Believe in Maglic



Would you just drive in there?

I did not want to drive the long way round to the Bosnian side, especially without a Green card and the poor road up to the usual trailhead. So I wanted to see if it was possible to tackle Maglic, Bosnia i Hercegovina highest point (2386m P311) from over the border in Montenegro. I gave myself an afternoon to explore as I could not find any information online, certainly not in English. The village of Mratinje seemed the best option. Finding the village was the first task. The road to it has quite an uninviting start through a tunnel near a large hydro-electric dam at N43.27403 E18.84241.

Trailhead sign near Mratinje

Just before the village sign there is a right turn (N43.25907 E18.82458) into a rough, but drivable, back road into Bosnia. I spent a couple of hours walking up it to a pass on the first ridge. However the trailhead for Maglic is through the village at N43.26974 E18.78515 where there is a small parking space and a sign. Furthermore, there is a clearly marked trail 811 for the Trnovacko jezero (lake) and Maglic.

The road soon ends at a small hamlet. Then there is a steep path through a meadow into the trees. The path continues across a small scree slope and then to the foot of a much larger and flowery scree slope which is relatively easy to ascend at one side. When I got to the top there was a thunderstorm. Luckily I found a small bivvy sized cave where I dozed off until the storm passed by.

From there the landscape was one of karst limestone with the usual need to go round sinkholes of various sizes, past a voda (water) spring until reaching a ridge where the Trnovacko jezero path turned left and the path for Maglic turned right. From the ridge there were good views down into the next valley and into Bosnia.









The path went along the ridge and over various false summits until finally there was a view of the fine looking final summit which promised a brief scramble after crossing the international border marked by a EU development sign (despite neither country being a member - I bet this would have been an irritation for the Nigel Farage types). The top N43.28109 E18.73311 is marked with a metal Yugoslavian flag and a plaque in honour of Tito.

White Maglic

Yugoslavian flag

Tito plaque

Bosnia

 

I returned by the same route as I ascended. As I reached the trees there was another and lengthy thunder storm and I ended up very wet from torrential rain.