Pivola (Reka) - Mariborska koča (via Hočka koča)

Access to the starting point:
From the four-lane road between Maribor and Slivnica, turn right at the semaphoreised junction in the direction of the village of Hoče (and left from the direction of Slivnica). Follow the road through Spodnje and Zgornje Hoče towards Slivniško Pohorje, but only until the first sharp left turn, at which you will see the Rečnik guesthouse and the turn-off to the village of Pivolo. Leave your vehicle at the inn (of course, ask permission first) or somewhere nearby.

Path description:
From the Rečnik Inn in Pivola, cross the small bridge (left path via Petkov saddle) and continue on the asphalt, but only until the first crossroads, where you go right. Follow the asphalt ascending path to the marked crossroads where you will turn left. Here the asphalt ends and the path leads to the church of St Lenart.
From the church, head west into the woods, where you will continue along the forest track cart track. The ground will be slightly rockier. Leave Cart track after a minute and you will go steeply uphill to the right. When the steepness eases we are back on cart track and we go left and then right up again. From this cart track we go left again. A very steep path through the spruce forest follows, leading to the next asphalt road directly in front of the Visočnik hill farm. Go around the farm and into the forest.
We will be in the forest for a few minutes, then we will enter a meadow, where we will continue to the right along the forest. The path then leads to the Breznik farm. After the farm, we enter the woods again and are in the woods for only about a minute. When we reach the next meadow, we again keep to the right side, where we enter the forest again, but quickly leave it. Once again we enter the meadow, this time keeping to its left side, and when we see the marker we go west and reach Hočka hut, which is unfortunately abandoned.
From the hut, follow the road past the chapel to a crossroads where you will take a sharp left.
The road quickly turns west and then lays down. On the side of the road is the Potočnik-Major farm. After the farm there is a crossroads where you go right uphill. The road begins to climb through a spruce forest and leads to a meadow with benches for resting. Just after the benches we will leave the road and go right into the woods, but we will soon be back in the meadow. When you reach the top of the meadow, the path turns into the woods and starts to climb steeply.
In the spruce forest, the path climbs steeply on trains. At one crossroads we will choose logging trail, which is overgrown with young spruce trees (here it seems logical that the path goes left). We will also cross a small stream. There are a few forks along this steep part, but they are well marked. When the slope finally gives way, we will come to a short lane of rare beech forest. Continue along the wider road, where you will seamlessly join the Slovenian mountain transversal, marked with the number one.
The trail leads to an asphalt road, where you go left and after a short walk you come to a place where the trail returns to the forest. We are in the forest for a short time and then we come to some apartments and chalets that are located here. We are now very close to Mariborska koča, which we reach after a few minutes. The turn-off to it is marked.
At the hut, and at a few places along the way, we will be rewarded with an outstanding view to the east and south.

We can extend the trip to the following destinations: Ruška koča na Arehu

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