Podmežakla (Jesenice) - Planina Ravne (via Zakop)

Access to starting point:
From highway Ljubljana - Jesenice, we go to the exit Lipce and we drive right to Jesenice (at the traffic light in Slovenski Javornik left). In the center of the town we follow the signs for Podmežakla. When we drive through the underpass, we turn right, immediately and then on the left we notice hockey hall. We drive additional 350 meters, when before highway underpass we see parking lot - starting point of our path.

Path description:
From the parking lot, we go in underpass, where we run into the first blaze. When we step through it, straight in front of us we notice a footpath which leads from the road uphill (trail blaze on asphalt). There we ascend few meters and we turn right (west) below the power line. The path which is at first only moderately ascending, later more and more steep, after some time brings us to a crossing, where we go left (straight Mala Mežakla), uphill towards the summit. We soon reach the forest road which through double turn brings us to the turn-off of cart track which is on the right steeply ascending in the direction southeast. We go there, and we follow it. The path through the forest is occasionally ascending in zig-zags, at first a little towards the left, and higher we go in the direction of southwest. The further path is gradually in large or short zig-zags steeper ascending towards the top on the left. When we come below rocks on left, we are near top of plateau. Higher, we get to left turn-off of marked footpath, we ignore it and we continue straight, and soon after this, when the steepness decreases we come on Zakop - smaller event venue in the middle of the forest with nearby forest road. We continue right on the road which at first after the right turn is slowly turning left, and after this starts descending. After a time, through some turns we come to the first crossroad of forest roads, where we continue left, and soon after this also to the next, where we turn right on a side road. We walk there only 50 meters, whereupon on the left we notice a cart track and cairn, where we go and we leave the road. We still walk on a cart track which is descending through the forest. Soon, at a turn where the path turns sharply right, in the direction of straight we notice a cairn and the cart track on which we go, and we continue downhill. After this, the path brings us out of the forest on a smaller, lovely mountain pasture Strženica, which on the left side of the cattle pen we cross in a long right turn. (In the case of livestock on the pasture we can bypass mountain pasture on the right). Further, we continue on a wider cart track which is still descending through the forest and at the same time we ignore side cart tracks. The path soon brings us out of the forest on an ample grassy area of the mountain pasture Oblek and is changing into more and more hardened cart track which leads past nice holiday cottages, is turning left and eventually ends on the main forest road which on Mežakla comes from the direction Gorje. Here we go right, we see part of Julian Alps and we continue on the road towards the west. When by the road on the right side we run into a little larger building (forestry cottage), we are on the mountain pasture Ravne, which is situated by the road on the left side. At the end of wooden fence on the left we notice a cart track, on which we can go through a meadow to the ruins of shepherd hut, which are on the lower pasture, good 5 min of walking towards the south. If we continue straight on the road, we quickly come to a crossing with monument from second world war, and on the right we see nicely renovated forestry holiday cottage. Here we turn left and on the road through the forest in short we come to three holiday cottages (two on the right and one on the left side). Only one which is in use (cottage of university Univerza v Ljubljani, second from the right), is situated at the end of the short cart track on the right, where also a signpost point us to. Past renovated, but abandoned holiday cottage, which is situated on the left side of forest road, we can on a little overgrown forest (without path) come on the lower part of the mountain pasture Ravne with ruins of shepherd hut.

On the way: Škrbina (Mežakla) (1210m)