Podljubelj (Lajb) - Begunjska Vrtača

Access to starting point:
We leave Gorenjska highway at the junction Podtabor, and then we continue driving towards the border crossing Ljubelj. Further, we drive past the turn-off for Bistrica pri Tržiču, and higher also past the turn-off for Podljubelj. A little after the road sign 4.5 km, after the underpass we turn right and then once again right in Podljubelj. We park on an appropriate place at the sign, which marks the beginning of Podljubelj.

Path description:
From the parking lot, we continue on the road which crosses narrower bridge (overpass) and on the other side turns left. After few ten strides of walking by the road we notice signs for Preval, Begunjščica and Dobrča. Further, we continue on the road which ascends above the village and by the end of the village, we notice a sign that prohibits further driving. The road which is further moderately ascending soon over a bridge crosses the stream and continues on mostly vegetated slope. Somewhere on the halfway of ascent to Prevala road crosses some panoramic slopes, after that goes again in the forest, where we have two options to continue. On the right side of the road, we notice a steep cart track which soon brings us on Preval, or we can continue on a little more gentle road which only about a minute later brings us to Preval. On Preval both paths join and only a short ascent follows to the cottage, which we notice on the left side.
From a cross on Prevala we continue towards the north on a marked footpath in the direction of Begunjščica over Kalvarija (left Roblekov dom over Roža, right Ljubelj and Podljubelj). The path ahead at first ascends on a panoramic grassy slope, and then passes into the forest through which it starts ascending steeper. Higher, the forest starts to get thinner, and the path becomes even a little steeper. Next follows a quite steep ascent, which at first runs through some lanes of dwarf pines, and higher over steep grassy slopes, which are mainly in wet dangerous for slipping. Further, we cross a slightly exposed gully, where there is a smaller memorial, and the path is then for few minutes ascending on a steep grassy slope. When a little higher slope flattens a little, marked path turns to the left and crosses slopes towards the left. Only few minutes ahead we get to a smaller valley, where the slope flattens even more.
Here the marked path which leads on Veliki vrh crosses a small valley, and we just continue on a small valley upwards, where at first we still follow rough footpath. A little higher we go slightly to the right, after that in 10 minutes of additional walking on easier pathless terrain we ascend to the summit of Begunjska Vrtača.
Lajb - Preval 1:30, Preval - Begunjska vrtača 1:35.

On the way: Koča na Prevalu mountain hut (1311m)