Alpine Adventures: Triglav (2864) - Day 1 - Rudno Polje to Dom Planika

We had the luxury of a lift from Mrs Marinsek to the trailhead on Rudno Polje, a plateau to the NW of Stara Fuzina and some 800m higher up. Our legs were very grateful, although there was still 1200m to go that day. The first half of this was in one go - through trees then up the side of an alp to a pass at 1875m. The climb took us past some patches of snow, which caused us a bit of worry about how much there might be further up, but the paths were good and spirits were high.

Next we traversed round a peak called Tosc to the Vodnik hut, where we received huge sandwiches and our first taste of 'mountain tea' - a delicious mixture of black tea with something like blueberries. The place was fairly busy, being a crossroads for people doing the ascent and people touring below the snowline.

We left there about 1pm and began the last steep section, which was sometimes rocky, often snowy and always ascending. Care had to be taken crossing the snowfields, given that it was now afternoon and the snow had gone quite slushy, but we managed without too much difficulty and without any specialist gear like crampons, etc.

As we approached the small barren plateau around the Dom Planika hut, there was a little bit of snow in the air and indeed no sooner had we got inside than a brief snowstorm whipped up to make us feel like we were on the edge of the world.

The hut had a stunning location and was quite cosy, although it was a bit dark and did suffer from still being partially snowbound early in the season - the running water wasn't yet available, since the well was still frozen over. Not to worry, we made do with red wine and a waterbottle of melted snow. A private room for two is luxury in the alps though and the vegetable soup was great (although I'm glad I'm not actually a vegetarian, since there were some quite obvious chunks of beef in it).