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There was a ski lift that could get people to a point very close to the loop trail. We rented a car to get to that ski lift station. Before the ski lift was available, though, people would need to hike up the hill, and it was a steep one. Seeing the seven Rila lakes at that time would have been quite an achievement.<\/p>\n
After we got off the lift, we took the trail on the right and would return on the left. It became a steep climb very quickly and I thought that if it were always like this the entire trail, how would we finish it? Well, once we got up the first hill, the top flattened out, and it was a pleasant walk to get to the Kidney Lake from there. The lake was curved like a kidney, or a cashew, and there were a few boulders lining the lakeside. It was a good spot for picnic indeed, as it was not only beautiful, but also the first lake after an uphill trek to give people a great feeling of reaching a milestone.<\/p>\n
The Eye and the Teardrop Lakes were on an excursion trial away from the loop, and one would need to climb up there and go back down using the same trail. There were snow and ice on that trail (After hiking to the peak of Vitosha mountain, we were no longer surprised to see snow). It was hard to tell how deep a lake was, but the water in the Eye Lake was very clear. The reflection was just like what would be in a mirror. The Teardrop Lake was the highest one out of the seven lakes, but it was not yet the summit of this area. One could see six lakes, except perhaps the Lower Lake, from up there. Some people would go further ahead to get to the summit, too.<\/p>\n
The next Lake was the Twin Lake, as it was in a dumbbell shape with a thinner waterway in the middle to connect the two bigger water areas. It was very pretty and the color seemed deeper than other lakes.<\/p>\n
The Trefoil Lake was shaped like a leaf with three leaflets. When we passed by it, we could see a house not far away in the front, giving us a false sense as if we would be close to the finish-line then. Well, it was the Fish Lake beside that house, and we needed to walk much further to get back to where we started. The Fish Lake was filled with water plants, making it almost in a light brown color. The water was still very clear. The Lower Lake, as the name indicated, was the lowest one, and we could see it when we started out the hiking from the trail on the right, too.<\/p>\n
The Seven Rila Lakes had constantly pushed us to drop our expectations. When it was a bit tiring to climb, we didn\u2019t need to worry, as the flatter trail would be just ahead. When we thought that the trail would end soon, especially when some stones on the trail were marked with certain meters ahead (it must be the distance to some midpoint on the trail but not the ending point), we would still need to walk for quite a while. Regardless how we thought the way ahead would be, just keep walking, and we would get there.<\/p>\n
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On our lift to get down the hill in late afternoon, we saw quite many people going uphill then, and a lot of supplies. It would be fun to stay in the hotel at the upper lift station for the night. The people there might be able to see the sunset and sunrise.<\/p>\n
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The first time when I heard of the seven Rila lakes, I thought that they might be a list of seven most famous lakes in the Rila Mountain National Park. Well, it actually meant a loop trail with seven lakes along it. People have named these seven lakes mostly based on their shapes. There must […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","hentry","category-civilization","category-nature","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yan.wcu.edu\/bulgaria\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yan.wcu.edu\/bulgaria\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yan.wcu.edu\/bulgaria\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yan.wcu.edu\/bulgaria\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yan.wcu.edu\/bulgaria\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1601"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/yan.wcu.edu\/bulgaria\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2408,"href":"https:\/\/yan.wcu.edu\/bulgaria\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1601\/revisions\/2408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yan.wcu.edu\/bulgaria\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yan.wcu.edu\/bulgaria\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yan.wcu.edu\/bulgaria\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}