Slovenia

There’s a stretch of Mount Triglav, maybe 50 meters below a small wooden hut, where I gripped a rock face with both hands and swore at it. I was scared in a way I don’t

I sat in a 10°C river for 10 minutes and came out grinning. That was the afternoon after a morning of jumping off canyon walls and rappelling down a 50-meter waterfall on a rope. By

I lost a day in Ljubljana before I ever got there. Cancelled flight out of Raleigh, then a delayed one, then an overnight reroute through London that ate the extra day I’d deliberately built into

We came out the far end of Vintgar Gorge feeling pleased with ourselves and then stood in the middle of the forest for a while trying to work out how to get back. It’s a

On our second night in Lake Bled we walked back from dinner past a small bar on the edge of the lake, and there was a band on. A local band, singing in Slovenian, playing

I was lying on my back on a paddleboard in the middle of Lake Bohinj with my eyes shut, listening to six women breathe. I’d told them it would take 5 minutes. It ran closer

We came down off Mount Triglav wrecked. 12 hours of hiking the day before, a night in a hut dormitory, and a group of women who’d been higher and harder than most of us expected.

I landed in Ljubljana knowing almost nothing about Slovenia. After 16 years of doing this for a living, I usually arrive with a spreadsheet and a shortlist. This time I had permission to just turn