dorianhodorogea.ro
Date: 13-18 August 2011
Location: Fagaras mountains
Participants: Andra Flory Vlad Dorian
This was one of the best trips ever, close to Retezat2009, but more challenging. It was a well planned trip for our summer vacation, where we forgot to buy a map (we did try on Sunday but with no luck) and of course we did wake up in time to have our late brunch and start the journey ar 12 in the afternoon. It lasted for 6 days, 3 until Balea Lac and 3 more until Plaiu Foii. The first 3 days, we managed to keep the whole team, and then just Andra and myself decided to finish what we started.
Day1: [Turnu Rosu monastery – somewhere before Saua Suru] At first, it was a warmup on the offroad track, and a short climb followed by a stroll on the nice already-yellow meadows with small climbs and similar descends. In the evening there was a lot of fog so we decided to call it a day behind some interesting rocks where we would be protected by the wind. To our surprise, after we’ve finished eating, The sky cleared and we could see a big full moon(almost), calling for night track. We called it a day, despite the nice weather and went to sleep.
Day2: [till Custura Saratii] The weather was not as nice as we remembered it from the previous night, some sun, but fog and wind were making it a bit too cold to start it up with a big grin on our faces. At about 10 we had it all packed and went towards Saua Suru, Lacul Avrig and promised this time we would keep to the track and finish at Lacul Caltun. To our luck just when we entered Custura Saratii, there was a short hail storm with full sun coming from one side. It was short, but enough to get all the rocks wet, and make our Vibrams slide. As we got to the middle of Custura Saratii, we decided to get down the valley and lay our tents there. It was a great choice; as we were laying our tents a tipical alpine rain started and finished one hour later. Again we faced the same issue, nice sunset, and we were just wondering weather or not to take our tents and leave further on. We didn’t. We spent the night in a steep position trying to catch some sleep.
Day3: [till Lacul Capra] We woke up at 6 with a lot of attitude to catch-up the lost time in the previous 2 days. We started with an off-track climb towards the end of Custura Saratii, then reaching Negoiu. It was nice to see that it wasn’t too foggy, so we just spent a few minutes for some “iola” photos and left for Lacul Caltun. Since we knew Strunga Dracului and how sometimes it gets so crowded, we decided to try Strunga Doamnei, a new track for all of us. Sun and fog were alternating as we were passing near Lacul Caltun and climbing Laita and Laitel, a good name for such a deceiving peak, where we could always see the peak, and find out that we were far away from it. We continued the track with a short lunch and afterwards we took a glance at the craziness that Balea Lac was embracing due to the huge number of tourists coming at the mountain. Due to lack of primordial potions and “spice”, Andra descended with her pack half full to get some nice homemade sausages, some cheese that we did not appreciate and the much loved coca-cola and kurtoscolac, the meeting point would be somewhere near the Lacul Capra. We did manage to find a great place to camp near the lake with some protection from the wind and finished the day with a short game of cards and a good soup.
Day4: [till Fereastra mica a Sambetei] This is the day we tried to convince Vlad and Flory to continue the journey, it seems we were out of luck, and at the same time more convinced we had to finish the track. We flexed our muscles and tried to speed up so as to finally catch up the lost time. It was a nice sunny day and we passed Fereastra Zmeilor, Trei Pasi de moarte, the new refuge Podul Giurgiului, almost in front of Vistea mare and Moldoveanu, which were now covered with a small cloud. We decided to stop for lunch and wait for the sun. It was a good choice since there were no more clouds up to the middle of the climb towards Vistea where another cloud settled, this time for good. We just managed to see Moldoveanu peak and through a window in the clouds, we got an idea how high we were. So then we started our descend towards a tent place or a refuge. Nevertheless, the cloud showed that it was full, some rain to remind that we are in Fagaras, and for until Vistea refuge. That’s where we were tempted to stay, since there were only 2 more official seats left. However to looked on the map and decided to go on since we had 2 more hours of light. This was the first time to look on a map, and also the last time for this track. It was a great choice since we found another refuge on Fereastra mica a Sambetei, where at least 24 people could sleep on the iron beds. It was foggy the whole way, and got almost impossible to walk the last 500m from the refuge since the fog was very dense and we were only on headlamps light. We served one of the best soups and possibly some of the best conditions for sleeping.
Day 5&6: [till Berevoiescu refuge for the night] The last 2 days were probably a bit disappointing since there was only a lot of walking up and down the hills. The weather was nice, with lots of fog. We found a new refuge, dome stile, Curmatura Bratilei, which could take no more than 8people inside and the new Zarna refuge, which I find very interesting, however the water next to is not drinkable. We settled for the night next to Berevoiescu refuge which is unusable however there is enough place near it for at least 1000 tents. After 4 years of intenssive gas burning, the markill hotshot stove went cold, it just won’t tighten properly, this made me quite sad. On the way down we found the last refuge, still a dome, on Comisu peak. After the refuge the track get mostly in the forest, where there are still trees left. There is massive deforestation and you could easily lose the track. Keep left when the first one space appears and on the second one follow the track up the hill for the sign. The most depressing walk were the last 10km, thank God for the blueberries& blackberries.
I do recommend this track for anyone willing to forget about their phones and work back home (poor signal all the way)
