Podmežakla (Jesenice) - Partisan hospital on Mežakla (via Zakop)

Access to the starting point:
From the Ljubljana - Jesenice motorway, take the Lipce exit and turn right to Jesenice (left at the traffic lights). Here, in the centre of the town, follow the signs for Podmežaklo. When you pass through the underpass, turn right and you can see the hockey hall nearby. Drive for another 350 m and you will see a parking lot in front of the motorway underpass. Here is our starting point.

Path description:
From the parking lot, head towards the underpass, where you will find the first signpost on the right-hand side. When you go through it, you will see a path on the left, leading downhill from the road (marker on the asphalt). Take it, climb a few metres and turn right (west) towards the power line. The path, which climbs only moderately at first and then more and more, leads to a crossroads after a while. Here, turn left, steeper uphill to the south. Soon we reach a forest road which leads us through a right and left bend to the cart track turnoff, which climbs steeply on the right in a SE direction. Follow it for some time, ignoring the right forks of smaller shortcuts.
The winding path occasionally rises in a serpentine manner slightly to the east. Once we have passed a major right-hand bend, signs direct us to a narrower path on the right. We are now facing SW. From here on, the path gradually climbs in larger or smaller bends towards the summit on the left. When we get under the rocks on the left, we are already close to the top of the plateau, and here we soon come to a crossroads of marked paths, which means that there are two options open to us.
The first is straight ahead (direction SW); here, soon after the steepness subsides, we reach Zakop, where we come across a forest road, turn left and see a monument and benches (a small event space). The second option is to the left (direction SE), steeply uphill towards the top of the plateau, where we come across the same road, which leads us in the route to the left towards our destination. When the forest road ends on flat sandy terrain (a kind of turn-off), you will see a small wooden signpost on the left-hand edge of this open space, with the word "hospital" written on it, which is where you should head. After a few metres, the sign disappears, but if you look north uphill, you will see the small sign on the tree again, pointing slightly to the right. If you now continue either in that direction or straight ahead, you will reach the northern edge of the plateau, where the "panoramic" path runs. We turn left here and after a short time we come across a sign on a tree (or two) that says "hospital", pointing downwards. Here we see a wooden fence along which we descend some 10 m lower to our destination - the Partisan Hospital. (Careful - in wet conditions there is a risk of slipping!)

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