Paklenica National Park — Attraction in Općina Starigrad

This one is a must do for everybody, who still remembers the old Winnetou and Old Shatterhand movies. Many scenes from those movies have been shot right here. Put that aside and you still have a national park of enormous proportions, not quite for its sheer size but for its unique mountainous landscape that might not be found anywhere else in this world! This place is a paradise for climbers and mountaineers, but every ambitious hiker will also get their money's worth, as this park has more than 200km of trails to offer, in all kinds of ruggedness, many of them barely suited well enough for mules. But every single turn on one of those serpentines will open up another picture frame that just blows one's mind. That said you need time to explore even one of the preset routes, as they almost all are twisting up to one of the many high points in this area, leaving you with the task of covering up to almost a kilometer in height while loading your legs with many more of those in length. And every single step is worth it. If you're lucky you might see wild mountain goats, as if the awesome landscape alone wasn't enough. Youcn need a serious amount of fitness if you want to tackle one of the longer routes (you'll find many route suggestions on komoot for example...) and above all, really good shoes! This is, after all, a mountain range for real. You'll also need to check the weather, because everything here is possible from serious thunderstorms to excruciating heat. The whole region of Dalmatia has a warm and mediterranean climate with lots and lots of sun hours (approx. 7hrs/day in average!) and when you get yourself up to one of these incredible peaks there's nothing left to cast any shadow, meaning you need to carry everything that might spend some protection from the sun with you. If you're in for climbing you'll find a garden of preset routes of all kinds of difficulty levels here, just bring your equipment and your buddies along and get started! If you want to show your kids how amazing climbing can be, you'll easily find routes for that too, as the lowest ranking grade I've seen was a 3. And there are plenty of those. And if you're up for a way bigger challenge then look no further as some of these routes are really asking for highly trained climbing skills. So climbing or hiking: you can, and should, spend a whole day here and get back home with lots of memories you'll never forget. Coming here in summer one of those will certainly be the absolutely impressive sound of millions...

The scenery here is stunning, reminding me of Zion National Park in the USA. The trail signage is very difficult to understand as it is only in Croatian and the signs do not match up with the English map. Maybe pick up both versions in the entrance hut and see if you can cross reference.

Although the cave was very cool, the tour was poor. After making people wait for at least a half hour so as to increase the number of people and limit the number of tours he had to give per day, the guide then complained while on the tour about the group being to large. No one could hear him. Very disappointing.

If you are just day hiking, bear in mind it seems to us that time estimates are very aggressive. We normally beat given times in US national parks by half, but we were much slower than the times given here. I don't recommend trying to reach the mountain hut if you are a recreational hiker. The views do not improve beyond the cave trail and the hike to the hut is longer than you think and rocky. The hut provides one simple, expensive meal option (on our day it was single bean soup) and there is no view from there.

Speakng of rocks, the main trails here are made either of loose, small, sharp rocks or unevenly laid large rocks (because there really isn't any dirt in this part of Croatia!). Hiking requires significant ankle strength, foot protection, and balance. At a bare minimum, you need sneakers for the cave hike.

It is neat to watch the rock climbers. You can book a lesson of you like. Beginners and kids too. There is a hut for that near the parking lot.

Overall the scenery is wonderful. Just be aware that the management and the trail condition are nowhere near US "National...

A beautiful national park let down by its hiking trails & organisation.

We hiked one of their recommended trails from Mala Paklenica to Velika Paklenica. These are two huge canyons which while they're visually stunning there's not a lot else to see.

We are two fit 30 year olds so we felt comfortable tackling this 6 hour trail - do not attempt this if you don't have a head for heights / aren't fit / it's wet. There are some scary moments and you wouldn't want to get stuck because someone freezes up at the heights or slips on a boulder in the rain. Also do not attempt to do this the other way around. We saw so many people going in that direction and felt sorry that they would have to walk down hours of incredibly steep slopes (our opinion is it's easier & safer to walk up steep slopes).

Signage is minimal aside from the useful white & red dots marking the way. The problem with this is that you are not sure if the path you are following is that one you want, or if it's taking you deeper and deeper into the mountains (as we found). It would vastly improve a hikers experience if the rangers put up signs stating the name of the place you are going to and the time it will take you to hike (there we a couple of these but not nearly enough).

One good point is that there's free travel between Mala and Velika (if you arrive in time - we almost missed it which would have added another hour).

The rock climbing, which we didn't have the time to do,...