Today we took on the Vršič Pass in the Triglav National Park region of the
Julian Alps to get from Bovec to Kranjska Gora. Infamous for it's steep
inclines and 50 hairpin bends, the road climbs to 1500m (nearly 5000ft), but fortunately we found the reality a lot less intimidating than the myth and certainly I've
faced worse roads in Scotland. At least there was no single track.
No doubting the scenery though, absolutely awesome, every day seems to get
better at the moment. Some nice birds, the biggest surprise of all, a lesser
whitethroat singing at 1750m (5700ft)! Who knew that lesser whitethroat was an
alpine species? Loads of great flowers as well, including more gentians with a
probable endemic and carpets of mountain avens. Add to that a couple of great
stops at spectacular mountain huts in truly breathtaking scenery and it really
was a day that will live long in the memory.
I'm fairly sure that this is Triglav gentian, an endemic of this region. It seemed a little larger and brighter even than spring gentian and the basal leaves look ovate, which is particularly evident in the next photo, plus the flower has a very white throat. These are all features of Triglav gentian, as it the obvious one, we are in the Triglav National Park.
This old pillbox might seem like it's in an odd place at 1670m (5500ft) up a
mountain in the Julian Alps, but the Vršič Pass road was built by Russian
prisoners of war during WW1 because these mountains were on the Isonzo Front
and the structure in the next photograph is the remains of an old cable car
station that was built to supply the troops during the winter when there was
no other means of access. Presumably the pillbox was meant to help defend the
cable car, though as always with these structures, I not sure how useful it
would be against an enemy that has already got this far. Sitting duck springs
to mind.
Lesser spearberry.
Three-leaved anemone.
Alpine rockrose, generally considered a subspecies of hoary rockrose which
occurs on the UK, but only in north Wales and at Teesdale.
Spring heath.
Alpine Butterwort.
Clusius' Gentian, probably.
Mountain avens.
Spring gentians.
Twoflower violet.
Alpine Clematis.
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