dorianhodorogea.ro
Date: 30-31 July 2010
Location: Piatra Craiului
Participants: Andra, Flory, Vlad, Dorian
It takes a lot of madness and a grain of stupidity to go on an unmarked track, specifically when you don’t know too much about it. And so we started in Plaiu Foii on a great Sunday morning when sun was shining and we were packing and leaving one tent in the car, we were considering one of the refuge on the mountain to be an option at that moment. And so we started, of course not knowing where the track actually started from. We were in great luck to find some others aiming for the same path, however, we did go a little faster and lost track, ending in front of a 30m wall. The gps did a great job showing us a place a few hundred meters away where we could pass. And yes, that was the track not what we followed. That did take one hour of our time. We were at “izvorul lui Orlowsky” and we climbed further, however we found a fork where a nice guy explained what we needed to follow in order to get to “refugiul Sperantelor”. And so we did get there, finding the group we split from at the beginning of the track. They advised about the 2 options that we had, sending us for Padina lui Calinet as an option to climb up the mountain. And so started our 4h trip that was challenging and misleading from point to point. I was quite happy that we did not follow the 2 people that descended saying that it was impossible at one point to ascend. You will always find a way if you are stubborn enough. And so we did, finally getting on the ridge where we got some nice fog in aprox. 30mins. We did not appreciate properly the distance so it went dark, faster than we expected, and the fog made it quite interesting. I was quite impressed by the silhouette of a goat on the ridge that ran away the moment we approached. The gps went off when we needed it the most, since the dense fog made it possible for us to miss the refuge on the ridge, so we decided to whistle. We were happy to see lights one hundred meters away and we felt relieved to get to the refuge. As if it weren’t enough for one trip, the refuge was full and I was thrilled to find the last place next to the boots, under everyone else’s bed, next to other 2 guys. My “ceiling” was 30cm away from my face, but it felt very good, I did not even feel the rocks under me, mostly due to the termarest z-lite which I find rezistent and a great isolation. Morning came early and as sun was making everything orange, we got our breakfast and decided to descent a marked path called “la lanturi” on red stripe. I found it to be one of the most interesting tracks to descend on, unfortunately a little bit too crowded, yet full of interesting passages. We arrived at the car quite early, relaxing in the cold river and afterwards departing back home.
