The Mrtvica Canyon Walk to the Gate of Wishes: How Far You Actually Need to Go

Here is the thing most people get wrong about the Mrtvica Canyon hike: they walk about four kilometres, reach the Gate of Wishes, throw a pebble into the river, and head back. They've seen maybe half the walk. The carved galleries that make this canyon worth the drive from Podgorica come after the Gate, not before it.

We run this walk as an out-and-back, which it has to be now — the old wooden crossing is gone. Below is how far you actually need to go, where the footing gets interesting, and what the 2020 flood changed on the ground.

Getting to the trailhead at Međuriječje

The walk starts at Međuriječje in Kolašin municipality, where the Mrtvica meets the Morača on the E65. From Podgorica it's about an hour's drive; from Kolašin roughly 35 minutes. The by-road distance from Podgorica runs closer to 70 km once you account for the final unpaved stretch, so don't trust a satnav straight-line estimate.

There's no bus to the trailhead. You need a car. The signage is genuinely poor — watch for a small red 'Kanjon Mrtvica' sign at the point where the Mrtvica joins the Morača, and take the exit there. People drive past it all the time.

You get two starting points. The standard start uses the steel bridge and a large grass parking lot. The Danilov Bridge start cuts around 2 km off the walk, but it means driving down (and later back up) a narrow track with very limited parking. If you're not confident on a tight gravel road, take the main start.

Fees, parking and when to go

There's no admission fee for the canyon itself. Parking is another matter: in season it's paid and collected informally, usually by a local who comes round in a jeep. Expect €2–3 for the day, with overnight parking reported around €5. Bring cash in small notes — nobody's taking a card out here.

Season runs roughly April to October, and the river rewrites the rules by month. May is when the Mrtvica is fullest and the Bijele Nerine springs thunder hardest. That drama has a cost: in spring the seasonal springs can flood across the path and stop you at a certain point. By the end of May the riverbed near the crossings is mostly dry again.

Where the bridge shakes — and the one that's gone

Two bridge stories matter here. The historic stone Danilo's Bridge, built in 1858 by Prince Danilo in honour of his mother, still stands and is your first real landmark. That one doesn't move.

The old wooden suspension bridge that once let you make a loop was destroyed by flooding around 2020 and has not been rebuilt — as of June 2025 it was still gone, with no fixed plan to replace it. If you read older blogs describing a circular route that crosses the river, ignore them. Walkers who try to cross at the old spot report wading through thigh-high water. Don't.

What you do get is a newer bridge that genuinely sways. It sits roughly halfway along and swings a little as you cross, high over the river. It's the adrenaline moment of the walk and perfectly safe — just narrow enough to make you pay attention. Treat the whole hike as out-and-back and you'll never need to ford anything.

The turnaround most people miss

Round trip to the Gate of Wishes (Kapija Želja) is about 8.5 km, around 3 hours, with 244 m of climbing — easy, and the figure most itineraries quote. You reach the Gate itself after roughly an hour, about 4 km in. It's two rocks meeting at the top, and the local legend says the fairy from Maganik grants a wish if you drop a jackstone into the river. Fine. But this is where the walk gets good, not where it ends.

Push on past the Gate and you hit the Bijele Nerine springs — two powerful sources feeding waterfalls that, in spring, make the ground tremble. Beyond that come the Mrtvičke Grede, the 'Beams of Mrtvica': walls dropping vertically into the gorge with the path cut straight into the rock, around 200 metres above the water. Near the 5 km mark you reach a massive cliff with a tunnel carved halfway up its face. The Yugoslav army cut these galleries — General Danilo Jauković broke through the rock in 1973 to link the villages of Mrtvo Duboko and Velje Duboko.

For a strong half-day, turn back around the 7.5 km mark, where the trail wraps the slopes of Zdinja Peak and pitches up hard toward Danilov Put. Full out-and-back to that point is about 15 km, 6 hours, and over 1,000 m of gain — a proper moderate day. Some walkers continue a couple of kilometres further to Plaža, a stone beach that's the usual swimming turnaround in high summer.

What to bring and watch for

Grippy footwear matters more than fitness on this one. The carved sections are dry but narrow, with exposure to the gorge on one side — fine in trainers with a decent sole, nasty in smooth-bottomed ones after rain. There's no shop at the trailhead, so carry your own water and food. The access road stays open most of the year and only closes for heavy snow or rockslides.

If you only have three hours, the Gate of Wishes is a good walk. If you have five, keep going past it — the galleries above the river are the reason the Yugoslav army bothered to carve a path into a 200-metre wall, and they're the reason we keep coming back.