Blog of Romania

Last weekend I had the opportunity to join my friends from the Bucharest Muntenia tourism club in an escapade in the Iezer Papusa massif. We left on Friday evening and came back on Sunday afternoon. We went by bus and we stayed at the Voina cabin - which is more like a hotel than a cabin.

On Saturday, at 5 a.m., everyone who wanted to hike on the trail we had decided on (Vacarea summit - Vacarea sheepfold - Atheneum Cross monument - Rosu peak - Iezer peak) woke up, to leave in about an hour on the trail marked with a red line, hiking on Vacarea summit in a drizzle which later turned to snow. The trail starts on a hill and crosses a gravel road several times. Not long after we began climbing, at about 1100 m altitude, it started snowing with large flakes and the snow settled on the trees and the recently-rained on dried leaves.

After about 40 minutes of hiking through the wood, my physical condition didn’t allow me to continue, so I had to go back to the cabin. The others continued on, aiming to get the Atheneum Cross and Iezer peak, but they had to turn back too, because of the weather.

The descent to the cabin didn’t take more than 20 minutes and I didn’t have any problems. After 2 more hours of sleep, I decided to try the blue cross trail with C., toward Iezer lake, through the Targusor river valley. We left at around 10 a.m., through the fresh snow, following the gravel road that climbed parallel to the river. It didn’t take us long to get to the point where the trail to Cuca cabin starts. The road is accesible to automobiles up to here, but cars are forbidden to travel the portion to the (former) Batrana cabin.

The road to Batrana cabin climbs smoothly in between fir trees. We were lucky and we saw two Carpathians hawks that glided above us for a while. After an hour and a bit we got to what used to be Batrana cabin. The cabin, now a ruin, has stopped existing as a tourist spot a few years ago, because it was destroyed by a flood which also destroyed the gravel road that crossed the river. From here, we walked 20 minutes more and I again decided to quit because the snow layer was increasingly thick and we were climbing up the mountain, and my physical condition had its say again. C. continued alone, like an experienced mountaineer he is.

I turned back and I lingered from time to time to admire the scenery and breathe in the clear mountain air. Feeling sorry about the sights I might have seen had I hiked any of the trails to its end, I decided to head to Cuca cabin. As soon as you get on the trail to Cuca cabin, from the point where the Voina road splits, you can see massive land clearing. I hiked on to Cuca together with some of the members of Muntenia club. The road is crossed by a river from time to time and it climbs smoothly toward the cabin. After about an hour and a half we got to Cuca cabin, where we warmed up with a cup of tea or mulled wine. You can’t find food at Cuca, only tea and mulled wine in winter; the place is heated with a wood stove, and the kitchen only has a cylinder stove. It doesn’t have electricity.

After 20 minutes, we slowly moved toward Voina, where we got around 4 p.m.

On Sunday, on our way back home, we stopped at Rausor dam to take a few pictures, then we continued on to the urban jungle called Bucharest.

Original post: here.
Original post: here (RO).
Petrus is 25 and lives in the city we all love to hate, Bucharest. He blogs on ProfilVirtual (RO) and DigitalGuide (RO/EN), the latter a blog about tourism, a spinoff of a category of the first blog. He writes less often because personal and corporate life don’t leave him much time.