Pokljuška luknja

 

Slovenia. If you are near the wonderful lake, castles, and hills of Bled but are also interested in caves and off the beaten path hiking, check out the Pokljuška soteska or the Pokljuška Gorge. Along the way there's a very nice cave, the Pokljuška luknja. Its several entrances give a striking views inside.

There's three entrances in total, two walkable (lower and upper) and one high up entrance.

I didn't scan the cave and there's no data about the cave in the Internet that I can find, including no length data. But it is probably more than 50 meters altogether. Not sure...

The coordinates are N 46.37657 E 14.03351. Some hiking is involved; the trailhead starts at N 46.37900 E 14.04152. More information can be found from the Slovenia Hiking page and the Bled information page. There's also some information at the Pokljuška soteska wikipedia page and home page.

More information about Bled's wonderful lakes in my article here (alt. link).

Entrance:

There's also an upper entrance, shown here:

Views from inside:

This article has also been published at Planetcaver.net here. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, urban exploration stories from theurbanexplorer.net, and other underground stories from planetcaver.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot. Photos and text (c) 2023 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. 

Day trip to Latvia, part two: caves and more caves

Skiing is done, done, done. Now some caves? 

The first cave, Kalēja Ala, is a sandstone cave. It seemed it had formed in a hill with very soft sandstone, and I wasn't sure how it was fully holding up... sand dripping from the roof. However, there was no exploring of this cave as in the winter season the bats need their rest... while there were many footprints to the cave, I stayed at the entrance, just took a photo towards the insides. It would have been a spectacular cave to visit, though, I need to come back in the summer! This cave also had a short side cave higher up on the hill.

Once I left these caves, I drove towards Riga and found the second pair of caves, including Latvia's largest cave, Gūtmaņa Ala. Massive cave, in volume but not that long. A hole on the mountainside, and with a spring at the end. Nice, and easy to visit. And open all year along :-)  This one also had a side cave that was much smaller, and this time much more cave-like.

Here's a more detailed run down of the caves, along with coordinates. I also scanned two of the caves with my iPhone's lidar capability, and created maps using my Cave Outliner software package.  

Kalēja Ala, Raiskums. Coordinates N 57.379438 E 25.262701. The cave is 46 meters long. More information here.

Photos of the cave:

Kalēja Sānu Ala. Side cave to the above. Coordinates N 57.3795475 E 25.262771. The cave is 6 meters long. This one I was able to scan with my scanning pole, the model is loadable here, can be rotated on your browser screen here, and the high-resolution map can be downloaded here.

One photo of this cave is the opening shot of this article. Other photos of the cave:

Gūtmaņa Ala, Sigulda. Coordinates N 57.176169 E 24.842373. More information here. My measurements indicate that the cave was 18 meters long, but various sources disagree on the exact length, however. 

This one I was able to scan with my scanning pole, the model is loadable here, can be rotated on your browser screen here, and the high-resolution map can be downloaded here.

Photos of the cave:

Gūtmaņa Sānu Ala. Side cave to the above. Coordinates N 57.175015 E 24.841227. I didn't measure this cave, but I wild guess is that it is around 14 meters long. Could be few meters longer or shorter.

Photos of the cave:

The previous part of this trip report was about skiing (link, alt. link). The next part is about the airport (link, alt. link).

This article has also been published at Planetcaver.net here. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, urban exploration stories from theurbanexplorer.net, and other underground stories from planetcaver.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot. Photos and text (c) 2026 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. 

Hetan Hiihtomaa

Wow, a ski resort in Finland that I have not even heard of ... Hetan Hiihtomaa is a small ski resort run by the Enontekiö community, high up north. On their best day they may get only 100 skiers. Must visit some day!

The official home page is here, and the Helsingin Sanomat article that I read this place about is here.

This article has also been published here. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot. Or read all swimming stories at planetswimmer.com and sauna articles at saunablogger.cool. Text (c) 2026 by Jari Arkko, photo is a screenshot of an article by Helsingin Sanomat, all rights by them.

Day trip to Latvia, part one: Ski resorts

Day trip to Riga for two ski hills and couple of caves. Full day but very nice hills and caves!. First up, Riekstukalns ski resort 45 mins southeast of the city... then Ozolkalns ski resort 90 mins northeast. Both were superb! Riekstukalns felt like Les 3 Vallees of Latvia with its multiple bases and skiing long stretches to the other side of the large ski resort. Ozolkalns shone with its chair lift and river views.

More information about Riekstukalns from their home page here. They only run on a vertical of 36 meters (about 100 feet) but wow they have 13 different slopes, distributed along a large area. This really felt like a large area. And it looked so nice among the beautiful trees and the forest.

And more information about Ozolkalns from their home page here. Their vertical is 80 meters (about 240 feet), but there was less slopes. Interestingly there would have been a second ski resort right next to Ozolkalns, the Žagarkalns. I didn't know about it while visiting... anyway, interesting. Their home page is here.

And if you were wondering, Kalns in Latvian means Mountain... so you know :-)

Photos from Riekstukalns:

Second base:

Food offerings. In Finland we just have meat pies or something horrible...

Me:

Map:

Slope above the first base:

Lifts are open .. very late!

Sign on the road:

More slopes:

Yes... healthy?

Photos from Ozolkalns next. First the base cafeteria building. I love it:

Me:

Lift:

There were a lot of cabins for vacationers, and a sauna. A sauna next to the slope!

The sign on the road. WTF camel park???

Views from the top of the hill over to the river:

The next part of this trip report is about caves (link, alt. link). The final part is about the airport (link, alt. link).

This article has also been published here. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot. Or read all swimming stories at planetswimmer.com and sauna articles at saunablogger.cool. Photos, videos, and text (c) 2026 by Jari Arkko.