Why the Slovenian Mountain Trail?
Image taken from the Cicerone Guide, the first English language guide to the SMT. Link.
You might be wondering (or you’re not, in which case feel free to exit this page at any time) why the Slovenian Mountain Trail? Personally, I’m two years out of college and finding myself at a bit of a crossroads in terms of my career and thinking about next steps. I believe (slash hope) that taking a couple of months to do something else, reflect on what's important to me, spend time in nature, and challenge myself both physically and mentally will be time well spent regardless of what comes next. I’ve also always wanted to do a thru-hike and am beyond excited that Nick, my boyfriend, will be experiencing this adventure with me!
Thru-hiking is continuously hiking a long-distance trail from start to finish. It takes endurance, stamina, and perseverance, as well as research and preparation.
Deciding what thru-hike to do was a journey in of itself. Initially, Europe didn’t even cross my mind as a place to go, much less Slovenia. When I think of thru-hiking I think of the Triple Crown of American hikes: the Appalachian Trail, which follows the Appalachian Mountains from Georgia to Maine, the Pacific Crest Trail, which spans from Mexico to Canada through California, Oregon, and Washington, and the Continental Divide Trail, which runs from the deserts of New Mexico through the Rockies to Montana.
These trails are all very planning intensive. They take four to six months to complete, require applying for permits up to six months in advance, involve a resupply plan (e.g. mailing yourself food packages along the way), and require hitchhiking to get to nearby towns. While it would be super cool to do a Triple Crown hike one day, ultimately, time constraints and personal safety concerns (as I was initially preparing to hike solo) led me to explore hiking alternatives elsewhere.
That’s when I started to hone in on Europe, where the hiking culture has some distinct differences from the U.S. While multi-day hikes in the U.S. nearly always involve sleeping in a tent, carrying food and cooking equipment with you, and having everything on your back, “wild camping”, or sleeping on public land, is illegal in many parts of Europe. Consequently, a lot of the continent’s long-distance trails have huts for hikers to sleep, eat, and resupply along the way.
But after discovering the Slovenian Mountain Trail, something just stuck. The more I learned about it, the more excited I became.
While it’s hard to say this with absolute certainty, it is considered by many to be the oldest long-distance trail in Europe and the oldest connective mountain trail in the world. The trail was founded in 1953 by Ivan Šumljak, a Slovenian alpinist, mountaineer, and geography professor from Maribor. After climbing Črni vrh, the highest summit of Pohorje mountains, Šumljak looked out across the Slovenian landscape and had a wonderful idea: to connect the entire country with a single trail.
The Slovenian Mountain Trail is 617 km (383.4 miles) and runs from the northeast to the southwest of Slovenia through most of the country's mountains. In addition to to covering the nation’s highest peaks, it also incorporates several historical footpaths that were used by shepherds, hunters, and merchants for centuries.
The SMT begins in Maribor, crosses the Pohorje Mountains, and goes into the Kamnik Alps before reaching the Julian Alps in Trigalv National Park. In Trigalv, it summits some of the country's highest peaks (Trigalv, Razor, Prisojnik, and Jalovec) before descending into the Trenta Valley and Trigalv Lakes Region. It then climbs the Komna Plateau and the Pohinj-Tolman Ridge in its last section of the park. Finally, it crosses the hills of Idrsko Hribovje to the Karst Plateus all the way to Debeli rtič, a cape along the Adriatic Sea.
Over the course of the entire trail, we will ascend and descend 37,000 meters in elevation, summit 35 peaks, pass 55 mountain huts, and collect stamps from the trail’s 80 checkpoints. While all of this is somewhat daunting, I am excited to experience Slovenia’s many beautiful natural climbing sites and get a better sense of how mountaineering became an integral part of Slovenian culture from Tito’s Yugoslavia to now (a post on this coming soon).