8th - The Piatra Craiului Mountains

We started the day going to a nearby market getting food for our lunches before we loaded up in a minibus which drove us to our starting point. We quickly got out of the centre of Brasov into the less populated areas before we ended up in nice quiet wooded area.

We dismounted and started what would be a more dramatic walk than planned. The plan was to ascend app. 1000m where we would have our lunches, have a small walkaround before descending again.

The ascent was surprisingly tough. We were walking through a forest with slightly soggy ground, so it was humid and heavy moving around, especially when it got steeper going up. At one point during the ascent we were supposed to be able to walk up through a narrow – but apparently beautiful – canyon. Unfortunately when we passed by, the scaffolding we were supposed to utilize was being maintained, so we had to walk around instead. This didn’t really matter much, though, as the forest was quite pleasant to walk in.

Reaching our lunch spot we had a beautiful view of the surrounding area, including Brasov. Afterwards some of us continued upwards to the area’s tallest point. It was a stunning view, from where we could see the Bucegi and the rest of the Piatra Craiului mountains, in which we were standing.

Coming back down to the lunch spot an hour later we realized that we had gotten company from a couple of local donkeys. Some of them were very social, something one of the group members had personal experience with.

After a good laugh (the unfortunate group member not so much) we were on the way back down again, by a different route than up. It was still through the dense forest (there wasn’t much else around here), but the path way was less steep and easier to walk. At some point on the way down our guide – local – admits that there has been a certain miscommunication between him and the travel agency. He had apparently expected people of a much higher physical level than we could present which was why we were quite a bit behind schedule – our afternoon return would be closer to an early evening. But then he had a background as a mountain guide/trainer for the Romanian military, and often did private tours for experienced mountaineers. So, we had quite a lot to live up to, which we apparently didn’t do so well.

Trying to cut some corners shortening the trip down us in the front were suddenly stopped by shouts at the rear; apparently one of the girls had slipped and had problems getting up again. She admitted her wrist was sore, but she had no problems moving it around, though. After only a couple of minutes it had swelled up and looked like a parody of the elephant man, so it wasn’t very promising.

We came back to where the bus picked us up, and back at the hotel we went out for dinner except for the guide, the girl who slipped and her sister. They went to the hospital to get the arm/wrist checked out to try and find out what was going on.

The canyon we should have been up through.

View halfway between lunch and the top.

View from the top.