Piatra Craiului Hiking

 Jo: We just finished our last 2-day hike in the southern Carpathian mountains close to Brasov. The mountain range is called Piatra Craiului and holds several high peaks in the 2500 m range and a long ragged ridge of spiky lime stone. This time I planned the hike and arranged an overnight stay at a mountain hut (cabana Curmatura) to break up the days. My hiking guides for the area describe the peak ascent as 'tough', 'alpine' but 'managable if in good condition with sure footing', it also recommends to avoid the ascend if afraid of heights. I compare the routes with our hikes in Slovakia and the Fagaras range and come to the conclusion that we can manage it, despite multiple steep sections with rope guides. We park our car at the trail head and make our way up a 1500 ft incline through the forest. Forest here is dense and lucious, reminding me of fantasy movies with fairies and trolls. Tut is in a relatively good hiking mood and only complains a few times, despite the steep climb. The forest gives way to a large mountain meadow. We stop for lunch and forage for wild strawberries and blueberries. The wild berries here taste amazing and Tut loves spotting them along the trail. Another hour up the trail we reach our cabana. Tut and I decide that we had enough hiking for one day and chill on the hut’s large terrace overlooking the mountains and the Valley below. Tosh and Miles go on a speed hike up the ridge while I chat with the hikers around us. We meet two German guys, one in his fourties, the other one in his late twenties. At first I assume they’re father and son, but it turns out they are completely unrelated hiking buddies and German scouts. Michael and Simon are seriously entertaining and I spend most afternoon chatting with them. They are on a week long Romania backpacking/ hiking adventure and have walked their way from Brasov up this mountain (about 40 miles away). Apparently Germans can be active Scouts their whole life and often go on adventure trips in small groups. They tell us about the prior adventures and we are all ears. 

Later, when Tosh and Miles get back from their power hike (looking all scratched up and like they’ve been crawling on all fours a lot), we have dinner of potato stew with sausages and pickle salad, which tastes like the best thing we’ve ever eaten. That’s mostly my experience with food after a strenuous hike though. 

After a rather rough night sleeping in a very hot shared bunk room with at least ten other people, of whom at least  five snore like chain saws with severe sleep apnea, and the other five are in a farting competition, we meet up with the German scouts again for breakfast. They slept in a tent and look like they got way more sleep than us. We say our goodbyes after exchanging addresses and taking pictures and head out to day two of our trek. 

Piatra Micah is a 1800 m ‘little mountain’, with some fairly steep sections that are secured by ropes. It is nothing like our crazy rope and ladder ascent in the Tatras and we all handle it easily. Tosh will describe our encounter with a Romanian bear hunter ‘Dragosh’ further. 

Tosh:  A couple of days ago we wrapped up our hiking in Romania with a couple of days in Piatra Criului. We did an overnight, staying at a popular mountain chalet, assessable only by hiking ~3hrs up into a high mountain valley. We arrived early at the overnight location; so we had a lot of time to spare. Jo and Tut wanted to lounge at the chalet, while Miles and I wanted to explore a bit. After a spirited discussion on which route we’d take the next day, Johanna drew a line in the sand that she’d not do any ladders or ropes, which, of course, is exactly the route I wanted to do. As a solution, Miles and I decided to do a speed-hike of the highest ridge that afternoon and get back to the chalet before dark. Man, it was a good time! I set a good, fast pace going up, and there were some good scrambling parts, and parts where wall walking with the attached cables was necessary. Miles set a great pace on the way down, bouncing from rock to rock like a mountain goat. The map estimated the hike at about 5hrs, but Miles and I were able to do the loop in about 2hrs. 

The next day, the whole family goes up another mountain, and we meet an eccentric guy named Dragosh, or something like that. He’s hiking with a radio blaring talk shows and 90’s Romanian hits from his pack to ward off bears. Dragosh talks to us excitedly for about 20 minutes about the 8,800 brown bears in the country and recounts the recent news story of the 19yr-old girl who was killed last week by a bear only on the next mountain. Then he talks about the two women who got stuck up on the mountain the night before with no equipment, light, or additional water. He said he told one of the women, “You very lucky. Now you find out how strong you are. I bet you never pay someone have that experience. But I bet now you done it, no one could buy that experience from you.” Pretty wise, I think. 

Anyway, on to Bucharest so we can fly out to Istanbul (one of my bucket-list places to visit)!!!

Miles:  This was a beautiful hike and on the first day we went up to the cabana. then me and dad speed hiked the mountain in the afternoon and then we came back and their was some awesome German scouts named Simon and Michelle, we played a lot of card games with them. the next day we hiked up another mountain where there was a guy named Dragosh who hikes there every day to lose wait, he was funny (and mentioned a lot about how many black friends he had. All in all very fun. Sincerly, Yours truly, Miles U. Lancaster The Magnificant.

Tut: the hike was hard the people at the caben were nice.