Last Friday was a beautiful day - sunny and warm, one of those late autumn days, that warms the soul and makes your heart sing! Due to an emergency travel the previous week our planned hike on Kladnitza had been postponed, but not canceled, so - Friday was the day for the annual Kladnitza hike.
This big circular hike around the skirts of Kladnitza along the southern slopes of Vitosha has been a staple in our hiking calendar for years. We have a number of favourite autumn destinations, but nothing beats Kladnitza with its gorgeous beech and elm forests, colored in yellow, red and brown, the vast plateau with its views to Rila and other southern mountains and the sunny trails in the open from the pleateu back to the village of Kladnitza along the alternative trail through Borova Polyana.
Because of the early cold this year, the leaves of the trees were mostly on the ground on the last day of October, but the autumn forests were still gorgeously colorful under the bright sun.
Hike info:Date: 31 October 2025
Destination: round trail Kladnitza
Mountain: Vitosha
Total length: 16.7 km
Elevation gain: 560 m
Total duration (plus picnic and rests): 5 hours 30 min
Average difficulty: 4 / 10
The first part of the trail gradually climbs through the forest by the river to the plateau, with an elevation gain from 1000 m to 1561 m altitude.
Me-made items, worn on this hike:
Husband: men's boxers, Burda cargo pants, Burda longsleeve
I: lingerie, Sinclair blouse, Burda hoodie, leg-warmers
Our usual picnic place by the Mecha Polyana spring. This time, however, we decided to vary a little the hike and to climb up to Krusta peak on the plateau and find a nice picnic place there.
Up the plateau we went, until we settled on the warm grass under a beautiful lonely fur tree.
We drank our cold October beers and ate our delicious tortillas with a view to peak Selimitza to the north and the Rila mountain range to the south - what more can a simple hiker's soul want!
On our way back from the peak through the plateau we met with at least four herds of deer - I've never seen so many deer in my life!
If you look carefully, you can notice some of them on this picture. My phone doesn't have an actual optical zoom lens, so from that distance even if I use the digital x7 zoom, it's just grainy pixels. But it's been years since I relinquished the carrying of the heavy DLSR camera.
Through the plateau - definitely my most favourite part of the trail
Another small group of deer ran by us and stopped about a hundred meters or so from us.
Borova polyana - here we picked a handful of Parasol mushrooms, which we deliberated cooking with butter, but in the end decided to play safe and throw them - as delicious as they might be, wild mushrooms are not worth the risk, for me personally.
