Podnar / Bodenbauer - Hochstuhl/Stol (on scree)

Access to starting point:
We drive to the border crossing Ljubelj and further on the Austrian side. Soon after we notice a small church on the left side of the road, a road branches off to the left towards the village Poden / Bodental. At the crossroads after the village Slovenji Plajberk / Windisch Bleiberg, we turn left towards Poden / Bodental. In Poden / Bodental, we reach the mountain signposts for Celovška koča / Klagenfurter Hütte, one to the left and one to the right. We head left and drive along the road to the end of the asphalt, where we park on the parking lot near the grazing fences.

Route description:
From Podnar, near which we park on the extended road, we head onto the macadam and for public traffic closed forest road in the direction of Mlaka / Märchenwiese and Celovška koča / Klagenfurter Hütte. The road, which starts gently ascending, soon brings us to the first junction, where the path towards the farm Vgriz / Ogrisbauer branches off to the right, and we continue straight in the direction of Celovška koča. The road goes a little further into the forest and splits into two parts. We choose the left marked road, which after approximately 30 minutes of walking from the starting point brings us to Mlaka (flat, ample and panoramic meadow).
Here the road turns slightly to the right, and we continue straight on the parallel but somewhat less visible marked path, which continues across the meadow. On the other side of the meadow, the path returns to the forest and gradually starts moderately ascending. After a short ascent, we arrive at a smaller junction, where a ski touring path branches off to the left, and we continue straight along a smaller torrent gully. Some 10 steps higher the marked path turns to the right, and we continue along the torrent, where we follow a faint path, which a little further turns to the left and ascends through a belt of dwarf pines to the extensive scree under Vrtača. Here the path disappears, and we continue along the lower part of the scree, where here and there we notice a cairn. Further on, we ascend for some time along the lower part of the scree under Vrtača, then a nice passage opens on the right side to the slopes under Svačica. After a short traverse ascent to the right, we will reach a faint but well-visible path, which continues ascending between the scree and the belt of dwarf pines. We continue the ascent along the mentioned path, from which increasingly beautiful views open up to the surrounding peaks. Higher up, the path starts to disappear on the scree under Svačica, and if we pay attention, we can find on the right side a barely visible path, which starts traversing upwards to the right. Further, we ascend over a steeper, partly already grass-overgrown scree, which ends or begins under the cliffs of Svačica. When we reach the lower edge of the cliffs, we join the unmarked path that leads from the pass Vrata / Matschatcher Sattel towards the saddle Belščica (path that bypasses Svačica on the left eastern side). We follow the mentioned path to the left, and ascend along it over occasionally quite steep slopes. Higher, the path flattens and transitions from the scree to less steep grassy slopes, over which we ascend to the border with Slovenia.
Here we continue straight (right Svačica, left Vrtača) along the initially gentle path, from which some 10 meters further a marked path to Svačica also branches off to the right. Here we continue slightly left and over a somewhat steeper slope in a few 10 steps descend to the saddle Belščica, where there is a marked junction.
From the saddle Belščica we continue left in the direction of Vrtača, Prešernova koča and Zelenica (right downhill Celovška koča). For a few minutes we cross grassy slopes, then we arrive at the place where the path to Vrtača branches off to the left, and we continue straight downhill. The path ahead first descends steeply through the gully, then turns to the right, where it passes onto extensive scree, across which it ascends transversely. Higher, we leave the scree and slightly descend to the nearby junction, where the upper and lower paths and the path from Završnica join us.
Here we continue straight, and the path from the valley between Srednja peč 1920 m (Srednja peč is a less known peak on the left) and the ridge Orlice (Orlice is a harder-to-access ridge between the saddle Belščica and Stol) gradually passes onto a larger scree, across which we ascend transversely to the right, then the path gradually enters a steeper valley between Mali Stol on the left and Stol on the right. Here the path ascends steeply, then gradually flattens and brings us to a marked junction, where the path to the nearby Prešernova koča branches off to the left (5 minutes), and we continue right and in 10 minutes of further walking ascend to the highest peak of the Karawanks.

Along the route: Sedlo Belščica (1840m)

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