Ochin dol – shelter Klyuch – h. Debris

The route starts from the center of the village of Ochin Dol. You start on a steep street behind the town hall. After about 10 minutes on several winding streets you leave Ochin Dol. You take a dirt road that passes right by the remains of a medieval basilica, discovered in 2002. The road passes through a rocky meadow and enters a forest. For about 30 more minutes, the road climbs to the Padezh area. This is a vast pasture, where in the past there were many sheepfolds. There the road splits, with two of the branches leading to the neighboring village of Opletnya, and the third path climbs to the ridge of the mountain and the Parshevitsa hut. There is a grove and a wooden gazebo next to the fork. Nearby, down the slope in a westerly direction (about 200m), there is a fountain, but the spring is unstable and often dry.

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  From Padezh to Zaslon Klyuch, in addition to the yellow markings, there is also a red marking from the circular route Opletnya – Zaslon Klyuch – Opletnya. The path heads diagonally up the slope and soon enters thickets of hornbeam, hornbeam and hawthorn. In places it is steep and quite rutted. After about half an hour you come out into the open as the path continues to gradually gain height to the northeast. After another half an hour of walking through rocky meadows you reach the Klyuch shelter. The shelter is located below the path, picturesquely attached to a rocky ridge. There are benches and a fountain near it, which does not always have water. From the roof of the shelter there is a great view of the village of Ochin Dol and the Iskar Gorge. Another path climbs to the shelter, which comes from the Kozata Voda area. After the shelter, you head up again in a north-northeast direction towards Ostra Mogila. We pass briefly through a beech forest and after a little over an hour we reach the open ridge part of the Vratsa Balkan. To the left of the trail after exiting the ridge there is a small peak that offers a unique view of Kobilini steni and the highest peak of the mountain – Beglichka Mogila. The climb to it takes only a few minutes. After returning to the trail we continue through the meadows to a fork where the trail is crossed almost perpendicularly by an unmarked trail running along the ridge of Kobilini steni. Often at this place semi-wild horses can be seen grazing freely. From here, if desired, we can climb Beglichka Mogila for about 15 minutes directly along the rocky slope without a clearly marked trail. The route enters the valley east of Beglichka Mogila. The end point of the route is reached along the valley, which makes a slight turn to the left. The last few hundred meters to the Parshevitsa hut pass through a beech forest. There is an asphalt road from the town of Vratsa to the Parshevitsa hut. You can also go down on foot through the Borov Kamak waterfall in about 4:00 hours. There is no water on the route. Only at the Klyuch shelter is there a fountain, but it is not constantly flowing and cannot be relied on. In winter or in fog on the ridge (above the sharp Mogila) orientation can be difficult due to the lack of stake markings.