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Velika Planina hiking questions

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I am trying to decide the best route for a day hike to Velika Planina. We will start the day by picking up a rental car in Ljubjlana, so we probably won't get to the area till 11am or so.

The route from Volovljek on https://www.alltrails.com/explore/trail/slovenia/luce/okoli-velika-planina is about 8 miles and 2300 vertical feet climb, which sounds perfect. But it looks like the route crosses a couple of roads and a parking lot which could mean it won't feel as interesting as terrain without cars. Are there more appealing routes?

The popular route from Stahovica sounds too long for a day hike, at least for us on that day. I considered leaving our car at the cable car base, finding a taxi to the spot above Stahovica where the road ends according to google, then hiking up and taking the cable car down. But that's complicated and also would require making the last cable car down, which could be stressful.

Part of my uncertainty is I don't know how much time we'll want to spend wandering around atop Velika Planina, which appears to be more of a beautiful and culturally interesting area than a typical summit. If that area is the main attraction then we don't want to spend all our time getting there.

I welcome any suggestions. Thanks!

Posted by
3847 posts

Hard for me to answer because my day there included more than VP, but maybe I can share my day and give you some idea how much time I spent there. I arrived at around 9 am and met up with a guide. We took the cable car up and down, and I was at VP perhaps until 2 pm or so -- that gave me time to visit the hut that serves as a museum, eat some sour milk, try some cheese, visit the small church, walk over to the adjacent Mala planina to see the memorial to a downed US B-17 flying fortress that crashed there, and eat some soup at the excellent restaurant between VP and MP. From 2 pm to 5 pm, I was in the valley, which included a fairly flat hike to Bela Partisan Hospital to see the site where Lt Otto Hinds (pilot of the B-17) died. Then I was in Kamnik from 5 pm to 7 pm.

Here's what I wrote on another thread on VP:

Velika Planina vs. Logar Valley. Tough choice! I would tend to go with
VP because it is kind of other worldly. I would make sure you know
what its status is before you go. When I went in 2019, there were
significantly fewer summer herdsmen on the mountain than in the prior
year. On the adjacent Mala Planina is a memorial to a US B-17 Flying
Fortress that crashed there May 29, 1944. Lt Otto Hinds was flying the
plane, holding it steady while the rest of the crew parachuted out. He
was the last to jump, but apparently his parachute deployed in the
plane or did not deploy correctly for the jump or he was too low to
the ground for it to work; he ended up with a significant injury and
later died at the Bela Partisan Hospital deep in the forest in the
valley (there is a path in the valley to the site of the field
hospital). The Nazis torched all the buildings on Mala and Velika
Planina because the herdsmen would not provide any info on the US
airmen. So... all the buildings have been built since then... some
with material from the B-17 flying fortress. There is a restaurant on
the walk between Velika Planina and Mala Planina with amazing soup.
Try the herdsmen's sour milk (not to my liking, but a worthwhile
experience) and cheese (yummy!).

I would expect the Kamnik TI office would be happy to help you nail down a plan for your day, including figuring out hikes... https://www.visitkamnik.com/en/tourist-office

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