Rilska Skakavitza 2024

The valley of Rilska Skakavitza river is one of those places in Rila, that we love to visit at least once a year. The trail is not very difficult, its length is average and the scenery is always breathtaking. And as always with nature - it is different every time. This time it was empty - absolutely shockingly empty- there was no one at the waterfalls in the middle of summer but us! Probably because it was a work day and these are also days of extreme heat in Bulgaria and people were maybe cautious to go out, but the fact is, that there were very few people along the way and none at the waterfalls. On the other hand, there were no raspberries - it is still a bit early for them in the high mountains, so we'll have to wait a bit for the wild berry gorging during our summer hikes.

Despite the hot day, the air at 2000 m was actually quite pleasant, and we could even have our picnic in the open without burning alive :)

Rilska Skakavitza lodge - we had a quick power snack here and refilled our water bottles, before we continued to the waterfall.

Hike info:

Destination: Rilska Skakavitza Waterfalls

Mountain: Rila

Total length: 13 km

Elevation gain: 585 m

Total duration (plus picnic and rests): 5 and a half hours

Average difficulty: 4 / 10 

Rilska Skakavitza river

Me-made items, worn on this hike:

Husband: boxer shorts, Burda cargo pants, Burda blouse

I: lingerie, Love Notions LDT tunic

At this altitude the valleys are still luscious green and abundant with flowers

As usual, we climbed up the trail to approx. one third of the height of the waterfalls

As is our tradition, we had our prolonged picnic on the rocks right in the middle of the river, surrounded by its cool spray and rumble. There's nothing more refreshing like cooling your tired feet in the ice cold waters of a mountain creek.

An unexpected and a bit disturbing encounter - a viper on the path. Husband carefully removed it aside in the grass with the help of the hiking sticks and we continued without any accidents. However, I should mention, that to my astonishment, it was not at all scared of us and didn't try to run away, but rather seemed a bit annoyed and aggressive.