Hiking Distance: 11.4 kms / 7.1 miles
Hiking time: 4 hours
Elevation Gain: 350 m / 1150 ft
Altitude: 2500m / 8200 ft
Seven Rila Lakes Hike Difficulty: This hike is a fairly basic one and while there is a decent amount of elevation gain it overall only requires a basic level of fitness. If you can walk around a city for several hours you should have no problem with hiking the Seven Rila Lakes. I’d call it easy to moderate.
Seven Rila Lakes Bulgaria
We’d been in Sofia for a day or two when we decided to head Seven Rila Lakes in the morning. It was a pretty funny experience and we got so super lost. We thought we were going to have to sleep in a forest in the freezing cold after we realized we had gone in the completely wrong direction after about 9 hours hiking and the sun had already gone down. But we were saved by a doctor who just happened to be running through the forest alone and gave us a ride back into the closest town.
Our Hike
The day started normally. We woke up and took the bus to the base of the mountain and then took the chair lift up and started hiking from there. As you start to scale the track you see the first lake and you start to think it’s pretty amazing, then you see a second one and a third and you become more mind blown every step that you take higher.
Then there are the wild horses. They are just standing around, grazing, chilling. They are sort of tame like they don’t spook when you get close but horses are big and scary so I didn’t actually try to get close enough to pat them. I am pretty sure it is probably not a good idea but maybe I am wrong, all I could think about was that youtube video of that guy getting his arm bitten haha so I stayed away however it didn’t make the sight any less amazing!
We had a small guide that we had downloaded off the net on a phone and it told us it was possible to walk a loop around the entire area and end up back in a small town and that we could then take a bus or taxi from there back to Sofia.
I wrote about our three days in Sofia if you are looking for some ideas.
Lost on the Mountain.
Now I am not saying this is not possible but we definitely did not take the right track(I have included a map below so this does not happen to anyone else), which in hindsight could have been a complete disaster. It was late in the year and was already cold as the sun started setting as we began our descent towards what we thought was the right place. We sort of realised we had messed up after an hour or so of not seeing anything anywhere. We were just walking and looking at stuff and making jokes about having to sleep under things or build a hut. But in reality, this was far closer to happening than we really believed at the time.
Getting to Seven Rila Lakes from Sofia.
Getting to Seven Rila Lakes by Car
We went to Seven Rila Lakes from Sofia. To do this you have a few options. The first and best way is to go by car.
We did not do this, however. I was traveling with a friend and we were trying to stick to a tight budget so a rental car was out of the question.
A rental car is the fastest way to get from Sofia to Seven Rila Lakes though. You can drive the whole way from Sofia to Sapareva Bania via Dupnitsa. It is about 80kms. That is if you have the privilege of having a car.
I have attached a map here though so you can follow directions straight off your phone.
Getting to Seven Rila Lakes by Bus from Sofia
To get a bus to Seven Rila Lakes from Sofia you are going to need to head to the Sofia Central Bus Station. We took a 6 am bus for two reasons. One, we wanted to hike as early as possible and two, there is a gap between 7:10 and 10. So if you miss the early bus you will be pushing your hike back a lot later.
The bus you need to take will go from Sofia to the town of Dupnitsa.
When you get to the bus station there are multiple busses that run to Dupnitsa so just ask a bus driver and they will show you where to go. The bus will take about 2 hours and it costs 6 lev per person one way.
Once you are in Dupnitsa you need to make your way to Sapareva Banya minibusses run about every 20 minutes, they cost 1.50 lev per person and the ride takes about 40 minutes.
From here we took a taxi because we had a hard time finding the actual bust to the chair lift. We also wanted to get a bit of a move on. The Taxi cost 16 lev and I think it did save us a lot of time.
All up the bus journey one way cost us 23.5 lev.
Shuttle Bus to Seven Rila Lakes.
We read there was also a shuttle that left to the lakes but the days seemed sporadic and ultimately we decided against it. But it could be something else to look into.
Still lost after sun down
The sun was gone behind the horizon and we were back below the tree line in the forest. It was cold and things were starting to get damp. Fatigue started to set in, we were both tired and pretty uncertain about our fate for the night. We sat down to have a rest and something to drink and were just kind of talking about how much further we thought it could be because we had been walking for hours. We actually had no idea. According to the guide we should have been there already but we came to find out later that we were nowhere near anything. What happened next was so unbelievably lucky for us.
We were just sitting there and a guy comes running up. This was the only guy we had seen the entire time we had been coming down the mountain. He asked us what we were doing and we said that we were walking to the next town. When he heard this he kind of laughed and told us the next town was so far away and that it was not possible to walk there. We were asked to follow him and he would give us a lift to the next town, which we happily complied with.
We kind of had to run with him because he was out for exercise but after another 45 minutes to an hour of moving faster than we had all day, we finally came to his car. After climbing into his car already freezing he drove us about 30 minutes to the next town. Found us somewhere to stay and then left us.
We could not actually believe how badly we had almost messed up, we joked about what the consequences could have been and when we went to bed that night, we were so cold inside our hotel room. I just remember waking up in the middle of the night under two blankets being kind of cold and thinking to myself how we pretty much would have been dead if we had have been outside at that time. It was a good reminder of how quickly things can go bad even on a seemingly easy tourist hike like that. I have hiked so many mountains, sometimes solo, sometimes with friends but never with a guide so I thought I had a pretty good idea of things most of the time. We never went off track, we followed a path the entire time, we had read about it in a guide and we had a map, the map was actually useless but we were not completely unprepared, just stupid haha. It was eye-opening, to say the least.
Where to stay at Seven Rila Lakes
There are a few places to stay that are closer to Seven Rila Lakes so you do not have to worry so much about transport in the morning. You will also basically be able to come straight down the mountain and fall into bed after a hot shower.
It is possible to stay around Seven Rila Lakes in Lovna mountain hut. We did not stay there but heard that in summer it is best to make reservations.
These hotels are about as close as you can get to the start of the hike and taxis or transport can be arranged for the morning.
Budget: х”Скакавица” please don’t ask me how to pronounce this.
Midrange: Villa Eva or Hotel Panorama are both beautiful properties located in Panichishte.
Technically camping if forbidden in the area of the Seven Rila Lakes but you still see a few tents around. I personally always try and follow the laws when it comes to camping in high traffic areas as I believe it sets a bad example and people are not always as responsible as the should be. In August, however, it is a very common site. The lakes have a religious significance for some and they gather around August. If you do decide to camp there are designated spots but it is otherwise forbidden.
Seven Rila Lakes Map
So there are not so many maps out there, well there was not when we did the hike but since then I have been using an app called AllTrails which is a brilliant hiking app with 1000s of trails all over the world in it. I have uploaded a screenshot of the trail. If you want to download the app you can follow the link in the text above
This map of Seven Rila Lakes shows the green and black dot at the top of the map is the start of the trail. You can see there are multiple other tracks around but with the app, you have real-time location tracking so it should keep you on the right path. But looking at this I can kind of see how we got lost haha.
Seven Rila Lakes Lift
The Seven Rila Lakes Chair Lift is actually a beautiful experience lasting about 20 minutes. It takes you up through pine forests and gives an amazing view of the surrounding area from above. It costs 18 Lev for a return ticket on the lift and it is a highly recommended experience.
