Kocaprisaici to Lipina Valley Walk
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26 May Julian Alps, Triglav National Park - Kocaprisaici to Domna Komni Hut 7.87 km. 997 m ascent, 102 m descent.

This was our most challenging walk. I and six other men and two lady members of our group took this walk with our excellent tour guide Luke. The other ladies in our party took an easier option that also offered glorious views.

Luke required us to take at least one walking pole. Poles were essential for crossing snow drifts and very helpful for doing steep ascents and descents. Poles equipped with cup or disc shaped "baskets" near their tips helped grip snow rather than sink straight into it. I like using my two Leki anti-shock poles

We started on the floor of a valley at its head. It was shaped like a steep sided half bowl. We walked and climbed from the valley floor to the rim and then walked on or close to the rim to the Domna Komni Hut. It was a hard walk with a near vertical climb. Most of the climb was pretty safe but in places we had to negotiate vertical cliff faces that had no ledge by walking on steel footholds and hanging onto a wire ropes. A fall there would have been fatal. I would avoid this type of hazard in future. I was happy to have done it once - but never again!

There were jaw dropping views from the top of the cliff of the valley and the surrounding mountains. From there until the hut, we crossed a number of snow drifts, passed by a lake and had another amazing view of the valley. We were very tired at the end. The manageress of the hut was amazed that we had taken the route that we did. The "hut" was more like a good, large youth hostel which also offered excellent views of the valley. We shared rooms equipped with bunk beds. Dinner and breakfast food was excellent hearty mountain fare.

27 May, Julian Alps, Triglav National Park - Domna Komni Hut to Lipina Valley ascent 373m Descent 1,181 m 24.4 km.

Due to a recent dump of snow, we could not take our original route to the Soca Valley. So we walked to the Lipina Valley instead - a slightly less challenging walk.

We walked across innumerable steeply sloping snow drifts - many drift crossings were potentially hazardous as at the bottom of 20 - 30 m slopes there were often rocks or trees. Fortunately our guide tested each drift before we walked across it and gave excellent instructions on how to do so safely. However snow made mountains more beautiful. At one stage the track was covered with snow for about 1 km. It took a while to find a safe way across the snow to where the track re-emerged on the other side. We slid down one smaller drift on our bums where there was a soft landing at the bottom.

I broke the locking mechanism on one of my walking poles but managed OK with one. If I had been less tired, I would have remembered tocarry out a minor adjustment that would have prevented the pole breaking.

We came across a number of abandoned buildings in the pass (I think the Predil Pass) that had been built by the Italians during their battles with the Austro Hungarian Empire in WW1.

The zig-zag descent from the high plateau to the valet floor was pretty safe but became pretty tedious after a while. We all finished within a couple of minutes of each other but I managed to finish near the lead. We were all very tired but proud of our feat.

From there our coach took us to our National Park lodge in the Soca Valley. We did more walks from this base before driving to Venice.