Slovenian Adventures with Mikaela Toczek

Mikaela Toczek joined us on Tuesday evening in the latest Alpine Stories of our winter series. Mikaela is one assessment away from being a fully qualified winter and summer International Mountain Leader and has a healthy obsession with Slovenia! As she says, she loves Slovenia so much so found a Slovenian chap to marry!!

If you’ve ever been to Slovenia you will have experienced the friendly and welcoming people, vibrant capital city and maybe been to the popular destinations of Bled, Bohinj and the Soca valley. You might even have climbed Triglav and become a Slovenian (perhaps without the traditional rope spanking…!). However, Mikaela invites you to look further into the mountain ranges (yes, 3) of this small but mighty country and share all the adventures they offer.

Mikaela shares her most memorable outings in both the summer and winter mountains, touching on the lessons she learnt along the way. Slovenia’s mountains may be small in height but they pack a punch, with long approaches, challenging terrain and plentiful loose rock. You will hear about snow shoeing multi day trips, winter mountaineering, summer rock climbing and fun filled via ferrata.

If you are also embarking on your IML journey, Mikaela shares her experiences of the scheme and tells you why Slovenia should be a place to visit.

Mikaela shares her top tips for adventuring in Slovenia here:

For Slovenian weather forecasts you can check: https://vreme.arso.gov.si/napoved it has an English translation and also has a really great snow/avalanche report but only in Slovene (you can copy and paste for translation).

Mikaela also uses the Snow Safe app for avalanche reports.

You can use the https://climbfinder.net/ app for finding climbs in Slovenia

See here for news about a new guidebook for multi pitch mountain climbs - https://www.theuiaa.org/mountaineering/first-guidebook-published-of-slovenian-modern-multi-pitch-routes/ This includes bolted mountain multi pitch on good rock!!

Watch the full talk below: