Steven's Peak-bagging Journey

August 7, 2025

2678m

Bovec, Slovenia/Italy

This peak sits on the border of Italy and Slovenia in the Julian Alps and boasts over 1000 m prominence despite the close proximity to both Triglav and Jôf di Montasio. There are several routes with the standard route being only slightly fancier than a “protected walk-up” whereas the Slovenian Route is more preferred for those into some low-grade via ferrata. I chose the Slovenian Route but Adam did the walk-up. The Italian name of this (Màngart) seems to be more commonly used at least on the internet but since I did the Slovenian way I wonder if I should stick with the Slovenian name (Mangrt) which spells slightly differently. The approach is short thank to the highest paved access road in Slovenia so the decision was to fit Màngart into a “rest day” between Triglav and Grossglockner. Adam was more keen on Dobratsch in Austria which is more prominent but I insisted on Màngart as it would be more fun.

We car-camped the night before on the saddle with Planja and awkwardly did that bonus objective in the previous evening. I should have used that time to sleep instead, as that peak was a plain misery. In the morning we woke up at the first light and drove up to the uppermost parking area in the current days. The last 2 km of the road was still under construction and hence closed to vehicular traffics but we were early enough to get a spot in the uppermost parking lot. Had we shown up an hour later we would have some serious issues with the parking. This place was literally a zoo (why I’m not even surprised) and this wasn’t even a weekend.

I wasn’t particularly happy about the added road walking especially with some extra elevation gain but at least the views were great and the morning mists were dissipating. We got to the road’s end and easily plodded up the access trail to where the routes split. There’s one scrambling section along this trail that we thought was actually a bit tricky, especially for the averaged hikers. I then put the harness on with the via ferrata kits but ended up not using those equipment. The official grade for the Slovenian Route is “B” and I was already started to get used to the ferrata routes at this difficulty. The route goes up a gigantic cleft on the west face of Màngart and and hardest was actually at the bottom. It was raining quite a bit in the area so the condition was wet, but there were plenty of holds and chains for the added security. I passed a few parties in this stage. The rest of the route was mostly just a “protected scramble” on class 3/4 terrain with hardly anything worth noting. It was actually quite a slog as the route gains 450 m elevation up this face. I slowed down as I anticipated Adam to take much longer time as his route is more meandering, but Adam ended up showing up on the summit a mere minute or two after my arrival. This suggested the “normal route” being mostly a walk-up on a well-defined path, and Adam confirmed that.

I normally would prefer to take the easiest route but in this particular case, I was glad to add a little bit extra challenge as the standard route was indeed a “slog” with nothing attractive. I simply followed Adam’s lead down the route and passed more people (mostly coming up). Most parties on this mountain actually preferred the standard route for some reasons. In short time we were back to the trail and jogged back to the vehicle. The day was still young so I suggested that maybe we should consider adding another objective into the itinerary. The crux was definitely the drive down the narrow and winding road. We encountered hordes of traffics coming up (in the middle of a day) and passing one vehicle was proven to be particularly challenging with only inches of margin on each side.