| VanSims10. 09. 2012 19:22:15 |
On Saturday morning I drive via Kranjska Gora, Tarvisio and Predel to the start of the Mangart road where I park. Then I climb up the road to the start of the landslide and there I turn onto the mountain path towards the hut and saddle. The landslide (year 2000) has thoroughly messed up the path and to Mangart Planina I have to search for it. Then it gets easier, though the markings are already faded and some extra ones wouldn't hurt.  Probably the one who marked this path is the one who probably (we know why) won't anymore. 
After crossing the (at the time?) dry stream bed the path starts climbing for real, crosses the road for the first time, reaches a clearing and immediately back into the forest. Upon reaching the road I go through the tunnel and before the next tunnel (two markings drawn) back onto the mountain path. It then goes a bit over rocks (here and there some scrambling but nothing serious) and comes out before the last tunnel. Before it there's marked parking (TNP parking regime!) where you can probably park to avoid the parking fee at the top.
After the tunnel there's soon a branch to the hut (marked with an exclamation mark in a triangle which is probably a mistake since it's a regular road), I sit a bit in front of it and snack. When climbing the road further towards the saddle (the path past the hut shortens the route by several turns), already a few hundred meters before the parking I turn right and come directly under Travnik and to the little saddle, where the paths split. From there I spot climbers on Via Italiana, which I probably wouldn't even have noticed (I meet them later at the end of the climbing section on the Italian normal route, which I head for at the split).
Ahead of me first is the ascent on short but nasty scree and there I notice only then that I forgot my poles on the bench in front of the hut. Will they still be there? Well, I console myself that the Italians (most of the foreigners there) are a bit more civilized in the mountains than in the valley, Slovenes anyway don't steal well... hmm... here and there someone takes something! 
The 'climbing' part seems easier to me than e.g. Triglav via Planika and harder than e.g. Kamnik Saddle via Okrešelj (though the latter path is more exposed). Then comes scree again and here I meet someone who has a dog tied to himself (otherwise a nice Border Collie) and it happily wags its tail on the steep descent past the cliffs.  From the branch to Kotovo Sedlo the path starts to drag loooong to the summit.
The views on such a nice day are phenomenal! To Austria to the High Tauern and Grossglockner, and to Italy to the Dolomites. And of course right under my nose the whole chain of the Julian Alps and part of the Karawanks,... It just confirms again that Slovenes know geography only up to the state border, since someone declares Villach as Kranj!
Then I descend, those climbers from Italiana do too and when I complain to them about the forgotten poles they reassure me that they will surely be waiting there. They go on, but I on that scree notorious for people getting lost, get lost myself to some snow hollow. Oooups! When I reach the chains, some dad with a toddler (not more than a year or a year and a half old) the stroller rushes past me along the edge of the precipice. Of course neither he nor the child had a helmet!
Down the chains to the lower scree where poles would come in handy, then down to the saddle and to the hut. When going towards the hut a bearded guy from an old Fiat asks if I've seen goats anywhere. The guy seems a bit weird and at that time I didn't yet suspect that I would ride in that Fiat and how!
At the hut I really find the poles. Well, there are still honest people! There's also that bearded man who has obviously found his goats. With him is also some girl. I learn he's Štef (probably the Mangart legend whom I'd bet the above-mentioned probable marker knows), communicative, yes really a bit weird,... in short, a character! She's Katja (a student who, as I later learn, is doing her thesis there). They drive off in his Fiat. I also go slowly down the road.
When I reach the branch of the path to the hut from the main road, they are talking there with some cyclist and invite me to hop in because they are driving down. Where am I to sit?  The back is fully loaded. But Štef nicely opens the trunk and seats me inside among all the stuff so that my legs dangle down and - off we go! And gas. Literally! We speed through the tunnels like madmen and then abruptly brake before the turns  Katja warns him to be careful but he claims he knows the road like his own pocket.
Well, at the first (from below) crossing of the footpath with the road Katja decides to go down on foot, because she's obviously had enough of the sliding drive down the slope and the braking and gear-shifting only on turns! I take her seat, Štef waits for the goats to cross the road and we drive to the branch for the dairy, where he drops me off. I thank him for the ride and for the dose of adrenaline that no via ferrata, no matter how difficult, can give and then we part. Anyway the guy's OK. Hats off that he still holds out there. Apparently 50 years. 
When I reach the car I drive back via Predel and Tržič (ice cream) to Austria where on Sunday I still cycled in the Gail Valley. From Villach by train to Kötschach then 80 km back on the bike path.
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