Zir

Peaks: Zir west top (770m)

Area: Lovinac, Croatia

I was woken in Krasno by an unexpected sound: rain. A front came in during the night and the weather was clearly unsettled despite the perfect cloudless clarity of the past two days. Very lucky indeed, as today was a transition/rest day, with my next stop well to the south in Knin. From the motorway, I spotted the conspicuous isolated limestone spire of Zir and thought it might be an ideal short little layover, a rest day outing. It didn't quite work out like that, as it is surprisingly hard to access, but I had to exit the motorway for Knin anyway, and saw signs for Zir, so followed them. The road became gravel, so I opted to jog towards it instead - this was tiring after the last three days so the pace was slow. It was fairly flat though, through farmland, and eventually I reached the path which twists in an annoyingly indirect way to the ridge. Another problem now presented itself: a thunderstorm was brewing. This was over Paklenica to the west but I am very cautious when it comes to lightning in the hills, always leaving a big safety margin, and Zir is a highly conspicuous spire rising from the plains. I passed a cave entrance through the woods and the route then gains a ridge of limestone. At the top of the west summit I called it a day, tired and with thunder rumbling around. I retraced my steps for a longer than intended outing (nearly 12k), then had lunch in the scruffy, historically Serb town of Gracac. The onward journey to Knin was marked by torrential rain which stopped when I arrived, so I was able to visit the beautiful Krcic waterfall in comfort.