To the Lake Elenski (Еленски Езеро)

The day before, as well as part of the night, we experienced heavy rainfall and storms. The weather forecast for the second day was not quite clear, but it mentioned that other thunderstorms should be expected.
My plan was to climb Mount Malyovitsa. But because of the uncertainty, I decided to climb as far high as possible and go back down as soon as the weather would get worser.

For that purpose I went to the start of the ski slopes of Malyovitsa. The place name is in fact Mecha Polyana... (polyana meaning clearing). At that place, a big parking lot exists. There is also a big building, which is the former training center for alpine activities.

Starting from there a good path (or small road) goes up along the river until the Malyovitsa hut. In fact there are two huts there. The first one, which is closed but about to be renovated, was the former forestry hut. It was later changed into a regular hut with lodging. Because of sloppiness of the former keeper, the whole building started to fall apart. This was even made worse, because the other hut, just located nearby was open and more welcoming. What is going to happen with the former hut is unclear...

The trail becomes less wide and climbs a first "stair" in order to reach a plateau (on the Bulgarian map... it is called "terrasse"). After a second terrace, one has to start to climb to the lake. At first, it climbs a steep section in order to reach glacier polished rocks. The track is quite straightforward even though I would not like travelling it under a heavy rain.

Soon, one reaches the Elena lake... a very nice place... in nice conditions.

If you seek going to Bulgaria... for this hike or another one... and you have a GPS, do not buy the Garmin map. There is a fantastic map made by volunteers (and I suspect Garmin to have taken over big parts of their map). This free map can be found at www.bgmountains.org