NIGHT NEAR GORICE

October 15, 2025

by ALDO RUPEL

Of the many nocturnal movements, let me describe to you a short but intense one. I will start unusually with a question: do you know what fear is? Do you know the various forms of fear, for example basic fear mixed with the survival instinct? This is not the fear of poverty, nor the fear of driving on a busy road, nor do I mean the fear of school questioning or the fear of bleeding in an accident. I have in mind the fear that an animal experiences when attacked by a carnivorous species.

We, the older generation, remember the war stories, the bombings, the cemetery stories that we used to listen to in the evenings, we remember the apparitions from the books when we were still reading them, because we at least leafed through them. Today’s youth does not know what real darkness is, what deafening silence is, as we say. Everything is always illuminated, but there is a lot of noise and rumble.

So I invite you to immerse yourself in the story of a hiking trail that, if you were to try it, would make you realize that not only would your hair stand on end, but also the hair on your arms and back. You would realize that in this regard we have not strayed much from our Australopithecine ancestors in central Africa some million years ago. There is no difference between the fear of a saber-toothed tiger attack back then and the current possibility of a bear appearing in the trees.

I drove from Gorica, across Preval and through Trnovo to Lokve at 9:00 p.m. I didn’t park in the middle of the village, but continued driving to Zgornji Konca. The dark forest circled and circled silently. I got dressed, set up my headlamp, without turning it on of course, and felt for the position of the stun gun in my fishing jacket – I regularly move around in nature with it because of all those pockets that are so convenient for placing a variety of necessary accessories. I gripped the rod firmly in my palm and stepped into the bank and the black darkness perpendicularly to the left in relation to the Lokve – Lazna – Predmeja forest road.

The climb to the first gentler respite and the turn to the right takes about a quarter of an hour. From daily experience I knew that I was walking in a plant tunnel of a mixed forest dominated by conifers. Twice their edge receded and both times I felt through a wider opening in the plant curtain the fresh November breath, which foretold snow in the coming days. In the interior of the Great Forest, snow appears quite early. Early, of course, for coastal conditions.

After the aforementioned turn, where the forest road branches off in the direction of Poldanovec, I knew that after about half a kilometer there was a sign with the inscription Bear Area. The sign itself does not mean much, since the furry creature moves through the forest regardless of the warning signs, but that triangle affects the hiker in a very special way. I think during the day, what it is like at night, but only a few of us know.

The signs were installed many years ago on all approaches and about a kilometer away from the carnage, behind Ojsternica, the highest sharp peak in that area, where a dead sheep or goat was delivered weekly. The carnage is supposedly no longer maintained, as it has already fulfilled its primary task, namely, to ensure that bears settle there and not just transit on their centuries-old routes from Bosnia to Carnia and vice versa. I remember that forty years ago there were no bears in the Trnovo Forest, but now there are. For about a decade, they got used to permanent rotation because of the carnage, and the food was abundant enough for them to accumulate fat for the winter.

Well, I moved with tense senses in the direction of Turški klanac and reached it after half an hour of moving through one of the most lonely ravines behind Ojstrnica. My chest became tight because the terrain did not allow for movement to the right or left. After Turški klanac it was more relaxed, the starry sky was visible and the moonlight predicted that it would be quite light in the forest after two in the morning.

I knew the direction perfectly, all the turns and the distances, as I had trained cross-country skiing there for years. To the right, a giant hollow covered with spruce trees opened up and lay serenely, then the direction narrowed again and a slight descent to an important intersection of forest roads and paths in the direction of Golaki, Vojsko, Lokevi and Smrekova draga.

I headed towards Ana’s hut, a few hundred meters away, where I planned to stop, have a few sips of hot tea, and then circle back past Vojkova hut to Mala Lazna and Lokve. A mere hundred meters before Ana’s hut, I had the feeling that I was not alone in that narrow area. It was one after midnight, the end of the hour of fear. But I had long since overcome such empty fears. I feel sovereign in the forest anytime and anywhere. But it’s different when something is actually breaking and branches are cracking in the depths of the forest.

Was it a deer? Was it a bear? I don’t know. It wasn’t a smaller animal. I dug my soles into the ground for five seconds. My hair stood on end, and so did the hair on my body. My ears automatically moved two or three millimeters, my right hand reached out and searched my pocket for the handle of a stun gun. But I didn’t turn on my headlamp, because that’s the most unwise move even in the event of an encounter in the forest with a person with bad intentions, but this last option – believe me – is only in our heads. Who would go into the forest after you to attack you?! But fear is irrational and creates incredible imaginative acrobatics. A turned-on headlamp completely reveals you, determines your position. Well, my legs slowly and carefully began to move in the direction of the starting point, and an accelerated pace followed, because the road from that intersection descends to Lazna, where the world expands and you can notice the movements of anything up to a hundred meters away.

I quickly became aware of the entire situation and convinced myself once again that man is sovereign in our forests, or almost so, and that alarm is not always appropriate. Well, in the harsh winter and deep snow around Vremščica, it is not entirely wise for a person to roam alone. The pack of wolves has so far been limited to small animals, but it is possible that a lone wolf will wander into the areas of Trnovski gozd.

I can’t hide the satisfaction that filled me during the return trip home, knowing that in the future I would be venturing into forests, plateaus, and sinkholes – even at night.

Searching for the reasons for such behavior requires some additional journalistic opportunity.

We invite you to read four books by the author of the article: