This hike was without a doubt my favorite hike in Macedonia in 2020. It is 9 km with only 460 m ascent. Often you have to do much longer hikes with more ascending to get views as good as the ones during this hike. And the views and lakes are amazing!
The hike starts near the sheepfarm Labunishki Bacila. To get here, take the asphalted road from the village Lubanishta. This road may not be on every map yet, see here for the GPS track of the asphalt road from Lubanishta to our starting point.
We started about 1 km downhill from the sheepfarm Labunishki Bacila, just after the point where the asphalt road from the village Lubanishta ended. There is a big open field with weekend houses where you can park the car. In fact, roadworks were in progress to extent the asphalt road to this field. If you don’t mind driving on a stony dirt road, you can drive all the way up to the sheepfarm named Labunishki Bacila. UPDATE 2024: the road to the sheepfarm nowadays is asphalted as well.
There were quite a few flocks of sheep along our hike. The shepherd dogs that accompany the sheep usually are huge and are there to protect the flock. Rule of thumb: where there are cute sheep, there are mean dogs! Avoid the sheep as soon as you see or hear them, take a detour or wait until they have moved on. Because the dogs will come after you. If you can, try to get in contact with the shepherd by waving, usually he will call off his dogs. You can also try to get the attention of the shepherd by yelling, but this means that you will get the full attention of the dogs as well. When confronted with the dogs, I usually say a prayer and start walking into the opposite direction.
After about 2.7 km, you suddenly have to leave the obvious 4×4 track and go into the bushes. For the next 200 m there is SOME SERIOUSLY STEEP ASCENT (about 35%) to de done, on not such a good trail. But no worries, you will be rewarded with excellent views.
Soon you’ll reach the first lake called Malo (small) Podgorecko. It’s so beautiful! There was a flock of sheep with dogs at the lake so we stayed on a safe distance.
After less than 1 km you reach the biggest lake, Golemo (big) Podgorecko. An excellent place for a long brake and a picnic! There are fish in this lake and there were many tadpoles along the shores. I walked around the lake, which was about 1 km but this is not included in the GPS track.
After the second lake there again is some decent ascent, but on a good 4×4 trail this time. The next two lakes, named Malo (small) and Golemo (big) Labunicko Lake respectively, are less spectacular but still very good scenery.
The last part of the hike is easy going with some excellent views when you walk back to the sheepfarm Labunishki Bacila.
This hikes gets 5 out of 5 stars from us! I am sure that we will re-visit here in the future for more amazing views, for instance to do this hike that climbs the Strizek peak (which we now only admired from a distance) and visits another lake in Albania.
You can view and download the GPS track of this hike here: https://www.wikiloc.com/hiking-trails/labunishta-4-lakes-tour-on-jablanica-mountain-54792759
The map shows the road from Labunishta to the end of the asphalt road in yellow, where we parked. The hike itself is in red.
My Macedonia Blog 