result, it is called the Great Lake (1,830 m above sea level) or the Lake at Ledvica (Kidney lake). The vegetation is richer here due to the abundance of water.

The lake is very long so this is a stitched panorama from 4 vertical shots at 14mm.

If you go down to the surface you can capture really nice reflections of the surrounding mountains.

On the way to the Brown lake don’t forget to look back as the views are breathtaking.

Early summer reflections in the Green lake (Zeleno jezero) are beautiful.

Last destination is Prehodavci cottage. Below the cottage lie the last two lakes (Brown lake – Rjavo jezero and Podstenje Lake – Jezero pod Vršacem). On the way to the cottage you can once again enjoy in amazing views of the landscape.

The highest Triglav lake still had some snow and ice in it.

As I was photographing the reflection of the Prehodavci cottage in the Brown Lake (Rjavo Jezero) the helicopter arrived. It was supplies for the cottage (it just opened that day).

And whithout the helicopter.

Just before I arrived at Prehodavci cottage I looked back and was rewarded with the view of this rare phenomena. Cloud iridescence is the occurrence of colors in a cloud similar to those seen in oil films on puddles, and is similar to irisation. It is a fairly uncommon phenomenon, most often observed in altocumulus, cirrocumulus, lenticular clouds and cirrus clouds. The colors are usually pastel, but can be very vivid.

Views from Prehodavci cottage are truely spectacular.

Podstenje lake (Jezero pod Vršacem) was still pretty much buried under snow and ice.

For the end just a few more images from the way back.

As you can see from the images the valley is really picturesque with amazing views all around. I went back to the Double lake a week later and climbed up to Mount Tičarica (that you can see from the first image of the Double Lake). I will post the journal and images from the trip soon.