Geography of Slovenia 5: Alps Region

Slovenian Alps Region 

There is only 2% of the land, but Slovenia has alps region. The  highest mountain Trigrav is located in the region. Ski is the popular sport in Slovenia, and many people enjoy it in Alps region. 

From Austria, Italy and other European countries many toursits visit to this region. I hope Asian tourists also come here because of amazing nature and view. So today I explain Slovenian Alps region.

There are three alps ranges,  Julian Alps, Kamnisko-Savinske Alps, and Karavanke. These mountain rages' hight are over 2000m. It means high trees cannot grow in the mountains. Such region is called, forest limit. 

Julian Alps   

Julian alps is the highest alps among three alpses. The highest mountain, Trigrav's top is 2864m. Other mountains, such as Krn and Prisojnik,  are also beautiful and famous.

Photo2 Julian Alps 

In the south-eastern parts of Julian alps  there are mountains Pokljuka, Mežakla, and Jelovica. 

In the western part, there are Soča Valley. Bovec has Soška Valley. Upper part of Soška Valley is famous for Trenta. That area did not have good transportation for tourists, but it was improved. As the result of that, many tourists come to there in summer.

Photo3: Bohinj lake in the summer season

Photo４；Kranska gora lake

The town, Bohinj  is located in the south-western part of Julian alps. There is small basin, and you can see famous glacious lake, Bohinj lake. The headstream of Bohinj lake is Sava Bohinj river. Sava river is the longest river in Slovenia, and it runs to Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and becomes Donube river in Serbia. Behinj is a popular tourist destination, but Kranska gora is also famous tourist place. Legend Noriaki Kasai sometime has training in Kranska gora. 15km to western part from Kranska gora, there is famous industrial town Jesenice.

Photo５Planica in Kranska gora. Every year ski jump competition is held. 

These area including Julian alps is Trigrav National Park. The park is also popular place for foreigners and local people.

Kamniško-Savinske Alps

Kamniško-Savinske Alps is like small version of Julian alps, but the area is smaller and mountains are also lower than Julian alps's one. Grintvec is the highest mountain in Kaminško-Savinske alps. The hight is  2558m.  Grintvec is located in southeastern part. Then the southeastern part of Kaminško-Savinske alps has high mountain ranges. The most famous mountain range is Velika Planina. 

Photo6 Velika Planina 

Kaminško-Savinske alps has three rivers, Kokra, Kamniška Bistrica, and Savinja. There is the mountain Stožic. Around Savinja river there is famous valley, which calls Logarška Valley.

Photo7: Logarska Valley

Karavanke

Karavanke is the smallest alpls, which extends narrowly from west to east and touches border of Austria. The highest mountain in Karavanke is Stol, which has 2236m.

Surface of the Ground

Alps region has the Mesozoic ear's limestones and dolomite, thus it could be said karst region, however only Karavanke is not karst region. 

Photo8:Škraplja

Photo9: Žlebič

Photo10: Kotliči

We can see high slopes of limestones and sharp ground surface. Some place is called "visokogorski podi". We can see there variety of view of ground. For example, we can see Škraplja and Žlebič. The most famous one is Kotliči. The feature of Kotliči is long narrow hole, which is similar to cave. Even in the summer season snow is fulfilled in the hole.

Visologorski podi is not coverd by soil, thus surface of ground gets weathered. Then, weathered rocks got small, and later they become gravel and the gravel piles up. It calls scree.  You can see a lot of scree in Slovenian mountain. 

Photo11:melišče

Somtime big rock stays in slopes. Especially, Torent Valley  is dangerous place for rockfall. 

In the ice age, all ground surface of current Slovenian Alps region was covered glacier sheet(or ice sheet)氷河期の時、地表は氷河（氷のシートのよう）Continuous glacier sheets  gradually started to melt with graunding groud surface.  Slowly sand, cray, and gravels were piled up, and made moren . Moren has like "U" shape. Now there are no glacier sheets but are two small ices  in the alps region in Slovenia.

写真12:U字の谷

Later climate chaged, got warmer. Then glacier started to melt more. On the surface of ground river started to flow. While the river was making the way to sea, valleys also were cleated. On of these valleys we can see famous, Vintgar Valley.  The width is just few meters, but the depth is 10m. It is really unique valley. 

Most of reivers in the alps flow rapidly. When it is the dry weather, we can see sharp surfaced river bed. The glaciers made lake too. Bled lake and Behinj lake are famous lake all over the world. You can see many beautiful glacier lakes in Trigrav National Park. 

Photo 13: Krn lake at Trigrav National Park

Climate

The climate is alps climate. Compare to other Slovenian region, average temperature is low and precipitation is high. Summer season is really short, while winter season is long. 

Temperature 

Depends on the hight, temeperature changes differently. In the summer lower parts become really hot, but high parts are really cool even in the summer. Thus many people come to alps region to escape summer heat. In the winter season basically it just cold. The weather changes often in a day through a year. 

Precipitation

Precipitation is higher in western parts than eastern parts. Especially, Julian Alps region has lot of precipitation.  At Kanin mountain, it snows more than 1m. Kamniško-Savinske Alps and Karavanke has lower precipitation than Julian alps. 

Basically high part has high precipitation and average temperature is low. 

Population 

Alps region has few population. Tourists visit here often, but it is difficult to live here.  As the resons, bad transportation access and less job opportunities. Thus people moved to big cities.

Industry

Pasturing and Livestock Farming

Because of sharped ground surface and low temperature, the alps region does not suit for agriculture, but pasturing and livestock faming are active. Farmers live lower part of alps region and goes to upper part in summer for pasturing.  Pasturing is seen in Slovene films and novels and it looks so pretty, but reality is really hard job. You can not earn enough. After the WWII, people sought other job, and pasturing was abandoned. 

Tourism 

Industry developes in Jesenice and Turžic. Posočja region has also industorially developed town, Bovec and Tolmin. However transportation is really poor. People still have economical connection or business chance with Austria Koroška region, and Italy, so if the transportation would improve, further economical development would be expected.

Alps region has dinamic and beautifl nature, so tourism is the most important industry. Currently rock climbing is popular sports in Europe. Thus many people come to Slovenian alps for hiking and climbing. Near Soča river many people enjoy also camping.

Photo13: riverbed of Soče river

In the end....

The natreu of alps region is fantastic. It is impossible to find words to expresss how beautiful it is. In the winter you can enjoy skiing, while in the summer you can enjoys hiking, climbing, and swimming in the glaciers lake.
But it is not place to live, because less job opportunity and poor traffic situation. If you love convenience and city life and activity, alps region is not for you. Unstable weather and temperate is also one of the reasons for not suitable to live. 

However ever this Alps is treasure of Slovenia!! 

写真

1. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/View_from_Mangart_MC.jpg
2. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/View_from_Mangart_MC.jpg 
3. Authors photo. 
4. Authors photo.
5. Authors photo.
6. Authors photo.
7. Authors photo.
8. https://sl.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%A0kraplja#/media/File:Silberen_Detail.jpg 
9. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/%C5%BDlebi%C4%8Di.jpg
10. http://www.hribi.net/slika.asp?razmerekomentar=30407
11. https://sl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meli%C5%A1%C4%8De#/media/File:Stenarska_vratca.jpg
12. Authors photo.
13. Authors photo.