Back from unexpected hiking trip to the mountains

A few days ago I said I am back to blogging, since my trip is over! Well, not quite, since my long time friends called me and told me that a trip in the mountains is planned for the end of this week. Well, could I refuse my friends when it comes to a camping trip? It’s about those university friends that I’ve got drunk with so many times, spent countless hours in the mountains and partied long nights with, friends that remained my best friends through the years, so hey, I’m in, no doubt about it!!

So, Friday, since I was in holiday, I could spend my day shopping for everybody for the trip. A mad day…

Friday evening, after a long and demanding day, I took my wife, one of my friends and his wife, jumped in the car and wheee!!!

We’ve met the other 2 friends and their wives in the mountains. For me (I was driving) it was a crazy chase against time on cross mountains serpentines but at 9.15 PM we were there, found the other guys in the dark with flash lights and all we could do is install the tent at my car’s lights and drink a bottle of our local drink (think of whiskey, ouzo or vodka, to get the point) that my wife magically brought us from my father in law and fell asleep since Saturday we planned a long and demanding day!

Well, not quite, I forgot, since Friday it was my wife’s name day, my friends brought a cake with them and threw a small party for my wife while eating. I also had a bottle of champagne and some chocolate bonbons so it all ended up great!

Saturday we woke up at 6 AM, had a quick breakfast and headed for the mountains. The plan was to reach the second highest peak in Romania, called Negoiu, 2535 m high, after a 5 hours hike.

I have been there 4 years ago with the same friends, I knew the difficulty of the trip, I knew exactly what to expect, so from my point of view, because of my wife after-surgery hand condition, the target was another one: reach a lake 1.5 h away from the peak and stay there with my wife until my friends will return from the peak. I knew this from the very first moment they told me about the trip, but I wanted to go either way, even if I knew I won’t reach the peak this time.

What I can tell you about the trip UNTIL the lake (Caltun is the name) is that I totally forgot about the strong wind there. The most part of the trip was on peaks/cliffs and the wind was so strong there that we just couldn’t breath so I had to put my hand over my nose and mouth a lot of times to be able to breath properly.

The wind was so strong that was effectively blowing us off the cliff and considering the fact that on 3-4 moments we had to walk on a trail that was 30 cm wide on the very peak of the mountain, with deep falls on the left and on the right, that was quite an adventure. Also, on 3-4 moments we had to climb narrow passages on chains. Only one of the girls knew what to expect from the trail so the other 3 were just plain scared about it, but hey, once started, we needed to end the damn trip!

Until the lake we had to reach another peak, of 2390 m high that was in the way and this was quite an adventure because we had to climb it first up and then down on our way back and it was a real curse!

Once we reached the lake, me and my wife remained there, as I have planned from the very beginning, along with the wife of one of my friends who said stop, too much, I won’t risk my life further! OK, so the rest of the gang headed for the peak.

As I have previously said, I have already reached that peak 4 years ago, so it was nothing new for me to get there again, even if I felt a bit bitter for not joining my friends, but there was no way to leave my wife in the middle of nowhere at 3.5 hours away from the closest facility. The only things there were that glacial lake, a metal shelter where you can enter in case of need, a lot of heavy rocks and hikers passing. So I stayed.

What I’ve missed

To make a bit of an image of what I have missed by not going there, let me tell you a bit about my experience of 4 years ago with this peak: after climbing/hiking for another hour you get to a point called Devil’s Pass, a place that is only 2 m wide, between 2 mountains, about 40-50 m long (my personal appreciation, not measurement), made of one big rock on top of another one. In order to get on that peak you have to rely a lot on the strength of your hands and intensively use the heavy chain that is installed there.

Now, my personal experience is a bit more intense: 4 years ago I was climbing that passage with my friends, about 20 m above us there were some other guys climbing it, and suddenly somebody on top of us started to scream - Attention!!!Attention!! Falling rocks!

