Climbing the Vršič Pass in Slovenia – the most beautiful Pass in the Alps

by Marc Woodhead

It was a combination of things, one of those moments in life when the stars seem to align. The Julian Alps are so beautiful, I had enjoyed, for the first time, a superb Swimtrek holiday in the Slovenian National Park, swimming Lake Bled and Lake Bohinjsko, in a valley of outstanding natural beauty and crystal-clear water.

I then headed two valleys north, to Godz Martuljek, staying at a tremendous new camp site called Kamp Spik, in order to cycle the Vršič Pass on my Lombardi Blue Columbus steel Racer Rosa.

I had read about the cycling heritage of the Vršič Pass in my copy of “Mountain Higher – Europe’s Extreme, Undiscovered and Unforgettable Cycle Climbs” by Daniel Friebe and Pete Goding. From the Kranjska Gora side the hair-pin corners of the climb are numbered 1-24 and then 25-50 down to the Soca Valley. This numbering system is said to have inspired the famous 21 numbered hair-pin bends of the Alpe d’huez.

The road was built during World War I by 10,000 Russian prisoners of war using cobbles on the corners on the Kranska Gora side. A beautifully preserved wooden chapel a third of the way up the climb from Kranska is a monument to the 300 soldiers who were killed during an avalanche falling from the Mojstrovka cliffs in 1916. I happened to arrive at the foot of the Vršič Pass on the day Russian ambassadors were visiting the chapel, and the road was open to cyclists, but entirely closed to cars, a gift for those of us on two wheels!

I was able to ascend, alone on the road, gliding over the cobbles, contemplating the history of the engineering, the plight of the soldiers, the cycling heritage, the Turner-esque beauty of the mountain peaks and Romantic sense of space, the luscious greens of the pine forests, accompanied only by a few bambi deer and the occasional flyby of birds swooping from the trees along the road. The Vršič is not the highest climb in the Alps, the pass peaks at 1611m, and not the most challenging in terms of steep gradients (sections up to 12 degrees average), but I found it ravishing, constantly thought provoking, the most beautiful and stimulating Alpine Pass I have cycled.