Smolni Peak is located in the northeastern part of the Maleshevo Mountains. It is only 1,233 m high, but it offers beautiful views toward the ridges of Pirin, Maleshevo, and Vlahina mountains. In clear weather, Rila, Slavyanka, Belasitsa, and Ograzhden can also be seen very well.
We had been planning to visit Smolni Peak for a long time, but we kept postponing it. Finally, the moment came to go there. We chose the village of Krupnik as our starting point. Our plan was to make a circular route — ascending from the northeastern slope and descending slightly to the west.
In fact, there are many trails you can use to reach the ridge above Krupnik and continue to Smolni Peak. We chose a trail that starts from the seismological station at the end of Krupnik. It is built on the epicenter of the strongest earthquake ever recorded in Bulgaria — magnitude 7.8 on the Richter scale in 1904.
You bypass the station and follow the gully uphill. You can go straight up the gully, or turn right and reach another trail that later intersects the one coming from the gully, after which you continue on the left side of the ravine. Follow this trail and you will reach the ridge.
From there, the direction is clear — along dirt roads gently ascending to the southwest. You will encounter many small rock formations scattered across these slopes of the Maleševo Mountains. At some point, you reach Ivanov Kamak — a larger rock where we climbed to take photos. It offers a wonderful view toward the Kresna Gorge.
Before reaching Smolni Peak, you pass another lower summit — Mashin Preslap (1,138 m). The summit itself is overgrown with trees and shrubs and offers no views. The dirt road bypasses it on the left (south), while on the right there is a shorter bypass trail. We chose to go around on the right.
Less than 2 km along the ridge later, we reached Smolni Peak. The total distance to the summit was about 8 km, which we covered in 3 hours. From one point on the summit there is a direct line of sight to Mechkul Waterfall, but the straight-line distance is quite large and the waterfall appears as a notch in the rocks. We rested at the top, had lunch, and took a group photo.
It was time to descend back toward Krupnik. According to our plan, we were supposed to descend north, but we decided instead to head east and descend toward the Kresna Gorge. Parallel to the gorge there are two trails (a lower and a higher one) that both lead to Krupnik.
We descended eastward, passed Boro Peak (yes, I have my own peak), and shortly after it turned north along the higher trail. The trail is panoramic, but unfortunately Pirin was hidden in thick clouds and it was raining in the mountains across the gorge.
Along the higher trail there were two fountains with a small water flow. Still, that was good, because there is no water anywhere along the Maleševo ridge. Following the trail northward, we eventually reached Krupnik and completed the circular hike.
In total for the day we covered about 20 km with 1,250 m of positive elevation gain. We started a little after 10:00 and returned around 17:00 — a 7-hour hike in the Maleshevo Mountains.
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