Fuck!I felt my blood suddenly freezing inside me seeing a rock of about 30 cm diameter falling toward us from a height of 20 m, hitting one corner of a rock, then the corner of another rock, then another rock and suddenly jumping in a totally unpredictable direction…. We didn’t know what to do, where to shelter, in what direction since the direction of the falling rock was totally unpredictable and being forced to keep the contact with the chain gave us so little options…

Above me there were one of my friends and his wife, the falling rock hit the “ground” at her feet and then flew above my head, to my right and finally somewhere down the mountain. There were only a few moments in my life when I felt my life so intense, that was one of them, when I had the impression I really faced death.

We continued our climbing, reached the peak, took pictures at a height of 2535 m and climbed down the pass fearing the event may happen again. It didn’t but we all promised to not get there again. But, well, I think that “never again” lasted for 4 years. At least for my friends…

Going back to the camp

After my friends returned from the peak totally exhausted, we started our trip back to the camp. The 2390 m peak that we had to climb down the first time, proved to be very demanding when we wanted to climb it from bottom to top on our way back. Again, the chains and the windy peaks…

I remember some girls saying that it’s more than enough, they will never get back there again risking their lives, I remember reading the text on the backpack of the buddy in front of me when climbing the passages with chains on heavy winds: “candle in the wind”! Man, what a dark and unfortunate thing to read when walking a path of 30 cm wide on chains on heavy winds!!!

The only thing we were happy about was the fact that it was sunny, because 4 years ago it was raining and we had to walk that path on fog. I remember one moment when we were on one of those passages, in the fog, we couldn’t see the valley on the left or on the right, we only saw the cloud/fog below us so we walked that 2-3 meters passage on our knees and hands, almost crawling . After the first guy passed it, he gave a long stick to the next one, in order to make a bond between us, to lead it and support it. May sound corny, but it is the truth.

The mountains where we’ve been this WE are very rocky and dry, no forest there, no tree above a certain altitude. Our water ran out on our way back so we suffered from thirst big time. That weakened us all, especially the 5 that went for the peak. One of the girls looked pretty bad, exhausted, one of the guys had to stop very often since he couldn’t walk anymore, even if he is one of the most determined guys I know and his wife walked on like a ghost, one step, then another one…

The fact is that when we reached the civilization, she got sick, she turned yellow from exhaustion and effort, she couldn’t eat or drink anything for a period of time. Well, pretty good if you consider that last time we’ve been there, 4 years ago, my wife made a crisis of gastritis because of effort and pushing herself too much, one guy and one girl suffered 2 long weeks from some stomach inflammation from drinking bad water and one guy couldn’t walk 2 weeks on one of his knee because of his knee being injured on climbing rocks.

Myself I had a pretty wild disease that was caused by some animal interaction that kept me 3 months visiting the hospitals, disease that I tend to consider as being started by the same visit in the mountains. But I can not be sure since doctors couldn’t tell what it was…

We got back to our tents late in the night after we had our dinner at a cabana where we started the trip.

Today we took it easy since everyone complained about some kind of issues: back pains, swollen feet, sun burns, stomach aches, etc. Myself I am OK, if I don’t consider the fact that my face is burning because of the sun and that I have a red stripe on my right foot between where my boot ended and where my pants started…well…

We started a barbecue (planned and long waited), had a couple of beers and headed back home since tomorrow my holiday will be over.

And I guess tomorrow I will be blogging again about guitars since I’ve got my guitar back and it works fine!!

And to make an impression about the Devil’s Pass, here’s a small movie that somebody took there. Not us, but it shows you what I am speaking about.

What do you think?

PS: By the way, the trip was in the same area I have written about here , with the same friends. In this area there are the 2 highest peaks in Romania, Moldoveanu and Negoiu, I have conquered both, plus the 3rd, Vistea Mare, plus another one called Omu (The Man) which is in another mountains but very famous.

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